Biggest Criticism of Brand New Day’s Jean Grey Addressed By Spider-Man Writers
Perhaps the biggest mystery going into Spider-Man: Brand New Day was who Sadie Sink would be playing in the movie. Many had already suspected that she would be Jean Grey, but Disney was doing what it could to cast doubt in the minds of those who had that theory. Nevertheless, once Brand New Day hit theaters on July 31, the truth was revealed: Sink is indeed the MCU’s Jean Grey, and that will mean future returns for the character. This is an exciting prospect, as Jean Grey is easily one of the most powerful Marvel characters, and she will no doubt eventually be teaming up with myriad other X-Men. However, as thrilling as Jean Grey’s introduction was, Brand New Day also caused a bit of a problem for the character.
While many of Jean’s heinous actions were made at least a little more understandable when it was revealed that her sister Sara had been taken from her and then experimented on to the point of dying, one thing that fans do not seem willing to forgive is Jean forcing an innocent man to walk into traffic, seemingly killing him. Already, there has been speculation that the man may actually have survived, although that doesn’t totally resolve the issue that she did this in the first place, and many still aren’t convinced that the man could have lived. Now, the Brand New Day writers have weighed in on Jean Grey, drawing further speculation about what really happened to this man.
The Brand New Day Writers Don’t Believe Jean Grey Killed Anyone
As debates rage on regarding whether Jean Grey killed a man in Brand New Day, the movie’s writers, Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, have provided some new comments that directly indicate she didn’t. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sommers said, “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.”
That seems as clear an answer as any when it comes to whether this man ultimately survived being struck by the car, but that still doesn’t necessarily mean that audiences are going to be ready to forgive Jean Grey when they see her next. The writers are right, of course, that this character needed to seem like a threat in order to work—and she certainly did work—but that’s a difficult line to toe. Discourse online suggests that there are some who have taken issue with Jean Grey already, be it because of the incident with this man or because she controlled so many minds (or any of the other things she did throughout the movie).
Yet, as much as internet grumblings might indicate the opposite, the MCU fanbase is a generally forgiving bunch. After all, following Wanda Maximoff’s situation with Westview in WandaVision, audiences were still largely willing to welcome her back. That is, until she went on to try to kill a child and tortured and slaughtered who knows how many characters in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
