The MCU is about to begin its long-awaited mutant chapter much sooner than fans expected. While Marvel Studios has spent years laying the groundwork behind the scenes following Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox, 2026 is now shaping up to be the start of the MCU's X-Men era. In fact, that transition begins this summer, a surprise to many fans, as it's well before the legacy X-Men stars return in Avengers: Doomsday.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is quietly doing something massive for the MCU, and a single subtitle card in the second trailer is the proof. At around the 53-second mark of the second Brand New Day trailer, the captions confirm that Tramell Tillman is playing William Metzger, an X-Men villain whose entire identity in the comics centers on his hatred of mutants.
While that may sound like a small detail, it is not. This is the first time an X-Men-specific character has been confirmed to exist in the MCU's primary universe, Earth-199999 (or Earth-616), and it could be a hint of big changes the universe will soon be undergoing.
In the first Brand New Day trailer, the closed captions only listed Tillman's character as "Bill," which was enough to fuel strong speculation but not an outright confirmation. Anyone could be named Bill after all. The second trailer gave fans the second piece of the puzzle: Metzger is here, he is real, and he is inside the MCU's main timeline.
Up until now, every X-Men figure audiences have encountered in the MCU has come with an asterisk. Patrick Stewart's Professor X appeared in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as a variant from Earth-838. Kelsey Grammer's Beast turned up in The Marvels, but only after Teyonah Parris' Monica Rambeau got displaced to an alternate reality.
Deadpool & Wolverine brought Hugh Jackman's Wolverine and Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool into the fold, along with Cassandra Nova, Gambit, X-23, and others, but none of those characters were native to Earth-199999.
It is also worth noting that Metzger never appeared in any of the 20th Century Fox X-Men films, so Brand New Day will mark his first live-action appearance entirely.
In Brand New Day, Metzger appears to hold a leadership position within the Department of Damage Control, the government agency that played a notable role in Spider-Man: No Way Home and most recently appeared in the Disney+ series Wonder Man.
In the comics, Metzger first appeared in X-Men: Children of the Atom #1, where he led the Anti-Mutant Militia, which many believe Tillman's new character could be establishing a version of through the DODC.
Back to the pages, his story ended when Magneto took matters into his own hands, something that Charles Xavier would never do, lifting Metzger into the atmosphere and hurling him into the void.
We'll see if the MCU version of the character ultimately suffers a similar fate, though there's no reason to think this will be Tillman's only MCU appearance.
In fact, early reports from Nexus Point News indicated that Tillman signed a multi-picture deal, which suggests Metzger's role in the MCU could extend well beyond this film. That lines up nicely with the future 2028 X-Men reboot plans, and the not-so-secret mutant also debuting in Brand New Day.
Who is Metzger After in Brand New Day?
In the new trailer, Tillman's Metzger is heard talking to Spider-Man about a threat that Damage Control cannot handle, something invisible and seemingly unstoppable. A very similar scene and voiceover were heard during the first trailer back in March.
That danger shrouded in darkness (literally) is almost certainly the character Stranger Things' Sadie Sink is playing, who has been kept out of the light in both official trailers but is confirmed to not only be in the film, but to be one of its stars.
Sink's character appears to have powerful mind-jumping abilities, using them to turn people against Peter, including Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner, who will transform back into the Savage (Grey?) Hulk.
Many insiders and fans have reported and theorized that she is playing Jean Grey, the iconic X-Men telepath, of which there have already been two live-action film iterations in the 21st century (Famke Janssen and Sophie Turner).
While there's still room for speculation, the confirmation that Willman is playing Metzger makes Jean's introduction even more likely.
The DODC is hunting down a young mutant, and Spider-Man is caught between them, building the MCU toward an X-Men universe on Earth-19999. 2026 is a significant year for the X-Men, but the foundation it is building could mean so much more later in the 2020s and early 2030s.
