Say Goodbye to Any Chance Marvel Had at Fixing Spider-Man's Most Hated Storyline

The 'One More Day' curse continues

According to many fans, “One More Day” negatively influenced the character for the following two decades. In the story, Spider-Man makes a deal with Mephisto to save the life of Aunt May, who had been shot by an assassin as a consequence of Peter’s unmasking during Civil War. In exchange, the demon wants Peter’s marriage to Mary Jane. After the two accept the deal, history is remade. In the new canon, Peter was late to his wedding due to his activities as Spider-Man, prompting him and MJ to reconsider their marriage. As a bonus, Doctor Strange finds a way to wipe Spider-Man’s secret identity from everybody’s mind.

Some elements of this storyline were adapted for the movies Spider-Man: No Way Home and Spider-Man: Brand New Day. The former introduces Strange’s mind-wipe spell, which erases not just Peter’s identity as Spider-Man but his whole existence from everyone’s mind. The latter shows us the dire consequences of such a reality-altering effect. However, while Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s portrayal of Peter’s isolation and depression was mostly effective, it was not enough to wipe away the curse of “One More Day.” In fact, the movie ended up repeating one key mistake from the comics.

To understand why Brand New Day missed a great chance to right the wrongs of “One More Day,” knowing what exactly that much-maligned crossover got wrong is necessary. Often quoted as the most prominent example of an editorial mandate interfering with good storytelling, “One More Day” was inspired by Marvel Comics’ long-standing belief that Spider-Man will only appeal to readers if the character is young, immature, and down on his luck. A mature Peter Parker, who was dealing with the daily challenges of married life, did not fit the comics' perceived readership.

Mostly, readers disagree with the way these changes were implemented, a sentiment echoed by Straczynski, who later revealed how he fought with Quesada over how to erase the marriage. The story uses a supernatural deus ex machina to establish a new status quo, rather than letting the characters deal with mature issues, like divorce, which would have been a more natural way to end Peter and MJ’s marriage. Some of the best Spider-Man stories ever deal with adult issues, such as drug abuse (The Amazing Spider-Man vol.1 96–98) or death (“The Night Gwen Stacy Died,” The Amazing Spider-Man vol. 1 121–122).

Brand New Day is, for a good half of its runtime, an “adult” movie. Just think of the great opening sequence where Peter watches his friends’ lives go on without him while he survives in a decrepit attic eating delivery food. It was so dark that, when Peter jumps from a roof for the first time, I thought the movie would show him hesitating until the last possible moment before shooting his web. If we are to accept “One More Day” as a necessary evil, this is what was missing from that story and the ones that followed: showing its consequences. But if the purpose was to make Spider-Man appeal to younger audiences, then the comics surely couldn’t follow a depressed Peter Parker forever.

Unfortunately, Brand New Day makes the same mistake. As soon as the movie turns its focus to its villain(s), it becomes just another entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s assembly line of family-friendly action romps. And it’s not even a good one. Jean Gray’s story, besides being unbearably cliché, has absolutely no connection to Peter, ending up as a forgettable distraction from the interesting parts of the movie. It also makes no sense in the context of the franchise, and seems retrofitted to introduce an X-Men character into a movie where she doesn't really belong. (And I challenge everyone who is reading this to remember the name of the other main villain in the film without looking it up.)

Spider-Man: No Way Home’s decision to adapt the mind-wipe storyline was brave. The movie’s story works, and is praised by fans, because it doesn’t feel like a forceful way to make a character unhappy to shake up things for a franchise. Peter doesn’t cast the spell to save Aunt May, and her death forces him to make a decision: rushed, perhaps wrong, but a heartfelt one. The action and multiversal shenanigans in the movie never overshadow what is ultimately a deeply personal story.

Brand New Day, instead, feels like two disconnected movies. A heartwrenching tale of isolation that shows how dangerous the axiom “with great power comes great responsibility” can be if brought to its extreme, and a trite superhero romp that, on its own, would have scored lower than Eternals. My impression is that audiences focused on the first one and almost ignored the second, which explains Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s record-breaking success.

“One More Day” ruined Spider-Man comics in an attempt to cater to a younger audience. That strategy would end up paying off in other, much more profitable forms of media: movies and streaming. The Disney Jr. show Spidey and his Amazing Friends is Marvel’s most popular series. It has been watched for about 1.25 billion hours since its 2021 launch, according to Nielsen. “The dream for a fictional character is to be able to resonate across generations for generations,” Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said to the Wall Street Journal.

No Way Home fixed the most glaring issue with “One More Day,” which made Peter a coward who tries to run from the consequences of his actions (the opposite of the lesson he learned from Uncle Ben). Brand New Day had a chance to explore that idea in meaningful ways, but it should have stayed focused on telling a Peter Parker story. Instead, we got superhero team-ups, a MacGuffin plot, and the X-Men (kind of).

Brand New Day’s main sin is being a big studio movie that follows the industry’s playbook while also daring to give us glimpses of something much more interesting. It was probably unrealistic to expect a mature Spider-Man movie, but Brand New Day did a pretty good job of tricking me into believing it could be one. The “One More Day” curse persists. You win again, Mephisto.

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