Spider-Man: Brand New Day set the stage for the Avengers and X-Men to fight on Earth-616 after Avengers: Doomsday for a very good reason that is entirely Peter Parker's fault. The Avengers and X-Men have been fighting in Marvel Comics since 1964, but the concept was truly popularized with 2012's blockbuster-scale AvX crossover event. 14 years later, fans will finally see Marvel's two premier superhero teams clash on the big screen this December in Avengers: Doomsday, as an Incursion looms between the MCU and Fox's OG X-Men universe.
Doomsday's trailer already hyped up Avengers vs. X-Men clashes between Yelena Belova and Mystique, and Shang-Chi and Gambit. The Multiversal event is expected to send off the old mutant guard, such as James Marsden's Cyclops, Patrick Stewart's Professor X, and Ian McKellen's Magneto, before the X-Men are rebooted on Earth-616 as part of the MCU's Phase 7.
Recently, Marvel Studios set the stage for its first X-Men movie in Spider-Man: Brand New Day by introducing Sadie Sink as Jean Grey, who serves as one of the movie's main antagonists as she seeks out her missing mutant sister. In a way, that makes Brand New Day a pseudo-AvX story, as Peter Parker is, of course, a former Avenger in the MCU, while this Jean Grey is yet to join the X-Men.
However, Brand New Day sets the stage for a much larger Avengers vs. X-Men conflict to come, thanks to Peter Parker's newest invention: mutant inhibitor chips. Inspired by Bruce Banner's own inhibitor that stops him from turning into the Hulk, Peter developed a universal inhibitor to use against Jean to suppress her telekinetic powers, and it has already fallen into the wrong hands.
Brand New Day also introduced Tramell Tillman as William Metzger, the director of Damage Control, who is eager to experiment on mutants to replicate their powers. Spidey handed his inhibitor technology over to Metzger, not knowing of his true evil intentions, to aid in Jean's imprisonment, and it may now be out in the wind as he had left his post and gone on the run by the end of Brand New Day.
Recent reports have claimed that Tillman will reprise Metzger in the MCU's first X-Men movie, presumably expanding his anti-mutant goals and experimentation, now free from the shackles of Damage Control bureaucracy. It's easy to theorize that he will continue to harness Parker's inhibitor technology, this time into the infamous collars that prevent mutants from using their powers.
Three years ago, before The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan ended Oppenheimer with Cillian Murphy's J. Robert Oppenheimer telling Albert Einstein that he believed they had "[started] a chain reaction that would destroy the entire world." In a way, Spider-Man just got his own Oppenheimer moment as he unknowingly created a technology that will one day torment mutantkind.
When that day comes, despite his originally heroic intentions, Spider-Man is bound to have enemies among the mutants, and his new friend/ally Jean Grey might not be able to protect him. Extremists like Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants could one day place a target on Spider-Man's back for his invention, viewing him as a threat to mutantkind, no better than Metzger or Sentinel creator Bolivar Trask.
Of course, Spider-Man is no longer an Avenger, as Sam Wilson, aka Captain America, is forming a new team for Doomsday, while Yelena Belova is leading her own New Avengers and dealing with "big potato stuff." Still, if the more extremist mutants discover that a former Avenger is to blame for these inhibitors, it will instigate the next clash between the X-Men and Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
Why Avengers vs. X-Men Must Be the Mutant Saga's Answer to Civil War
Once the MCU's Mutant Saga is finally underway and audiences have grown attached to these rebooted X-Men, a Spider-Man-induced face-off with the Avengers could be the next Captain America: Civil War. Yet another hero-on-hero battle would be the perfect way to throw the MCU into a state of disrepair all over again in the next saga before another Thanos-level baddie comes into play.
Marvel Comics' Avengers vs. X-Men event was all about the cosmic Phoenix Force and the so-called mutant messiah, Hope Summers. While Earth's Mightiest Heroes saw the Phoenix as a deadly, extinction-level threat, the X-Men saw its potential to revive mutantkind after Scarlet Witch wiped it out in House of M.
For the most part, the premise is simply too convoluted for the big screen, as it relies somewhat on a decade of prior Marvel storytelling and major events. Still, Marvel Studios could, as it did with Civil War, find a way to adapt the Avengers vs. X-Men premise in a completely original way for the MCU.
While the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man are viewed as celebrity heroes and cultural icons, the X-Men and mutants face fear, rejection, and systemic prejudice from society simply because they were born with their powers. Perhaps the most interesting way to approach a clash between the two superhero teams is to explore the cultural divide in how they are viewed.
If the X-Men reboot leans into mutant oppression as an analogy for real-world prejudice, such an event could be the perfect culmination of the narrative. Spider-Man's latest invention could be the catalyst that forces heroes to choose sides (largely splitting between the Avengers and X-Men), before the Earth's Mightiest Heroes ultimately wake up to the oppression they have been blind to.
