Marvel Studios has just given one of its main heroes a serious sequel upgrade, making it the 14th time an MCU character has leveled up in a follow-up film. The early days of the MCU were built on origin stories, introducing audiences to Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man. Since then, plenty of MCU characters have added to their skillsets (or tool kits) in sequels and crossovers, typically gaining new powers and abilities or wielding a new weapon. One of those major sequel evolutions just happened in the biggest movie of the summer.
By the end of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) stops fighting what he's become. Earlier in the movie, Peter built an inhibitor chip modeled on the same Hulk-suppression tech Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) used on himself, looking to stop his headaches and suppress his growing arachnid DNA.
By the climax, though, he takes the chip off (for good, seemingly) and lets the mutation take over naturally. That decision comes with a climactic exchange with Jean Grey (Sadie Sink), who says he needs to decide whether he's Peter Parker or Spider-Man.
Rather than choose, Peter answers "Both," accepting that the two identities aren't separate halves, and for the first time, he is in control of his new intense spider-like abilities.
With the inhibitor gone, his powers shoot up across the board. His strength gets a major boost, letting him overpower The Hand, but also not hurt them in a blind rage. Earlier in the film, he nearly killed a cop when he let the mutating rage take him over while fighting the Scorpion (controlled by Jean).
He also gains the ability to generate organic webbing straight from his wrists, ditching his mechanical web-shooters for something that comes from his own mutated body instead. This was shown earlier in the film, but in these final moments, fans get to see Peter actually be in control of the extreme amount of webbing he can now naturally produce.
His senses sharpen too, though the film makes clear that's a double-edged sword; without the inhibitor dulling the input, Peter has to learn to process it all at once instead of getting overwhelmed by it.
The most visible sign of the change is his eyes. Throughout the movie, Peter's eyes had been turning completely black whenever his spider genes surged. In the final act, that effect starts moving in and out on its own, flickering between his normal eyes and the full blackness, as he learns to channel the surge himself.
It all adds up to one of the biggest power upgrades the MCU has handed a hero coming out of a sequel. Peter doesn't just get stronger; he gets an entirely new relationship with his own powers. While this is one of the biggest modern upgrades to an MCU hero, he's certainly not the first for this to happen to him in a sequel or crossover event.
Biggest MCU Character Sequel Upgrades
Thor - Stormbreaker
Thor (Chris Hemsworth) pulled off one of the best entrances in MCU history with his power upgrade in Avengers: Infinity War. Needing a weapon strong enough to kill Thanos, Thor travels to Nidavellir with Rocket and Groot to find Eitri (Peter Dinklage) and forge Stormbreaker.
The process requires the heat of a dying star to power the forge, and Groot gives up his own arm, becoming the weapon's handle. That (momentary) sacrifice pays off when Thor arrives in Wakanda mid-battle, axe in hand, and delivers an Iconic MCU line: "Bring me Thanos!"
Iron Man - Nano Armor
Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is responsible for one of the more divisive upgrades in MCU history: the nanotech suit. Plenty of fans still aren't sold on the look, arguing the smooth, CGI-heavy armor lacks the personality of his earlier, more mechanical designs. But there's no denying how useful it is throughout Infinity War and Endgame.
Steve Rogers - Mjolnir
Few payoffs in the MCU hit as hard as Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) picking up Mjolnir. The seed gets planted all the way back in Avengers: Age of Ultron, then four years later, Endgame cashes that moment in for real, with Steve summoning Mjolnir and its lightning mid-battle against Thanos, shield in one hand and hammer in the other.
"I knew it." - Thor
Now, the first Avengers: Doomsday trailer has already revealed Steve wielding Mjolnir once again, proof that he's still more than worthy.
Groot - Alpha Groot
Groot saves his biggest transformation for the mid-credits scene of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Once the main story wraps, the scene jumps to a new team: Rocket, Groot, Kraglin, Cosmo, Adam Warlock, and Phyla, suited up in classic comic-accurate uniforms.
When a stampede of hostile creatures closes in, Groot is revealed as a massive, Hulk-sized new form to help fight them off. There, King (or Alpha) Groot made his MCU debut.
Kraglin - Yondu Arrow
Kraglin (Sean Gunn) could barely hold his own in a fight before inheriting Yondu's old weapon. After Yondu sacrifices himself in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Rocket repairs his shattered Yaka Arrow and gives it to Kraglin.
It takes until the Knowhere battle in Vol. 3 for him to get good, guided by a vision of Yondu telling him to use his heart. From there, the arrow becomes a lethal weapon once more, as previously seen through the Guardians films.
Shuri - Artificial Black Panther Powers
Shuri (Letitia Wright) becomes Black Panther in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever by doing what nobody in Wakanda could pull off before her: building the powers from scratch. With the original heart-shaped herb destroyed, Shuri initially fails to recreate it until she notices the Talokans have their own vibranium-mutated plant that lets them breathe underwater.
Using that as a blueprint, she finally synthesizes her own version of the herb and drinks it... Taking a dark path to become the new Black Panther.
Wanda - Darkhold
Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) has the scariest power upgrade on this list, and it doesn't come from a weapon or a lab accident. It comes from a book.
WandaVision ends with Wanda discovering the Darkhold, an ancient text bursting at the seams with chaos magic. That's the thread Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness pulls on, showing Wanda fully consumed by the Darkhold's corruption and transformed into a version of the Scarlet Witch that would make any hero squirm.
Ant-Man - Go Big
"Does anyone have any orange slices?"
Paul Rudd's Scott Lang is behind one of the most purely fun power upgrades in MCU history. During the airport battle in Captain America: Civil War, Scott reveals he's been holding out on everyone, activating a growth function in his suit that turns him into a multi-story-tall Giant-Man in the middle of the fight.
Loki - God of Stories
Loki (Tom Hiddleston) gets a power upgrade in Loki Season 2 that's less about strength and more about scale. In the finale, he chooses to hold every branching timeline together by himself for eternity, sitting alone at the end of time so the multiverse can keep growing safely.
Whether that new status plays into Avengers: Doomsday remains to be seen, but Marvel Studios clearly isn't done with him.
Sam Wilson - Cap Shield
Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) spends most of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier wrestling with whether he even wants the shield, let alone knows how to use it. By the finale, he finally commits, taking on the Captain America mantle and holding his own, using the shield alongside his wings for the first time.
That combo gets pushed even further in Captain America: Brave New World, where Sam's flight gear and the shield work together in new and unique ways, much different than even Steve's shield usage.
Monica Rambeau - Spectrum Powers
Teyonah Parris' Monica Rambeau first gains her powers in WandaVision, walking through Wanda's Hex and emerging able to see the electromagnetic spectrum, absorb energy, and fly.
The Marvels pushes all of that to its absolute limit. In the climax, Monica has to seal a breach in space by absorbing the combined energy of Carol Danvers and Kamala Khan and releasing it as one massive, sustained blast. It works, but the process traps her on the other side of the rupture, stuck in an alternate reality.
Bucky - Super Soldier Serum / Mechanical Arm
Not every sequel power upgrade in the MCU is something a hero asks for. Bucky (Sebastian Stan) gets turned into the Winter Soldier against his will, captured, and brainwashed by HYDRA. They pump him full of a Soviet version of the super soldier serum and replace his lost arm with a mechanical one.
By the time Captain America: The Winter Soldier picks up his story decades later, Bucky is already a fully weaponized, borderline unstoppable version of the man Steve once knew.
Rhodey - War Machine Armor
James Rhodes (Terrance Howard) spends much of Iron Man watching Tony fly around in a suit, but not getting to suit up himself.
Rhodey (now played by Don Cheadle) finally gets his wish in Iron Man 2, swiping one of Tony's old armors at his birthday party and, with some help from Justin Hammer's tech, turning it into the full-blown War Machine suit fans know today.
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