We already know that the X-Men are coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Many of the stars of Fox’s X-Men movies have already been confirmed for Avengers: Doomsday, and casting rumors are swirling about who will be playing the newest version of the mutants going forward.
There have even been some X-Men-related rumors swirling around Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but if you don’t want anything ruined for you, I’d click away right now and enjoy this spoiler-free review of the film instead.
That said, if you’ve already seen the movie, we have some thoughts on how one plot detail in particular seems like it’s setting up Marvel’s upcoming X-Men movie and the role of mutants in the MCU overall.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Yes, just like the rumors have been saying, Stranger Things star Sadie Sink is playing Jean Grey in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. And while she’s still figuring out her powers, we get to see both her telepathy and her telekinesis on display. But along with Jean Grey, there’s another element in Brand New Day which will likely become a big part of the MCU’s X-Men stories in the future: power inhibitors.
In the movie, Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) is wearing a device which suppresses the Hulk, allowing him to live a normal life and not Hulk out every time a vending machine steals a dollar from him. When Spider-Man (Tom Holland) begins to undergo an enhancement of his powers thanks to increased stress, he asks Banner how the inhibitor works and the two discuss the possibility of a universal inhibitor which could suppress the powers of any super-powered individual.
During that conversation, the word “mutation” is used repeatedly to describe both Peter’s and Bruce’s conditions, which sparked some gasps in the audience at my screening. Later, once Spider-Man creates a universal inhibitor, he improvises in a fight with Jean Grey and uses it to stop her mind-control antics. While Spider-Man is using the inhibitor to control his own powers and stop Jean’s dangerous tendencies, there is a question about the ethics of the inhibitors. Bruce ponders which parts of someone are right to suppress and Jean suggests the inhibitor as taking away part of who she is.
Image: Sony
For anyone familiar with X-Men stories, the inhibitors clearly seem to be a stepping stone towards the mutant inhibitor collars that are present throughout X-Men-related media. We see them in the comic books, in cartoons like X-Men: The Animated Series, and they are in a few of Fox’s X-Men films like Deadpool 2 and X-Men: Days of Future Past. The inhibitor in Brand New Day even goes on the back of the neck, which isn’t that different from a collar.
In X-Men stories, anti-mutant forces, often associated with the government, use mutant inhibitor collars to gain the upper hand against mutants and suppress their powers. And even though Jean Grey destroys an inhibitor in Brand New Day, the cat is already out of the bag. While we’d previously seen Banner’s Hulk inhibitors in She-Hulk, they were just one of many ways Banner had tried to suppress the Hulk over the years. With Spider-Man: Brand New Day, however, universal power inhibitors are here to stay and I’m sure we can expect some mutant-hating sleazeball to use them in the future.
The only question is, will it matter that two traditional X-Men allies, Bruce Banner and Peter Parker, are responsible for one of the most oppressive anti-mutant weapons ever?
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters now.