By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Spider-Man: Brand New Day just became Marvel’s latest successful blockbuster, one that only needed six days to earn over a billion dollars at the box office. Part of that movie’s draw is that we haven’t seen Tom Holland swing into action for half a decade, so audiences were naturally excited for his return. Fortunately, they won’t have to wait as long to see him again: while Spidey is supposed to be absent from Avengers: Doomsday, he is expected to make his triumphant return in Avengers: Secret Wars. And many believe that film is being hinted at in the post-credits scene for Brand New Day.
In that post-credits scene (and beware some mild spoilers for Brand New Day!), we see the Spidey-Tracker that Ned Leeds built. It allows users to report sightings of their friendly neighborhood web-head. Understandably, those sightings almost entirely occur in the New York area, but in this scene, the app glitches; suddenly, Spider-Man mysteriously appears somewhere in space. Most interpret this as a tease that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is fighting on Doom’s Battleworld. However, based on the Secret Wars comic, it’s far likelier that the Spider-Man that pops up on the tracker is actually Miles Morales!
Find Spider-Man? Yeah, There’s An App For That
The post-credits scene for Spider-Man: Brand New Day is clearly designed to make audiences speculate what is happening to Spider-Man. We’re forced to ask all the obvious questions: how did he get to space? Where is he, and what is he doing? So far, the prevailing theory is that he is fighting on Doctor Doom’s Battleworld. In the 2015 Secret Wars comic, we see that after our heroes fail, Doom brings them back to life in Battleworld. This is a kind of new dimension populated by characters from across the multiverse and ruled over by Doom himself.
Why, then, are many fans convinced that Ned’s tracker was picking up Miles Morales instead of Peter Parker? In that same Secret Wars comic, there is an incursion in which the 616 universe and the Ultimates universe are about to collide. In each reality, a version of Mr. Fantastic attempts to save many characters by taking them away in a spaceship. Miles Morales stows away on the ship in his own universe; eventually, he and the heroes and villains from both spaceships end up on Doom’s Battleworld. When the heroes defeat Doom, it resets reality, but with a few differences, including the fact that Miles is now part of the 616 universe.
Going Beyond The Spider-Verse
While Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars will obviously change a few things up, we know that these films are following the basics of that Secret Wars comic, like realities colliding, multiversal team-ups, and a final, reality-altering confrontation with Doctor Doom. Thanks to the post-credits scene of Thunderbolts, we know the MCU has already adapted another major plot point: namely, the Fantastic Four escaping their own doomed reality in a spaceship. That’s the ship that we see in Thunderbolts, and it’s entirely possible that, as in the comic, Miles Morales has stowed away aboard that ship. That would explain why Spider-Man suddenly appears in space on the Spidey-Tracker.
This isn’t a perfect theory, of course. As many have pointed out, the Spidey-Tracker works by people reporting sightings of Spider-Man. Assuming the tracker could even get reports from space, it’s hard to imagine Spidey having a superfan in space (Ms. Marvel, maybe?) who would report him. Still, this theory lines up with what happened in the comics to bring Miles Morales into the main universe. It integrates perfectly with the Thunderbolts post-credits scene and even lines up with Tom Holland’s repeated statements about wanting to bring Miles into the MCU.
So, will we actually see Miles Morales suit up and fight the minions of Doctor Doom? We won’t know until Tom Holland’s Spider-Man pops up again in Avengers: Secret Wars. In the comics, Battleworld provided the perfect excuse to have heroes and villains from different universes square off against one another. Honestly, there would never be a better time and place to give us a live-action Miles, and the universe reset at the end of Secret Wars could make him a permanent resident of the MCU. Will this specifically be the Spider-Verse Miles, though? We may find out in the aptly titled Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, which comes out ahead of Secret Wars on June 18, 2027.
