Brand New Day Finally Confirms The One Spider-Man Villain More Evil Than Green Goblin

Aug 09, 2026 - 22:08

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Published Aug 9, 2026, 2:03 PM EDT

Jared is a writer, editor, and Communications Studies graduate who loves popular nerd culture (almost anything to do with Marvel, DC, Star Wars, or The Lord of the Rings) and the interactive storytelling medium. Jared's first console was the PS1, wherein he fell for Spider-Man, Spyro the Dragon, and Crash Bandicoot.

Say what you will about the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man movies, but the first two, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home, absolutely knocked it out of the park with their supervillains: Vulture and Mysterio, respectively. For everything it does well, including dedicating itself to being a controversial origin story for the X-Men’s Jean Grey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s true villain being the Department of Damage Control (DODC) is fairly underwhelming unless it’ll be revisited in the future with greater ramifications.

To be fair, Spider-Man: No Way Home’s villains don’t leave a significant mark, either; they’re simply dropped into Peter Parker’s life and whisked away again, and even Green Goblin isn’t fully to blame for Aunt May’s death. The effect that Mysterio’s impact has had on Peter’s life, on the other hand, is still rippling outward, and it will continue to do so for as long as Tom Holland plays Spider-Man in the MCU.

Mysterio Has Authored All Of Spider-Man’s Misery

Even knowing that Mysterio is traditionally an iconic Spider-Man supervillain, Spider-Man: Far From Home does a great job of letting the story go on for as long as possible without revealing that Quentin Beck has an ulterior motive and has been faking everything. Plus, Jake Gyllenhaal is inspired casting because he’s extremely and immediately likable as a newfound superhero mentor figure, while also being extraordinarily menacing yet funny later on in the movie.

Spider-Man: No Way Home’s Green Goblin is uplifted by another 10/10 Willem Dafoe performance. However, aside from a couple wonderfully violent fights, Green Goblin isn’t anywhere near the same tier of supervillain as Mysterio. Firstly, even though it’s Green Goblin’s glider that deals the killing blow, Aunt May’s death is undoubtedly her own fault for guilt-tripping her nephew into attempting to save a bunch of multiversal supervillains and inviting them into their temporary home.

This is especially infuriating when the MCU’s Spider-Man trilogy decided to finally make Aunt May an actual character with substance in its last entry, only to kill her off, and the MCU is now resorting to flashbacks in order to convince audiences that she had previously shared more words of wisdom than coining Peter’s spider-sense ability as his “tingle.” Secondly, though, neither Green Goblin nor Aunt May’s death is something Peter would’ve had to contend with if it hadn’t been for Mysterio.

Helmut Zemo is arguably the Avengers’ greatest supervillain in the MCU because he was able to dismantle them, with the help of the Sokovia Accords driving a wedge between them, of course. Therefore, the Avengers weren’t together when Thanos’ Black Order arrived on Earth, and the Avengers have never been the same.

Likewise, Spider-Man: No Way Home’s whole plot is only possible because of Mysterio, with the help of Peter and Doctor Strange recklessly botching a spell. Mysterio’s brutal betrayal makes for one of the best live-action Spider-Man sequences ever, in the MCU or otherwise, but publicly revealing Spider-Man’s identity and successfully tricking most of the world into believing that Spider-Man murdered him are far more profound beatings.

Who Can Be A Greater Villain For The MCU’s Spider-Man?

Now, Peter being lonely for four years in Spider-Man: Brand New Day is more or less on him, as he could’ve chosen to waste no time and tell MJ and Ned who he was and why they have no memory of him. Spider-Man: Brand New Day even makes a cheeky note of how MJ ended up being in danger again because of Peter, regardless of whether she knew who he was or not, and whether he was ever going to tell her, suggesting that he made the wrong decision.

What’s worse, debatably, is that Spider-Man: No Way Home’s dramatic multiverse recourse corralling Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Electro, Sandman, and Lizard together seemingly confirms that we’ll never see Holland’s Spider-Man fight his own iterations of any of them. For instance, if this Peter ever meets anyone with the surname Osborn or Octavius, he’ll know that they could potentially be or become a villain before his spider-sense needs to flare.

Plus, he’d already know how to neutralize them if he could get his hands on or build a fabricator. Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s new era will forever be a gaping wound left by Mysterio, and future MCU movies will struggle to introduce a villain who is more impactful. Funny enough, Holland’s eagerness to pass the Spider-Man torch could certainly mean that Mysterio will go down as his incarnation of the character’s greatest supervillain without contest.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now playing in theaters.