By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 1 hour ago
Now that the DCU has made a successful debut, it’s more important than ever for the MCU to establish its own separate brand identity. Ironically, though, it sounds like the next major Marvel project is borrowing heavily from one of the biggest DC comic storylines of all time.
New reports imply that Spider-Man: Brand New Day will have a mysterious foe breaking Spider-Man’s colorful foes out of prison, which is exactly what Bane did during the “Knightfall” storyline that ended with the villain breaking the Caped Crusader’s back.
Jailhouse, Rocked
Earlier this month, there were reports that Marvel was filming a scene where Spider-Man would be battling some ninjas. Now, scooper Daniel Richtman (@DanielRPK on X) is reporting that Spider-Man: Brand New Day will feature a scene where Spidey and Punisher fight Mike-controlled villains who are busy trying to break the Scorpion out of prison. Collectively, these reports may spell out a plot in which some mysterious new villain (perhaps Sadie Sink’s character) is breaking the web-head’s biggest villains out of jail to form the greatest threat our hero has ever known.
As an ‘80s kid, I couldn’t help but notice how similar this basic premise was to an element of Batman’s “Knightfall” storyline, which kicked into high gear when Bane freed the Dark Knight’s fiercest foes from Arkham Asylum. His intention was to create a kind of gauntlet in which Batman would be tested to his very limits. Once he was mentally and physically spent, Bane busted into the Batcave and broke Batman’s back.
Birth Of The Sinister Six?
This is obviously only a surface-level similarity, and we don’t yet know why Spider-Man’s villain is breaking his enemies out of prison. For that matter, we still don’t even know who this villain is. They may, like Bane, want to create a gauntlet of powerful foes for this hometown hero to fight (like Cap, he can do this all day). Or they may be attempting to assemble a group (like the Sinister Six!) that can fight our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man as a group.
At any rate, if Marvel is borrowing from the competition, they chose one of the better DC stories for inspiration. “Knightfall” was thrilling because it forced Batman to fight one iconic villain after, and this approach should work well in the MCU. After all, the one thing cooler than seeing Spider-Man fight one supervillain is watching him fight several supervillains, preferably all at once.
The Dark Tights Rises
Borrowing from “Knightfall” is also appropriate because this is one of the darkest Batman tales, one that crippled the Dark Knight and replaced him with a murderous religious zealot. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is reportedly going to have a much more serious tone than the previous films because it will deal with the emotional fallout of the entire world forgetting who Spider-Man is. In that case, a story where a villain channels their inner Bane and breaks Spidey’s rogues’ gallery out of prison may create an external conflict that mirrors the chaotic inner turmoil of our title character’s emotions.
Only time will tell how much Spider-Man: Brand New Day will borrow from DC’s “Knightfall” storyline, and how much of the plot will be a wholly original creation. However, it’s one thing to copy an older story’s basic idea, and it’s another to copy its quintessentially cool vibe. Unless Brand New Day can channel this classic DC tale while delivering an original story with the heart of Homecoming and the nostalgia of No Way Home, its box office may end up like Batman himself: beaten and broken.