Looking forward to watching a miserable, lonely, broke Peter Parker is a strange sentiment, but it’s one many fans have been sharing since the Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer debuted.
No one is actually rooting for Peter to remain friendless, unknown, and without any sort of support system. Not having Aunt May and dealing with that grief is tough enough. The fact that none of his fellow Avengers, people he saved the universe alongside, know who he is anymore is unfortunate. But seeing him yearn for his best friends, Ned and MJ, and the life he had planned with them looks to be the most heartbreaking part of it all.
It’s depressing, but it’s also part of what has made Peter’s humanity more evident than ever. And it’s that humanity that reminds fans of why we love superheroes and their stories.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a firm departure from Peter Parker’s ‘Iron Man Jr.’ persona
One of the best parts about Tom Holland’s Peter Parker/Spider-Man is that fans have really had the chance to follow his growth as a character and evolution as a hero.
He made his debut in Captain America: Civil War, recruited by Tony Stark/Iron Man to fight on his side. Peter had already become Spider-Man. There was no radioactive spider to see, and there was no origin story to follow. It made sense not to go through that whole narrative after Marvel already having brought it to the big screen recently enough with Tobey Maguire’s and Andrew Garfield’s respective Spider-Man movies.
Even with the change, the heart of the story remains: a teenager struggling to juggle this double life, learning who he is as a superhero at the same time he’s still figuring out who he is as a person.
With the origin story out of the way, Peter’s MCU beginnings are very centered on Iron Man. His narrative is structured in a way that sets him up as a mentee and successor of sorts to Tony. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s an intriguing take that made sense for the MCU and was a heartwarming storyline for Tony’s overarching narrative. But as cool as it was to watch Peter grow up with the support and influence of this genius-billionaire-playboy-philathropist, his character lacked the kind of humanity that so many fans love about Spider-Man in the first place.
Loss and the grief it comes with are so integral to who Spider-Man is — to Peter’s story. It teaches him important lessons and shapes him into the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man that generations have come to love. He experienced grief when Tony dies, and the impact of losing Tony shouldn’t be undervalued. The difference, however, is losing Tony causes Peter to lose direction more than his sense of self — unlike what Spider-Man: Brand New Day has shown thus far in its first trailer.
Peter Parker’s humanity is more important and prominent than ever in the Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer
Peter Parker may be Spider-Man, but the two couldn’t be more different. The Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer showcases that well. It presents a strong contrast between their lives. While Spider-Man is out in New York stopping villains, quipping with The Punisher, and getting the key to the city, Peter is sad, just trying to survive, and can’t move on from what — or rather, who — he had to sacrifice to save the world. That struggle is what makes Peter in the MCU more relatable than ever.
Fans know what it’s like to go to school and do laundry. Fans know what it’s like to be anxious about finances and worry about relationships. Those personal struggles give fans something to root for and give Peter a chance for new growth. That’s a level of humanity we’ve yet to see.
In the Spider-Man stories we’ve seen in the MCU so far, Peter has grown into an adult and a proper superhero. Now, it’s time for Peter to grow as a human. Interestingly enough, that might just mean losing his humanity — literally. The Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer teases the evolution of Peter’s DNA to favor the spider DNA that turned him into the wall-crawling hero. That combination of conflicts creates a narrative that’s easy to be invested in. Without his family and friends, Peter is losing sight of who he is as a person outside of Spider-Man. Now, Spider-Man is really all he’s left with, and that persona is all he’s investing in.
As cool as special abilities and enhanced skills are, those are just the start of what makes superheroes appealing. Powers make heroes into characters who fans like, but humanity makes heroes into characters who fans love. That’s why Spider-Man: Brand New Day has generated such excitement despite the bleak outlook it highlighted.
Peter is a hero not because of the abilities a radioactive spider gave him that made Spider-Man possible but simply because he’s a human who wants to do good. He has messed up but always owns up to his mistakes. He has had moments of misguided selfishness but has made sacrifices that prove his commitment to serving his neighborhood (and, sometimes, beyond). He has been lost — literally and figuratively — but perhaps never more than in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Yet there’s no indication whatsoever that he wants to stop fighting for the good, because that’s what it means to be a hero.
That’s why fans love Peter Parker, the human and the hero Spider-Man. Even if it means looking forward to misery he has never known before.