Warning: This article contains full spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day!
Spider-Man: Brand New Day has landed in theaters, meaning we finally have confirmation of one of the worst-kept secrets in the MCU: Sadie Sink does indeed play Jean Grey in the latest Spider-Man film. The MCU has just taken a major step towards introducing a new, rebooted cast of X-Men, even as it bids a final farewell to the classic Fox X-Men in Avengers: Doomsday.
It might seem a bit odd that Marvel is not only introducing the MCU’s first major X-Man in a Spider-Man movie of all places, but essentially making her the villain of the film for a good part of its running time. If there’s anything to be taken away from Brand New Day, it’s that Marvel isn’t going the traditional route with its rebooted X-Men cast. This isn’t going to be a classical version of the X-Men that closely follows the comics. And that’s OK. In fact, we think it’s great news. Let’s break down why the MCU’s untraditional approach to the X-Men is so X-Citing.
We think it’s safe to assume that Sadie Sink’s contract involves a lot more than just one MCU movie. Marvel traditionally signs their actors up for a handful of appearances and the Stranger Things star is surely no different. All of this is to say that she is the new Jean Grey for the foreseeable future, which means the studio’s business side has a plan for her. But how will Kevin Feige get the story side of that plan to line up? The answer is looking more and more like, “not in a way that we’ve ever seen before.”
Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey in Brand New Day
Again, Sink’s version of Jean diverges quite a bit from the character fans know and love from the comics and past X-Men movies and animated series. Rather than being a teen superheroine under the careful tutelage of Professor Charles Xavier, this version of Jean is a fugitive runaway who thinks nothing of hijacking the bodies of innocent bystanders in order to get what she wants. Sure, it turns out what she wants is nothing more or less than to rescue her captive sister Sara (Olivia Booth-Ford), but she’s clearly unconcerned about the collateral damage she leaves in her wake.
Brand New Day treats Sink’s Jean as the main villain for much of its runtime. She attacks various Department of Damage Control bases and hijacks the bodies of characters like Scorpion (Michael Mando) and even Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), forcing Tom Holland’s Spidey to clean up some mighty big messes. It’s only after Jean is captured by Damage Control overseer Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman) and the truth about her sister becomes apparent that it’s clear Jean is less a villain than a deeply wronged victim.
Ultimately, though she does overpower her captors and undergo a massive spike in power, Jean is too late to save Sara. Only a psychic heart-to-heart with Peter prevents Jean from spiralling out of control and destroying half of New York. He even takes a literal bullet for her. After using her powers to help keep Peter alive, Jean retreats and leaves the city, presumably heading upstate to a certain school for young mutants.
Compare this to Jean’s traditional origin story and we can see just how much Marvel is trying to reinvent the character for the MCU. Traditionally, Jean is often considered to be Professor X’s first student. He’s kept a watchful eye on Jean ever since she was a girl and her psychic abilities first manifested. Jean leaves behind a loving family to become one of the founding X-Men and an important figure in the fight for human/mutant coexistence. That’s the formula that went on to inspire both the classic Fox movies and X-Men: The Animated Series.
Jean is typically a very clean-cut character whose dark side only becomes apparent as an adult when she bonds with the Phoenix Force and gains godlike abilities. But in the MCU, there’s a much sharper edge to the character even at this early stage in her story. Her ultimate goals are noble enough, but she isn’t concerned with the significant collateral damage she leaves in her wake. She doesn’t care what effect her psychic body-snatching has on her victims. Heck, at one point Jean seemingly kills a guy when she possesses him and he’s hit by a passing taxi.
In that sense, Brand New Day seems to be drawing a bit more from Marvel’s recent All-New X-Men comics. In that series, the original five teenage X-Men are brought into the present to meet their adult selves. The series winds up dealing a lot with Jean’s lack of boundaries and the fact that she thinks nothing of sneaking into other people’s minds and rummaging around. In one infamous scene, Jean callously outs her teammate Iceman, forcing him to abruptly come to terms with his sexuality.
Similarly, Brand New Day’s Jean is a character who doesn’t have a real appreciation for the ethical implications of her powers. She controls other people like a cruel puppet master. She steals Peter’s secret identity from his mind and tricks him into believing that MJ (Zendaya) remembers him. She basically ruins Banner’s life, undoing all the years of work he put into getting his Hulk side under control. The film illustrates just how dangerous Jean can be, even well before she becomes Phoenix.
None of this is to say Sink’s Jean is a true villain in the end. She simply doesn’t have the benefit of Professor Xavier’s moral guidance. No one has taught her how to properly use her powers, much less how to use them responsibly. She’s a walking example of why Xavier’s school is so necessary in the first place. And that’s where the rebooted X-Men movies come in.
Introducing the MCU’s Very Different X-Men
Sadie Sink is playing a very different version of Jean Grey, and we can only assume that this is a taste of what’s to come as Marvel works to introduce the MCU’s own version of the X-Men. Jean herself is a very different and much more morally ambiguous character, to say nothing of the fact that Jean and Spidey have very little preexisting history in Marvel’s comic books. That alone is a sign of how much is being changed for the MCU, and we assume the same will hold true for her fellow X-Men going forward.
Here’s what we know so far: Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier is helming the X-Men reboot, with Beef’s Lee Sung Jin and The Bear’s Joanna Calo writing the screenplay. It’s believed that X-Men will take one of the three release dates that Marvel Studios is currently holding for 2028. Rumors suggest that the studio is currently hard at work casting the film and may even reveal said cast at D23.
Interestingly, it’s also rumored that the film’s ensemble cast won’t include a new version of Wolverine. Marvel seems intent on making good on that threat to keep working Hugh Jackman until he’s 90. Given how much money 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine brought in, we can’t exactly blame them. Instead, Schreier’s film will supposedly focus on a small group of young mutants that includes Sink’s Jean, Cyclops, Storm, and Rogue, while Mister Sinister (potentially played by Adam Driver) is said to be the film’s main villain.
If we needed further proof that Marvel is taking a very different approach to the X-Men in the MCU, downplaying Wolverine in the reboot is certainly it. This is a character who’s been front and center in most of the Fox movies, to what many would argue has been to the detriment of the franchise. Characters like Jean, Cyclops, and Rogue never fully got their due in the old X-Men movies, but that may finally change now.
That alone is an exciting prospect, but it’s even more so when you consider the kind of road map Brand New Day establishes. The new film suggests that Marvel isn’t really looking to establish the X-Men as just another superhero team that coexists with the likes of the New Avengers. This isn’t about spandex costumes and epic battles between good and evil. We aren’t looking at a rehash of the Fox movies with slightly more comics-accurate costumes.
Instead, the MCU seems intent on exploring mutants as dangerous renegades in a world wholly unprepared for their arrival. We see in Brand New Day just how much havoc Jean can unleash when pushed over the edge. What about when the same thing happens to a girl who can control the weather or a boy who can blast holes through skyscrapers every time he opens his eyes? How does the general public of the MCU – already wary about rogue aliens in this post-Endgame and (technically, although a lot of people don’t care) post-Secret Invasion climate – react to the discovery that more and more people like this are emerging every single day?
Comic fans often point out how silly it is that the denizens of the Marvel Universe hate and fear the X-Men so much yet simultaneously embrace teams like the Avengers and Fantastic Four wholeheartedly, give or take a Civil War storyline or two. What’s the difference between these groups, really? Well, the MCU might just be illustrating where that gap is. It seems intent on painting the X-Men not as superheroes, but something wholly more dangerous and unpredictable.
If Sink’s Jean Grey is any indication, we’re looking forward to more nontraditional and inventive takes on the iconic X-Men cast. Marvel seems to be thinking outside the box with the franchise, determined to do something genuinely new and unexpected. That’s a whole lot more appealing than the prospect of a series of movies that adapt the same shortlist of Chris Claremont-penned comics we’ve already seen on the big screen. We don’t need another Dark Phoenix Saga or Days of Future Past. We need character-driven movies that cut right to the heart of what it means to be a mutant in a world that hates and fears you.
All signs point to the X-Men being at the heart of Marvel’s next great MCU saga after Avengers: Secret Wars. That movie will end with a fresh start for the MCU, but not a complete continuity reboot. Many have speculated that this next storytelling era is literally going to be called “The Mutant Saga.” If this is the case, the best thing the studio can do is to go bold and rethink these characters in a fundamental way, rather than simply rehash two decades’ worth of existing X-movies. And based on Brand New Day, we’re feeling pretty optimistic about what’s coming next.
What do you think of Jean Grey’s portrayal in Spider-Man: Brand New Day? Is this the way forward for the rebooted X-Men franchise? Sound off in the comments.
For more, check out IGN's Spider-Man: Brand New Day review and brush up on every upcoming movie and series in the MCU.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.
