A new promo for Spider-Man: Brand New Day has caught the attention of many longtime Marvel Comics fans, setting up Sadie Sink's Jean Grey and the Phoenix Force. Brand New Day is the biggest movie of 2026 so far and has gone on one of the greatest box-office runs in Hollywood history. Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is, of course, the star of the show, but MCU newcomer Jean takes center stage right alongside him. The film doubles as a partial origin story for the young mutant, one that will pick back up when the X-Men get their own MCU reboot in 2028.
In a recent behind-the-scenes promo shared by IGN, Spider-Man: Brand New Day choreographer Nathan Kim opened up about Jean's big climactic moment, still hunting for "V-Max." The scene finds her being brutally experimented on by the Department of Damage Control (DODC) boss Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman).
It's a haunting moment, one that felt familiar to X-Men fans, as the young mutant's telepathic powers are manipulated and the mind-hopping seen throughout Brand New Day becomes forceful.
According to Kim, the sequence needed to feel like someone else was calling the shots, with Jean "being taken over" in the process:
"For the climax of the film, it needed to feel like she was being taken over and losing control of her own power and that it was being manipulated by outside forces."
On the surface, those "outside forces" are the DODC and their crazy contraptions, which can cause the violent movement, a focus of Sink's actions in the promo.
But for anyone who has read X-Men comics over the past 50 years, Kim's description sounds an awful lot like the first tease of the MCU's Phoenix Force trying to take control.
For those without a deep knowledge of X-Men stories, the Phoenix Force is a cosmic entity tied to the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, and Jean is its most famous host.
As revealed in 1981's Bizarre Adventures #27, Jean's powers first surfaced when she unintentionally linked telepathically to the dying mind of her best friend, Annie Richardson. Jean tried to protect Annie's soul as the darkness closed in around them, only to snap back into her own body, cradling her friend's corpse.
It was an impressive display of power for someone so young, but it was also killing her. Jean could suddenly hear other people's thoughts, and she couldn't shut them out. A classic mutant tale, in need of guidance from a certain professor.
To keep her from being dragged into the afterlife with her friend, the Phoenix lent Jean a bit of its power to break the connection. It watched over her from then on, until a fateful space shuttle crash years later, when it offered Jean its power again, and she became the Phoenix.
In some ways, Brand New Day seems to follow a similar blueprint, with Jean's sister, Sara Grey (Olivia Booth-Ford), acting as a stand-in for Annie. Sara died while being experimented on by Metzger, and Jean unintentionally saw her sister's last moments through their telepathic link.
When Jean finally realized the truth and what V-Max actually meant, she was close to dying the same way herself. That's when she suddenly got a massive power boost, one that also unlocked her telekinesis, taking the handcuffs off herself without moving a muscle. She also very scarily then used that upgraded powerset to grab Metzger, lock him in the chair, and hold shards of glass to his face.
If the MCU keeps borrowing from the comics, that boost may have been the Phoenix lending Jean its power in her time of need, just like it's done before on the page.
Another important note that many forget is that the Phoenix Force isn't inherently evil. In the comics, the Dark Phoenix only emerged after the villainous Hellfire Club messed with Jean's mind extensively in an attempt to control her.
That would explain why Jean acts the way she does in Brand New Day, with her grief and anger over Sara's death being amplified. It's odd how in the MCU, Jean starts as a villain, then turns into a hero, without any direct reference to the Phoenix needed.
Hopefully, the MCU slow-burns the actual Phoenix arc, as it's already been done twice on the big screen at 20th Century Fox, neither of which was received well by the fans.
Jean Grey's Twisted MCU Future
Anyone who saw the new Spider-Man movie knows that Jean's MCU origin is already a big change-up from what it's typically been, and that's a good thing after Famke Janssen and Sophie Turner have already taken turns playing her in live action over the past 26 years.
Her powers got a shake-up, too, with Sink's Jean starting out weaker than her comic counterpart, but as discussed, clearly got a push in the right direction from an outside source, leveling up by the closing credits of Brand New Day.
The more alarming element of this new mutant story is that many fans feel Jean was maybe a bit too evil in Brand New Day to suddenly become a hero. She now truly has a dark past, with devious acts like possessing Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) to attack Damage Control, having random pedestrians get run over by a car, and nearly killing MJ (Zendaya), all while torturing Peter.
Still, Sink told Variety that what makes the X-Men special is that "they are all incredibly flawed and maybe have done bad things." It'll soon be director Jake Schreier's turn to lead the next X-Men team onto the big screen, with built-in interest after so many fans saw Brand New Day and are excited for the future of Jean and the rest of her classmates.
