Spider-Man: Brand New Day's Post-Credits Confirms Tom Holland's MCU Future

WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Sony and Marvel's Spider-Man: Brand New Day doesn't include a typical post-credits scene — that is, a scene explicitly setting up a future movie — but it does have a different kind of teaser at the very end of the credits for dedicated audience members. Since the MCU's very first movie, Marvel Studios has, more often than not, included credits scenes teasing their upcoming releases, but Brand New Day breaks from this tradition.

At the moment, the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies are in a strange place. The only upcoming films with release dates are Avengers: Doomsday, Avengers: Secret Wars and the recently announced Ghost Rider and Black Panther 3. As a result, there's only so many movies Brand New Day could set up, especially since Marvel and Sony have yet to confirm Spider-Man 5. Given that Ghost Rider and Black Panther 3 are new additions to Marvel's slate, that leaves the two upcoming Avengers movies.

Instead of including a post-credits scene like Thunderbolts*, which directly set up Doomsday, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has a much different kind of tease. In the early credits, the movie features shots around New York City. Then at the very end, the Spidey Tracker developed by Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon) appears, showing Spider-Man in Queens. The app loses track of his location, and after scanning Earth, the tracker eventually locates Spider-Man somewhere in space, though not before glitching a few times.

After a few seconds, the film cuts to something that's sure to be familiar to long-time MCU audiences. It's a black screen with white text that reads, "Spider-Man will return." There's no indication of what MCU movie Spider-Man will return in, but this is confirmation enough that Tom Holland's Peter Parker will be back, and the Spidey Tracker tease offers us a hint about where and when that will be.

Where Is Spider-Man?

There are a few possibilities about where Spider-Man could be located for the tracker to register him in space. The tracker doesn't land on a specific planet, all we see is it pinpointing somewhere in space. However, we also see the tracker glitch before it finds Spider-Man again, which could indicate the tracker is jumping around the multiverse somehow. So, let's discuss all the possibilities of where Spider-Man could be.

Fighting Doctor Doom

It may be that the Spider-Man: Brand New Day post-credits tease is setting up Avengers: Doomsday, and we'll see Peter Parker return to space or travel the multiverse to help fight Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.). At the moment, very little is known about where the majority of Doomsday will take place. We know that the film will visit the X-Men universe, and New York City in the main MCU universe. But while The Fantastic Four ship has been seen in space, we haven't actually seen a space setting in the Avengers: Doomsday trailer.

We also haven't received confirmation from Marvel Studios that Holland's Spider-Man will appear in Doomsday. When the studio announced the cast of Avengers: Doomsday, Holland was noticeably absent. There were rumors at the time that he wouldn't show up because Brand New Day takes place at the same time. While we know that's not necessarily true, since Yelena doesn't mention The Fantastic Four ship or Doom, Brand New Day does offer an explanation for why Spidey may not be in Doomsday: he's small potatoes.

So the Brand New Day credits tease is either setting up a surprise Spider-Man appearance in Avengers: Doomsday, or it's teeing up something else.

Another Earth In The Multiverse

As we know from Spider-Man: No Way Home, there's more than one Spider-Man across the MCU multiverse. Perhaps the Spidey Tracker picked up a Spider-Man variant on another Earth — Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man 2 or Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man 3 (or someone else). These Spider-Man variants have appeared in the MCU before and could theoretically be the Spider-Man who will return next, before Holland's iteration.

It's also possible that Spider-Man 1 has somehow been transported to another Earth in the multiverse, one that's on a collision course with the main universe's home planet. After all, incursions (when two universes within the multiverse collide) were set up as a major threat earlier in the Multiverse Saga, and may still lead to Avengers: Secret Wars. It could be that Doomsday ends with incursions destroying the multiverse, and Spider-Man comes into play because he's on one of the colliding Earths.

Or Spider-Man could be somewhere else related to Secret Wars.

Battleworld

Perhaps the most obvious explanation for where Spider-Man is in the Brand New Day credits tease is Battleworld. It plays a key role in Marvel's Secret Wars comics events, both the one published in 1984, and the more recent one from 2015, though there are certain differences. In the 1984 comic, Battleworld is where heroes fought for the amusement of the Beyonder, whereas in the 2015 comic, it's a world created and ruled by Doom out of the remnants of the multiverse.

It's presumed that Avengers: Secret Wars will visit Battleworld in some fashion, like the comics the movie is adapting, so if Spider-Man appears in that film, he could show up on that planet. The Spidey Tracker's location being Battleworld also explains why it's somewhere random in space, because it's an amalgamation of universes from across the multiverse, so it wouldn't necessarily be near Earth.

If it is Battleworld, that would mean we may not see Holland's Spider-Man again until Secret Wars releases in late 2027, rather than this December in Doomsday.

When Will Spider-Man Return?

As indicated previously, the two most obvious films for Spider-Man to return in are Avengers: Doomsday and/or Avengers: Secret Wars. While it's possible that Holland could appear in Doomsday, the movie already has a wildly stacked roster of superheroes. It makes little sense to have too many surprise heroes show up before Secret Wars because that means Marvel Studios would have to pay those actors for both movies, rather than just one.

There's also a story reason given in Brand New Day to explain Spider-Man's absence from Doomsday: He's a 'small potatoes' superhero, and Doctor Doom is presumably a 'big potatoes' situation. It may not make complete sense for Spider-Man to sit out Doomsday — he is, after all, exceptionally strong and has a history of teaming up with the Avengers to fight major threats like Thanos — but Yelena's appearance in Brand New Day gives audiences an in-universe reason for why he may not appear.

It's much more likely that Spider-Man won't return until Avengers: Secret Wars. The movie is expected to be an even bigger event than Avengers: Endgame, uniting heroes from across the Marvel movie and TV multiverse, and it's all but guaranteed that Holland's superhero will show up. Besides, if Spider-Man were going to show up in Doomsday, Marvel could've had "Spider-Man will return in Avengers: Doomsday" at the end, like The Fantastic Four credits scene.

Of course, it could be argued that Sony and Marvel may be trying to keep Holland's appearance in Doomsday a secret, but it's also possible that they're trying to keep his lack of inclusion a secret. At the very least, we can expect Holland's Spider-Man to return in Avengers: Secret Wars, if not sooner, and the Spider-Man: Brand New Day post-credits tease confirms that when he does show up again, he won't be in Queens anymore.