'Rebirth' Spider-Man Brand New Day trailer reveals Hulk team-up with Mark Ruffalo's return and darker story

Dubai: Five years is a long time to wait for your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man to return, but the first trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day has finally arrived and it was worth every second.

Tom Holland is back in the suit, the stakes are higher than ever, and somehow, the whole thing feels both deeply familiar and completely fresh at the same time.

A hero with nothing left to hold on to

Picking up four years after the events of No Way Home, Brand New Day finds Peter Parker in a strange and lonely place. Doctor Strange's spell worked, which means everyone, including MJ and his best friend Ned, has no idea who he is.

No memories, no history, no relationship to rebuild from. Peter has leaned all the way into being Spider-Man and essentially given up on being Peter Parker, protecting a city that does not even know his name.

The official synopsis puts it well: he has devoted himself entirely to protecting New York as a full-time Spider-Man, but as the pressure intensifies, something unexpected begins to happen to him physically. A strange new pattern of crimes is also emerging, pointing to one of the most powerful threats he has ever faced.

As the trailer itself puts it: "Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing, even if it breaks Peter Parker's heart."

When things start to go wrong

The trailer opens on a quietly heartbreaking image. Peter, unmasked, sits upside down on a skyscraper watching a video of MJ and Ned excitedly arriving at MIT, completely oblivious to the person they used to love. He masks up, tips backwards off the building, and we are off.

From there, we get a glimpse of Peter's new solo life: visiting the cafe where MJ works just to see her from a distance, washing his suit alone, watching a news bulletin where Spider-Man is handed the keys to the city while MJ and Ned watch the same story on TV with no idea of the connection.

Then things get strange. Peter's webs start cocooning around him, and his ability to shoot them begins failing.

A voiceover near the end draws on the three life cycles of a spider, how during certain phases the spider is at its most vulnerable, but that at the end of the process comes a kind of rebirth. In one striking shot, Peter's eyes go fully black. It is a bold visual and a clear signal that this film is taking his powers somewhere entirely new.

Familiar faces, and one big surprise

Zendaya is back as MJ, though she is expected to have a smaller role than in previous films given that, as far as she is concerned, Peter Parker simply does not exist. Jacob Batalon also returns as Ned, in the same situation.

The trailer's biggest moment of excitement, however, belongs to Mark Ruffalo. Bruce Banner is back in the MCU, and Peter apparently turns to him for help when his powers begin evolving in ways he cannot control. It is the kind of team-up that Marvel fans have been hoping for, and seeing the two of them share the screen is already generating a lot of buzz.

Jon Bernthal also makes a welcome return as the Punisher, and the trailer has a lot of fun with the character's notoriously colourful language, with Spidey cutting off a swear word mid-sentence with a well-placed bit of webbing. Michael Mando's Scorpion is back too, with a confrontation between him and Spider-Man teased for the film.

Newcomers to the MCU include Tramell Tillman and Liza Colon-Zayas, though their roles have not yet been revealed. Most intriguing of all is Sadie Sink, who has joined the cast in a role that is being kept completely under wraps. She does not appear in this trailer at all, which only adds to the speculation.

A different kind of Spider-Man story

The trailer has drawn comparisons to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, specifically an early shot of Peter sitting upside down against the Manhattan skyline that mirrors a similar image from the animated film. Whether that is intentional or coincidental is anyone's guess, but it is a striking visual either way.

Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, who previously helmed Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Brand New Day is Holland's final contracted standalone Spider-Man film and also serves as a prequel to the hugely anticipated Avengers: Doomsday arriving in December. Filming began in Scotland last August, with production briefly pausing after Holland sustained a mild concussion during a stunt. He was treated and recovered, and the film wrapped late last year.

When can you watch it?

Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings into cinemas on 31 July. If this trailer is anything to go by, it is going to be a very good summer for Marvel fans.

Areeba Hashmi is a trainee at Gulf News.