Warning! Spoilers ahead for Spider-Man: Brand New Day!Spider-Man: Brand New Day takes place four years after the events of 2021’s No Way Home, so Tom Holland’s Peter Parker has been burying himself in street-level vigilantism for almost half a decade by the time of the new smash-hit Marvel movie. It’s made very clear that this is how Spidey has been distracting himself from the fact that MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon) no longer remember him and have moved on with their lives. There’s an awesome montage of several villains that Spidey has taken down since No Way Home, but there simply isn’t enough time to cram all of his exploits into such a short sequence.
One of Brand New Day’s most compelling teases about what Spider-Man has been up to since his last time on the big screen doesn’t come in visual form. Instead, Holland’s character routinely brings up an incident on Staten Island involving Jon Bernthal’s Punisher. The heavily armed antihero is irritated each time the story resurfaces, but the movie never explains the event that Spider-Man is referring to in any great detail. It sounds important, though. So, what did happen between the two unlikely allies on Staten Island?
‘Spider-Man: Brand-New Day’s Staten Island Incident Has Never Been Shown in the MCU
Sony Pictures Releasing
The way Spider-Man and the Punisher talk about Staten Island in Brand New Day, even slightly casual MCU fans could be forgiven for thinking an event was being referenced that had already been shown on-screen. The MCU consists of a huge number of interconnected movies and TV shows. As such, it can be tricky to keep up. However, all we know about this particular Spidey adventure is that he saved Punisher’s life on Staten Island. Punisher rebukes this claim, but doesn’t fully deny it. So, I think it’s safe to assume that Spider-Man did help out Frank in some way during a fight, but is maybe exaggerating the story to get a rise out of him.
Alternatively, maybe Frank would actually have died on Staten Island had it not been for Spider-Man’s intervention, and he’s just too proud to admit it. It’s also possible that Staten Island is where the two vigilantes first crossed paths. They already have a history by the time of Brand New Day, which I think is a really smart move. The movie doesn’t reveal exactly when they first met, but the mysterious incident on Staten Island is as good a theory as any. Either way, I would be surprised if we ever found out exactly what Spidey and the Punisher are talking about when they mention this encounter, and I think that’s for the best. It’s funnier to just imagine.
The Marvel Comics Offer No Insight Into the Staten Island Incident
Jon Bernthal as The Punisher in Spider-Man: Brand New DaySony Pictures Releasing
The Punisher actually made his Marvel debut in a Spider-Man comic in 1974, so the two characters have a strong connection that goes back decades. They’ve fought against and alongside each other on multiple occasions in the source material. Therefore, Brand New Day could, in theory, have been referring to a specific moment from the comics, set on Staten Island, that was being canonized as an off-screen occurrence in the MCU. As it turns out, no. That’s not what was going on in this instance. Both Spider-Man and the Punisher operate in New York City as a whole, without being strongly associated with one particular borough.
While they have both certainly been to Staten Island, no iconic or at least memorable comic book storyline places both characters there at the same time. Spider-Man has a few key adventures on Staten Island, one of which is when he locates Vulture’s hidden base there, but it seems incredibly unlikely that this is what’s being referred to by Tom Holland’s character. After all, the last time we saw Michael Keaton’s Vulture on-screen, he’d crossed over and joined Morbius (Jared Leto) in Sony’s failed spin-off universe. In short, all we’re left with are theories, even after consulting the comics to try and clear up Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s enigmatic Staten Island story.
Release Date
July 31, 2026
Runtime
145 Minutes
Director
Destin Daniel Cretton
Producers
Amy Pascal, Kevin Feige, Rachel O’Connor, Avi Arad
Spider-Man / Peter Parker
