'Spider-Man: Brand New Day': Will Peter's New Invention Cause Trouble For The MCU's X-Men?

WARNING! SPOILERS for Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

The record-breaking success of Spider-Man: Brand New Day is heralding not just a brand new day for Peter Parker, but potentially the whole MCU. The film introduces former Stranger Things star Sadie Sink as Jean Grey, the first major X-Men figure to be cast before the MCU's upcoming reboot film, rumoured to begin filming next year for a possible 2028 release date.

Despite a rather shaky beginning, Brand New Day ends with Peter and Jean as friends, a friendship that will likely extend to the eventual X-Men as well. This would fit with the comics, where Spider-Man is, more often than not, a friend and ally to Mutants, to the point that in the Avengers Vs X-Men comic event, Spidey doesn't choose a side. Unfortunately, Peter Parker builds a device during Brand New Day that may be destined to cause trouble for his new friends.

Spider-Man's genes undergo further mutation

Per descriptions in Marvel comic books, a Mutant is someone born with mutant genes, usually activating when they hit puberty. A mutate is a character mutated by an outside influence. Spider-Man falls into the latter category, however in the comics, unaware Mutants often mistake him for one of them, and he does not always correct the misconception.

In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Peter's trauma catches up with him, resulting in a spike in arachnid hormones that advances his mutation. This results in him experiencing massive sensory overload, increased aggression, and developing organic web spinnerettes similar to Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man, dubbed 'Peter Two' in Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Peter Studies Bruce Banner's Inhibitor.. And Receives a Warning

Peter seeks out a way to halt this new mutation and restore his powers to baseline. His search leads him to Empire State University, to visit Professor Bruce Banner, who now teaches there. At some point between the events of She-Hulk: Attorney-At-Law and Brand New Day, Bruce has begun wearing an Inhibitor to suppress and prevent the emergence of The Hulk.

Peter asks Bruce questions about the Inhibitor, created specially for his Gamma-related genetic mutations. Peter is hoping to use similar technology himself, targeting only the 'undesirable' parts of his mutation. Bruce warns Peter that he would be walking a fine line, and the wider details of his plan could have an unintended impact on the wider community of enhanced persons.

Inhibitor Chip = Inhibitor Collar?

Peter ultimately succeeds in creating two Inhibitor chips, which while functioning somewhat differently, appear visually similar to the chip Peter rebuilds and replaces to cure Doctor Otto Octavius in Spider-Man: No Way Home. One, which Peter finally perfects with help from MJ, is specially targeted to suppress his advancing mutation and return him to baseline Spider-Man. The other is a Universal Inhibitor, which could be used on any enhanced individual and shut down their mutation/power entirely. Peter uses it to aid Damage Control in the capture of Jean Grey.

It is the Universal chip that could be a problem, resulting in the wider implications Bruce warned Peter about. In the wider Marvel Comics universe, Mutants are often hated, feared, and discriminated against. Some villains, overzealous law enforcement, and anti-mutant groups, utilise Power-inhibiting collars against Mutants, with many Mutants seeing the very existance of the collars as an affront to their species.

Most recently onscreen, the collars have been used regularly in X-Men '97, starting from the very first episode when the Friends of Humanity capture Roberto Dacosta. More recently, they have been seen used on the Mutants imprisoned in X-Factor's base, including Jubilee, prior to her epic escape.

Both Peter's chip and the Universal chip are destroyed during the climax of Spider-Man: Brand New Day. However, his plans and research into the chips still exist.

Some fans fear that Bill Metzger, missing as of Brand New Day's ending, and a known Mutant-hater in the comics, may have salvaged the remains of one or both chips before his disappearance, and could eventually use Peter's work as the basis for an Inhibitor Collar. This would make Peter Parker the unintentional inventor of a major instrument of Mutant prejudice, which could prove to be a particularly heartbreaking twist given he has just been established as a likely Mutant ally.

We'll have to keep watching future films to see ho things unfold.