Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s Avenger Cameo Means So Much More Than You Think

Bruce Banner’s appearance in Spider-Man: Brand New Day has been heavily advertised throughout the film’s promotion, but it was a complete surprise that a totally different Avenger appeared in the film. Brand New Day is a film well-populated with Marvel characters, as it not only features Spider-Man and Hulk, but also other heroes and villains like the Punisher, the Hand, Scorpion, Tombstone, and more. However, one of the most notable MCU characters in the film only has a small role, which is surprising considering the direction that the story goes.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day has finally hit theaters, bringing Tom Holland’s take on Spidey back to the big screen for the first time since 2021’s No Way Home. Despite nobody remembering who Peter Parker is, more notable MCU characters know who Spider-Man is than ever, with him forging new relationships with villains and heroes alike. One of the most interesting of these connections is to one of the franchise’s biggest Avengers from the Multiverse Saga.

Yelena & Jean Grey Have A Lot More In Common Than You Think

That’s right, Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova appears in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, marking her first appearance since 2025’s Thunderbolts* and her last appearance ahead of her starring role in Avengers: Doomsday. After Peter discovers that the film’s mystery villain is hopping from mind to mind, he decides to go to his closest connection with knowledge on mind control: Yelena. Considering her history with the Red Room, this isn’t a bad choice. However, Yelena simply tells him that the villain is using something more akin to possession than mind control, bringing him to another dead end.

Later in the film, Peter discovers that the mystery villain is Sadie Sink’s mystery character, Jean Grey. In an attempt to discover what the X-Men icon is after, he meets with Yelena again, who informs him that she is searching for her sister, Sarah Grey. This is the end of Yelena’s involvement with the story of Brand New Day, which is surprising, as she has a lot more in common with Jean than the film initially lets on.

If you’ll remember, 2021’s Black Widow is a deep dive into the history of Yelena and her sister, Natasha Romanoff, something that would go on to define Yelena’s character trajectory in the rest of the MCU. Yelena, like Jean, is the younger sister of a powerful character who is taken and abused by a powerful organization. Both sets of sisters are on their own, as they have tough relationships with their parents. Both sets of sisters consist of one sibling with blonde hair and one sibling with red hair. Plus, Yelena and Jean both start out their superhero careers by committing crimes and making more morally grey choices than the typical hero would.

It’s Shocking That Brand New Day Never Addresses Yelena & Jean’s Parallels

Considering all of the aforementioned parallels between Jean and Yelena, it is shocking that the new Black Widow wouldn’t want to get involved in Spidey’s quest. Yelena dedicated an entire movie to bringing down the Red Room in an attempt to stop them from doing what they did to her to anyone else. Yelena is the one who discovered the existence of Sarah, meaning that she is knowledgeable about what the DODC has done to both of them. So, even if the potatoes aren’t big enough for the New Avengers to handle, they should be personal enough for Yelena to get involved with.

Instead, Brand New Day doesn’t make a point to acknowledge these parallels at all, which is odd considering how smart the rest of the script is. The other MCU cameos aren’t just thrown in for no reason. Instead, it’s because the characters have thematic connections to Spidey’s journey. Bruce Banner makes Peter ask the question of whether or not it is moral to repress mutations, and Frank’s isolation and the damage it has caused are used as a dark reflection of the path that Peter is going down early in the film. Yelena, however, has no thematic connection to the story that the film acknowledges, even if there is a major one that seemingly goes unnoticed.

Yelena’s role in Brand New Day is one of the few flaws in the movie, something that could have been remedied by just a mention of these parallels. However, it is still nice to see all of these heroes together for the first time, even if they weren’t brought together perfectly.

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