It’s a ‘brand new day’ for everyone’s favorite wall-crawling hero, and while there’s disappointment that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man isn’t (currently) on the Giant-Man-sized Avengers: Doomsday cast list, don’t feel too bad for him. Holland is swinging into action for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, ditching the ‘home’ moniker of his first three solo movies and slotting in neatly between Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.
While it was once thought that Spider-Man 4 would be a street-level outing that could adapt the “Devil’s Reign” arc of Marvel Comics with Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin, it looks Daredevil: Born Again is taking on that burden. Instead, wild rumors claimed that Spider-Man 4 would be more of a mythical adventure that could include rogue choices like a new Ghost Rider and even Sacha Baron Cohen’s long-awaited Mephisto.
Now, Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s title reveal can give a payoff to one of the MCU’s most frustrating teases.
Mephisto All Along
The question of Mephisto in the MCU has become a question of when, not if, with rumors of his arrival first doing the rounds in WandaVision. Back then, many guessed the idyllic Westview was an illusion created by Mephisto, or perhaps, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) had struck some sort of Faustian bargain with him to give her back her husband. Elsewhere, the recurring mention of 666, Wanda’s comic book pregnancy being tied to Mephisto, and Ralph Bohner (Evan Peters) referring to her kids as ‘demon spawn’ had everyone thinking he’d be the show’s endgame villain. Some even thought Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Emma Caulfield could secretly be playing him, which, to be honest, feels like a missed opportunity.
Speaking to Mashable, WandaVision creator Jac Schaeffer admitted: “There was never any conscious intention on my part to create any Mephisto red herrings, because I didn't know who Mephisto was until I started doing press.” Of course, WandaVision was just the start of the Mephisto mystery, with the character being rumored for a role in Ironheart, as well as possibly leading his own Special Presentation akin to 2022’s underrated Werewolf by Night. Sacha Baron Cohen has been linked to the role since a Comicbook.com report from 2022, while he’s still connected to Ironheart following a bizarre leak of some debunked artwork and mention of him playing ‘Mystery Man’ in filings for the series.
We’d have to wait until Agatha All Along to get a proper mention of the horned menace, with Schaeffer clearly having enough of all the speculation. Still, she admitted to Variety that he was never going to appear in WandaVision’s spiritual successor: “In my heart, no. I hope this doesn’t upset anyone, but Mephisto has never interested me. But we have an early, early document that included him in a potential antagonist, but I don’t remember ever really taking that seriously.” Here, a throwaway mention from Sasheer Zamata’s Jennifer Kale has her speculating that Agatha Harkness's son had become a demon or an ’agent of Mephisto’. This was the first official name-drop of the villain in the MCU, and as you can imagine, it sent fans into a spin.
In reality, Mephisto has been lurking in the shadows for even longer than this, with a bizarre entry on the Tesseract mentioning the demonic entity. Back in The Avengers, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) handed Captain America (Chris Evans) a file containing everything they know about the Tesseract, with Steve Rogers’ thumb obscuring the name Mephisto. Apparently, Mephisto was enlisted by S.H.I.E.L.D. to help research the Cosmic Cube, suggesting that it could be as powerful as the Infinity Stones. In the end, it was revealed to be one of them. This was back when Joss Whedon was steering the ship of the Avengers, and with things going in a very different direction since then, it’s likely this long-forgotten mention will stay that one.
New Dawn, New Day
It seems that Mephisto is never far from our thoughts. Speaking to Collider in 2024, Hugh Jackman confirmed that Mephisto was an early villain option for Deadpool & Wolverine, with director Shawn Levy confirming they eventually went with Emma Corrin’s Cassandra Nova because of the ties to Patrick Stewart’s beloved Professor X. The theories are still swirling about when Mephisto will make his mark on the MCU, with some suggesting he’s the one pulling the strings on Anthony Ramos’ The Hood in Ironheart, and others thinking he’ll pop up in Thunderbolts* as a surprise ally to Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
This brings everything back to Brand New Day, which seems to be conveniently named after the “Brand New Day” arc that ran from The Amazing Spider-Man No. 546–564 in 2008. This in itself was a follow-up to 2007’s maligned “One More Day” where Aunt May had been shot by a Kingpin assassin during a botched attempt on Peter’s life. This led to Peter making a deal with Mephisto to change history and save May’s life, but in return, it erased his marriage to Mary Jane Watson – as well as their daughter, Mayday Parker. It feels like Spider-Man: No Way Home did some of this, having Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange cast a spell where the world would forget Peter Parker in order to save the Multiverse.
Brand New Day largely dealt with the aftermath of Mephisto’s bargain, reintroduced Harry Osborn, made a big deal out of Mr. Negative, and introduced Jackpot. Given Sadie Sink’s mystery casting, it’s possible she’ll be stepping up as the red-headed Jackpot, while fans have been dying for the introduction of Harry and Norman Osborn outside of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. We can also deal with the aftermath of everyone forgetting Spider-Man’s secret identity, but still, it’s hard to see how Mephisto will fit into things.
It’s important to note that the character isn’t confirmed for the next web-slinging adventure, and with us having been punk’d so many times before when it comes to Mephisto, we won’t believe it until we see Sacha Baron Cohen playing the vile villain on a cinema screen.