Spoilers ahead for Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Folks who spent years watching the Marvel movies in order now find that some franchises are fan favorites. Chief among them are the Spider-Man movies, and fans were recently treated to the record-breaking release of Brand New Day. Folks have really responded to Sadie Sink's debut as Jean Grey, although there's an online debate about whether or not she's a murderer in the film. And after one of the writers weighed in, the discourse has gotten even hotter. Let's break it all down.
Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox finally opened the door for the X-Men to join the MCU, and they've been slowly peppered in through various projects on the big screen or streaming with a Disney+ subscription. And while it was thrilling that we've got a new Jean Grey, her actions in the first half of the movie have some fans upset that she was seemingly a killer. Let's break it all down.
What Brand New Day's Writer Said About Jean
Throughout most of Brand New Day, Jean is shown possessing people's bodies with her telepathic abilities. She goes to extreme lengths while on the search for her sister Sara, including making MJ jump off a building. But the most debated moment is when she made a man back into traffic, resulting in him getting hit hard by a taxi. It looked like he wouldn't survive that collision, but it wasn't confirmed or denied whether he actually died.
During an interview with THR, writer Erik Sommers addressed Jean's villainous actions throughout the new Spider-Man movie. Regarding whether or not she actually killed anyone, he responded with:
I think technically, she’s not responsible for any deaths. But you come away with the impression, certainly, that she’s caused a lot of destruction in mayhem. Even if you’re going to have a villain who really is redeemed at the end or goes through a transformation, you have to start them off in a place where they feel formidable.
There you have. it. While the actual contents of Brand New Day left this question ambiguous, the writer maintains that Sadie Sink's character didn't actually kill anyone throughout the movie's 145-minute runtime. Of course, this hasn't stopped fans from debating the issue online. In fact, it might have added fuel to the fire of the Jean discourse.
Marvel Fans Have Been Debating Whether She's A Killer Or Not
While Sommers maintains that "technically" Jean isn't responsible for any deaths in Brand New Day, there are a ton of fans who disagree. The guy who got hit by a cab is the biggest reason why, but other folks think that she must have killed at least a few people when freezing half of the city in the movie's third act. You can see some popular tweets about the subject below:
- Jean Grey in Spider-Man Brand New Day 1000% killed that one dude hit by a car, and likely more.
- I feel like the issue is more on what the writers chose to do and the lack of consequences for it. They made a deliberate choice to have Jean grey kill people and then didn’t address it.
- Don't believe you lying eyes people. Sorry, we saw what Jean did. The dude was fucking pancaked by the taxi, ambiguous as to other deaths.
- jean grey is mass murderer
- ok so is literally every other hero in the mcu. what now?
Despite the movie coming out weeks ago, fans are still debating Brand New Day's contents. Some are sure that Jean killed people in the movie, while others maintain that even if she did it's not a deal-breaker for the future X-Men. After all, The Avengers don't have the strict no-kill rule of DC heroes like Batman and Superman. We've seen heroes like Iron Man and Wanda take human lives before, either on purpose or accidentally. So maybe Jean killing a few people isn't as big of a deal as some folks are making it out to be.
We'll just have to wait for whenever Jean returns in upcoming Marvel movies, and if her actions in New York are addressed. An X-Men movie is coming, with Brand New Day's ending hinting that she was heading upstate where Xavier's mansion is typically located.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters now as part of the 2026 movie release list. The next MCU blockbuster will be Avengers: Doomsday on December 18th. We'll just have to wait and see if Peter Parker ends up having a role.
