Brand New Day is for Animated Series fans who remember Man-Spider

Our first look at Marvel’s next Spider-Man movie led with a huge nod to comic book fans. In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, director Destin Daniel Cretton recreates the classic Amazing Fantasy #15 cover art that introduced the world to Spider-Man in 1962. But Cretton isn’t just pulling at the heartstrings of the Silver Age of comics fans. His Spider-Man is also nostalgia bait for devotees of mid-’90s cartoon Spider-Man: The Animated Series.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day looks to loosely adapt a story told in the second season of Spider-Man: The Animated Series, an arc called Neogenic Nightmare. In that 14-episode storyline, Peter Parker loses his superpowers, faces his rogues’ gallery (freshly freed from prison by the Kingpin), turns to Professor X and the X-Men for help, and, after ingesting an untested serum, grows four extra arms before ultimately mutating into the horrific Man-Spider and being pursued by the Punisher.

He’s also inadvertently responsible for Michael Morbius becoming a living vampire, and Spidey finally finds relief from one-time adversary Kraven the Hunter, as part of that arc.

While there’s little chance that Morbius or Kraven will (re)appear in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, there are many parallels between the events of Neogenic Nightmare and Tom Holland’s new Spider-Man flick.

As seen in the first trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Peter’s having some problems. He’s still struggling with the loss of his Aunt May and desperately missing his closest friends, Ned and MJ. Our friendly neighborhood wallcrawler seems to be losing himself in his work, fighting supervillains like Scorpion, Boomerang, Tarantula, and the Hand — and earning the key to the city in the process — while living that hardscrabble double life as Peter Parker and Spider-Man.

It starts to take a toll. Peter is shown passing out, waking up in a cocoon, and growing what appear to be organic web shooters. He’s mutating, becoming more spiderlike than before. Ultimately, he turns to MCU smart guy Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk, aka Mark Ruffalo, for help.

How this will all turn out remains to be seen, but when Peter goes full red-eyed monster in a battle against a ninja of the Hand clan, it seems that the Man-Spider might be ready to emerge.

The origins of the Man-Spider

Peter Parker popped out four more arms, bringing him to eight limbs total, back in 1971. In a three-issue arc in Amazing Spider-Man, a highly stressed-out Peter Parker decides to give up his powers. He’s going through a lot at the time: best friend Harry Osborn is struggling with drug addiction; trusted friend Captain George Stacy is killed as a result of Spidey fighting Doctor Octopus; and worst of all, Peter’s girlfriend Gwen Stacy blames Spider-Man for the death of her father. Peter chugs a serum of his own making to wipe out his powers — only to enhance them and grow four extra appendages.

Things get worse when he encounters a new threat: Morbius, the living vampire.

To cure his new affliction, Peter turns to Dr. Curt Connors (aka the Lizard) for help, revealing to him his secret identity as Spider-Man. Ultimately, Peter uses Morbius’ blood to help cure himself of his excessive extremities.

The Man-Spider of the Savage Land

Image: Michael Golden/Marvel

Peter Parker’s appendage anxieties were not limited to a brief spell in the ‘70s. In the early ‘80s, in the pages of Marvel Fanfare, Spider-Man and the X-Men’s Angel were transformed into primordial versions of themselves by the evil Savage Land Mutate known as Brainchild. Peter Parker briefly became an eight-limbed monster that resembles the Man-Spider later seen in Spider-Man: The Animated Series.

Peter Parker is reverted to human form thanks to Dr. Karl Lykos, a Chilean hypnotherapist who was attacked by a mutated Pteranodon and became an energy vampire. You know, comics stuff. Lykos ultimately becomes the human-Pteranodon hybrid Sauron, the conqueror of the Savage Land who famously is brilliant enough to cure cancer, but prefers to turn people into dinosaurs instead.

The Man-Spider of Brand New Day

Image: Sony Pictures/Marvel Studios

Will Tom Holland’s Peter Parker have an arm-growth spurt and/or devolve into a feral, acid-spitting, six-eyed Man-Spider in his return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Probably not, given everything else going on in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. But Peter is clearly going through changes that will alter him physically in the movie.

Peter may become a more powerful, more savage Spider-Man during Brand New Day, and as in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, he may face the wrath of the Punisher and ultimately turn to a brilliant scientist for aid. Heck, maybe he’ll even seek help from an X-Man or two.

But Spider-Man: Brand New Day may take the latest changes Peter Parker is going through a little more metaphorically, pushing him to deal with his problems directly and keeping the Man-Spider at bay.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day hits movie theaters on July 31. Spider-Man: The Animated Series is now streaming on Disney Plus.