“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is an emotionally satisfying action story that introduces a new father-figure for the lonely Peter Parker and shows the emotional toll of being a loner has on Parker and his spider DNA. Under the current presidential administration, the scenes of people being seized by governmental agencies may hit differently, depending upon your sentiments toward ICE.

Need a refresher? Here’s a brief summaries of the previous films.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

Tom Holland’s Spider-Man was introduced to us in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film “Captain America: Civil War” in 2016, just a year before the standalone film directed by Jon Watts came out. In “Civil War,” the Avengers are divided into Team Captain America  and Team Iron Man. Captain America (Chris Evans)  is against the regulation of the team under the Sokovia Accords, driven by his devotion to his friend Bucky Barnes  who has been framed for a terrorist bombing.  Team Captain America includes Steve Rogers as the leaders, the Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Falcon/Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), Hawkeye/Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), Ant-Man/Scott Lang (Paul Rudd)  and Agent 13/Sharon Carter  Team Iron Man includes Iron Man/Tony Stark, Black Panther/T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), Vision (Paul Bettany), Spider-Man and War Machine/James Rhodes (Don Cheadle). Spider-Man was recruited by Stark.

“Homecoming” takes place eight years after the Battle of New York, when Loki used the Tesseract to allow for a Chitauri army invasion which was the catalyst for the first assembly of the Avengers, Peter Parker is at Midtown School of Science and Technology with his best friend Ned. Stark tells Parker he’s not ready to be a full-time Avengers, but Ned discovers Parker’s secret identity.

During the Battle of New York, Adrian Toomes’ salvage company found Chitauri technology and, eight years later, Toomes’ is using it to  create advanced weapons which he sells and to create a suit that allows Toomes to steal Chitauri power cells as the criminal known as the Vulture. Parker discovers this criminal enterprise and learns that his homecoming dance date, Liz (Laura Harrier), is Toomes’ daughter.  MJ is just one of Parker’s classmates.

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

The film takes place after the Snap when Thanos used the Infinity Stones to destroy half of all life in the universe , the Avengers restore the disintegrations and Tony Stark had died defeating Thanos (“Avengers: Endgame”). Rogers has returned the stones to their proper timelines while remaining in the past to grow old with Peggy Carter.

In “Far from Home,” Nick Fury and Maria Hill have recruited Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal) who has defeated the Earth Elemental that was causing a storm in Mexico.

Peter Parker is on the Midtown School of Science and Technology’s two-week summer field trip to Europe with Ned and MJ. During the vacation, a Water Elemental attacks and Parker protects his classmates, but Beck defeats the Elemental. Fury meets with Parker and gives him Tony Stark’s eyeglasses which give him the ability to communicate and command the artificial intelligence EDITH.

EDITH or Even Dead, I’m The Hero, is an artificial intelligence system that Tony Stark created that accesses Stark’s global security network, defense satellites, tactical drones and telecommunications backdoors.

This gives Parker access to Stark Industries’ databases and command of the large orbital weapons supply. But Parker still declines joining the fight against the Elementals, enjoying his time with Ned and becoming MJ’s boyfriend.

When Parker and Beck defeat a Fire Elemental together in Prague, Parker declines Fury’s invitation to go to Berlin where the formation of a new superhero team is being discussed. Instead, Parker gives Beck the glasses (and control of EDITH).  Beck is actually a former Stark Industries employee who has been using holographic illusions (the Elementals) to fool people into believing he’s a superhero.

Beck is defeated in London after Parker retrains control of EDITH and dies after telling an associate how to retrieve data from the drones that frame Parker for the drone attack and reveals Spider-Man’s secret identity.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Having been framed by Beck, Parker, MJ, Ned and Parker’s mother May are arrested by the Department of Damage Control. Parker, MJ and Ned have the MIT applications rejected and Parker reaches out to an Avengers’ teammate: Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch)  who has the New York Sanctum. He asks Strange to cast a spell so that everyone forgets Peter Parker is Spider-Man, but Parker makes a few tweaks to that Ned, MJ and May will remember who he is and retain their memories. The corrupted spell  results in villains being pulled into this universe just before their deaths. Parker steals a spell from Strange and traces him in the Mirror Dimension and while he attempts to help the villains, he is betrayed and his Aunt May dies.

Elsewhere Ned uses Strange’s sling ring as he and MJ try to locate their Spider-Man, but instead pull in alternate versions of Peter Parker: Peter-Two (Tobey Maguire) and Peter-Three (Andrew Garfield).

Ned unintentionally frees Strange and Strange and the three Spider-Men eventually defeat the villains. Everyone is returned to their own universe, but to protect the multiverse, Peter-One (Holland), allows Strange to erase himself from everyone’s memory. Two weeks later, he goes into the coffee shop where MJ is working, but decides against reintroducing himself to MJ and Ned.

The Punisher: One Last Kill (2026)

“Marvel’s The Punisher” was a TV series created for Netflix that ran from 2017 to 2019.  The main character, former Marine Frank Castle is a vigilante who fights the criminal underworld with big guns and other weapons because the deaths of his wife and children during a mass shooting that involved the Irish Mob, the Cartel and the Dogs of Hell.

“The Punisher” is no longer streaming on Netflix, but is cur renting available on Disney+.

The TV special “The Punisher: One Last Kill” has killed the last members of the Gnucci Crime Family who were involved in the murder of his family. Castle intends to commit suicide at his family’s gravesite. However, he sees his daughter Lisa and decides to live. He’s also imagines that his former friend Curtis Hoyle (Jason R. Moore) is following him, asking him what he will do with his life. He imagines another friend, Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), who consoles him.

When a group of criminals attack his apartment complex looking for him, he decides to protect a local shop owner and his family  and becomes a vigilante protector of people

Spider-Man: A New Day

The usual Marvel intro has been transformed to remind us of how Dr. Strange’s spell caused everyone to forget the existence of Peter Parker. Four years later, with MJ (Zendaya) and Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon) almost ready to graduate from MIT. MJ and Ned are roommates and Parker stalks them on social media.

Parker lives alone in a spacious apartment and talks with EDITH (Even Dead, I’m The Hero) while focusing solely on what Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) calls “small potatoes” crime, helping detective Jean DeWolff (Liza Colón-Zayas) clean up the streets. Parker is sometimes helped and other times hindered by Frank Castle, the Punisher. This Punishers is played more for comic relief hyper-masculine and his salty language is under control via some web slinging.

DeWolff and Parker are in constant contact via cellphone, but DeWolff points out they aren’t really friends: Parker doesn’t even know the names of her two kids. Both she and EDITH are concerned about Parker’s health.

Parker and the Punisher in his Battle Van take on a peculiar case where an unknown person is taking control of people’s minds and forcing them to do things. At first Parker thinks Mac Gargan/Scorpion (Michael Mando) is behind this because it happens on Scorpion’s moving day. Spider-Man had captured Scorpion and Gargan was placed under arrest in the 2017 film “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” Yet Spider-Man soon realizes that Scorpion isn’t behind this fourth attack on the Department of Damage Control  (DODC). Only Parker can see this entity as it jumps from one person to another, and he learns it is looking for something called V-Max.

Parker isn’t in a good mental space and something’s happening with his spider DNA. Parker has constant headaches and wrist pains. He’s taking normal OTC pain relief for a problem that is anything but normal. Eventually, he is able to generate organic webs, but he also has problems with increasingly sensitive hearing and anger management.

When you think anger management in the MCU, you automatically think Bruce Banner and Hulk. Banner is now a professor at the Empire State University teaching quantum mechanics. Banner now uses an inhibitor device to control his rage-activated gamma radiation green powers.

Parker begins to develop an inhibitor, but there are problems and during his test runs, he runs into the jumping entity who has already figured out where Parker’s heart lies and threatens MJ. MJ already has a new love interest (Eman Esfandi), and doesn’t remember him at all.

Writing partners Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers are able to tone down the Punisher and match the tonality. There are moments of emotional depth, but also humor which are adeptly handled by director Destin Daniel Cretton. The transitions between action, humor and melancholy are smooth and effortlessly handled by this cast.

I don’t think Spider-Man fans will be disappointed with the film and the two hours and 25 minutes pass by swiftly enough. This is part of a satisfying character arc of Peter Parker dealing with grief and growing up from an older teen to a young man. Holland’s Peter Parker still has that boyish charm, but he also finds his biggest enemy may be loneliness. In this, Parker and the Punisher are the same.

Of course, stay for the full credits for a post-credit scene.

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day had its world premiere at El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood and is scheduled for lease in the US on 31 July 2026. This is Phase Six of the MCU and the fourth film of the MCU Spider-Man and the 18th film in the MCU.