Spider-Man’s Unused Villain Plans Would’ve Sabotaged The MCU’s Most Important Upcoming Movie

Published Sep 23, 2026, 8:30 AM EDT

The Fox X-Men movie series showed that the story of the beloved mutant hero team can very much carry itself for the long term, and the MCU being finally able to open its doors fully to the X-Men and their expansive comic stories is something that's sure to define the next few years of the franchise at minimum, especially when factoring in how excited audiences have been to see figures like Wolverine in MCU movies thus far.

With the X-Men film only a few installments away when it comes to the MCU's upcoming movie roster, the time has come for the franchise to start teeing up for the arrival of its otherwise missing hero team more than ever after almost two decades of them having to remain in the background. Thankfully, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has done so in a major way, which is all the more promising given how previous plans for the film didn't do so quite the same.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day's Shadow King Plans Would've Made It Impossible For The Film To Set Up The X-Men Movie In The Way It Does

During an interview with Sonny Bunch on The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, Spider-Man: Brand New Day co-writer Chris McKenna discussed some of the other prospective routes that had been considered for the movie's story before the final narrative of the now-released film became concrete.

This included plenty of interesting information, with one of the most key reveals being McKenna noting that Jean Grey wasn't the first figure that was considered for Spider-Man: Brand New Day's story. Instead, Marvel comic villain Shadow King was considered first, since the cerebral villain and his telepathic abilities offered a way to provide a more psychological challenge for Spider-Man - though, due to the MCU still finding its feet when it comes to mutant villains like the Shadow King, the plan was for the character to appear as a disembodied voice and presence who wouldn't necessarily go by the Shadow King title.

This presented challenges for the script - as a movie wherein Spider-Man never confronts his foe face-to-face loses some of its intensity and drama inherently - with McKenna stating he was relieved when it was later confirmed the movie and script would be allowed to use the figure of Jean Grey instead, avoiding the issues that adapting the Shadow King into the film in some form presented.

Indeed, the prior plan for Spider-Man: Brand New Day would've also missed out on setting up the next chapters of the MCU more directly, too. Jean Grey's story throughout Brand New Day does a solid job of establishing what the franchise's version of the character is like as a person, and also helps to effectively set the stage for the 2028 X-Men movie we know Jean is a part of, which otherwise wouldn't have been possible in the same way.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day Having Jean Grey Be Its Main Antagonist Fits Far More With Peter Parker's Own MCU Arc

Ultimately, Jean Grey being the main antagonist that Spider-Man: Brand New Day centers around works far better for Peter Parker's story and wider arc as a hero in the MCU than it seems anything involving the Shadow King could have.

Peter and Jean are in very similar situations in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, even if they are doing very different things throughout much of the movie. Both have lost their loved ones, and are left committing wholeheartedly to plans that only isolate them further, and which they have to learn through the course of the movie isn't the path they need to take.

Given how effective it is to watch Peter and Jean learn about themselves from their conflict with each other - and to see Spider-Man be given a villain he can truly sympathize with - it's clear Jean Grey was the right pick for Spider-Man: Brand New Day and the chapter of Peter Parker's life it centers on, as is further proven by the critical and commercial success of the film thus far.