How Spider-Man: Brand New Day success proved superhero fatigue wasn't the problem — bad films were

The phrase 'superhero fatigue' has been circling our heads like a disgruntled Green Lantern for years now. Be it Marvel or DC, most superhero films released in recent memory have faded into oblivion almost as quickly as they arrived. Occasionally, one leaves a mark, Superman managed that much. But when it comes to Marvel, an alarming number of films and television shows have melded together into one congealed, indistinguishable mass.

After the high of Avengers: Endgame, Marvel grew more ambitious than ever. There was the slew of Disney+ shows, of which only WandaVision and Moon Knight remain genuinely memorable, Hawkeye and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier flew off without much of a goodbye, and the less said about the confusion that was She-Hulk, the better. Ms. Marvel held promise, but not enough to carry a strong feature film: The Marvels languished at the box office despite Brie Larson's best efforts.

Then there was the overtly ambitious Eternals, ironically, one of the most powerful stories in the comics, which crammed the tale of ten cosmic beings into two hours and was branded the "worst" Marvel film to date. And there were the frantic attempts at scrambling and unscrambling the multiverse, a device that felt genuinely novel in Spider-Man: No Way Home and turned stale almost immediately in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

The jokes grew trite, the plotlines flatlined, cameos were tossed in for their own sake and there was a palpable sense of dread when Robert Downey Jr. announced his Marvel return, not as Iron Man, but as Dr. Doom. As one frustrated fan put it: didn't we already say goodbye to him? Why does this feel like season 27 of a show that refuses to end?

And then, along came Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Tom Holland returned as our web-slinger after four years away, grittier and gloomier than we remembered him, but carrying a fresher, more grounded story. The film isn't without its flaws, but compared to Marvel's recent output, it felt far more riveting, particularly with the introduction of the X-Men's Jean Grey.

Ever since Endgame, Marvel has repeatedly returned to grief as a storytelling device. Few projects have wielded it as sharply as WandaVision, in which Wanda Maximoff, unable to process the loss of Vision in Infinity War, traps an entire town under a spell to build the life she never got to have. Grief also shadowed Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, as Peter Quill grapples with the loss of the Gamora he once knew, though the film's sheer volume of violence and spectacle dilutes the emotional weight considerably. With Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the audience grieved alongside the cast, for Chadwick Boseman, the original Black Panther.

In Brand New Day, Holland's Peter Parker is reeling from the fallout of Doctor Strange's spell in the previous film. Nobody remembers him, not MJ, the love of his life, not Ned, his best friend. His grief lives in the isolation of an ordinary, disconnected existence whenever he isn't out saving the world as Spider-Man.

He's holed up in a battered, decrepit New York loft, watching his friends move on with their lives as though he never existed. And when the emotions finally boil over, so do the powers.

Perhaps it's Holland's vivid, unguarded expressiveness, but the grief and sense of loss are genuinely painful to watch. Peter has waited years to tell MJ that he exists, and now he has to hear that she doesn't love him, because she doesn't know him at all. Yet the film never tips fully into melodrama. There are moments of real sweetness scattered throughout — his time with Ned and MJ, the flashes where he recovers his old smile and simply gets to laugh with friends again, the way the isolation gradually eases.

It's these unforced moments, the ones that don't lean on exposition to land, that make Brand New Day so watchable and genuinely affecting. You feel for Peter Parker in a way that's been increasingly rare for superheroes on screen lately, where dialogue too often buries itself in contrived exposition, demanding an emotional response the film hasn't actually earned.

One of the film's most bittersweet beats comes at the very end, when Peter walks out of the hospital after nearly dying. He sees crowds cheering him on, wishing him well, and is slowly comforted. He isn't as alone as he thought.

Sadie Sink's Jean Grey might complicate, or crack open, new corners of the multiverse, but her performance is a genuinely stellar, biting take on the telepathic mutant. This is a Jean Grey stripped of the kindness or softness seen in earlier films: raging, bitter, and vengeful, more powerful than can be easily comprehended, capable of entering another person's consciousness at will.

This version of the character is almost disturbing, if not outright heartbreaking. The outcome, Spider-Man ultimately pulling her back from grief, is predictable enough, but the build-up around her powers and backstory is genuinely unsettling. Jean is hunting for her sister, Sara, armed with only two words: "V-Max." When she finally understands what those words mean, the rage feels capable of burning down New York.

Sink leaves her mark here, as antagonist, and quite possibly future protagonist in a way that won't fade from memory easily. It's enough to generate real anticipation for what she does next, in Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is flawed, with its share of plot issues. But it was new enough, different enough, to have fans debating it for days, and strong enough to top box offices worldwide. Maybe it's simply the enduring charm and relatability of Spider-Man. Maybe it's the pairing of Tom Holland and Zendaya.

Or maybe, after years of fatigue, audiences were just waiting for a good film.