Spoiler Alert for Spider-Man: Brand New Day
With mutants emerging, cosmic threats rising, and the multiverse cracking open, the MCU stands poised with an expanded team of heroes ready to tackle what new universal threats may come their way. And if so, one particular Spider‑character may be positioned for a major debut.
To understand how this character fits into the MCU’s future, we need to look at the organization that quietly filled the void left by the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.: S.W.O.R.D.
S.W.O.R.D. is the “Sentient World Observation and Response Division.” In the comics it is a branch of S.H.I.E.L.D., but in the wake of the events of the first Avengers film (2012) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), it stands to reason that S.W.O.R.D. was the next step in revolutionizing Earth’s defenses.
S.W.O.R.D. since WandaVision, and the Mutant Connection
S.W.O.R.D. was established in the MCU during the events of WandaVision, where we saw Tyler Hayward as its Acting Director. For those unfamiliar with corporate language, “Acting” denotes someone temporarily filling the role until someone else can be officially selected for the position. In the comics, the person to assume the position is Abigail Brand, a half-human, half-alien mutant. Brand started as a S.W.O.R.D. agent and quickly moved up the ranks.
When S.W.O.R.D. is first introduced in the comics, it’s mentioned that they have an undercover informant in Professor X’s school. It turns out that the informant is Lockheed, Kitty Pryde’s pet dragon.
Why this is key: S.W.O.R.D., like S.H.I.E.L.D., has ears everywhere. It stands to reason that with an emerging threat like mutants looming on the horizon, S.W.O.R.D. would want as much insider information as possible. Additionally, Metzger – the anti‑mutant antagonist introduced in Brand New Day – getting away at the end of the movie suggests that we haven’t seen the last of him. It can also reasonably be assumed that Jean Gray taking a bus somewhere away from NYC will eventually find her way to the infamous Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.
If Lockheed is indeed a S.W.O.R.D. informant, then the X‑Men’s first MCU mission may involve direct contact with S.W.O.R.D. – not as enemies, but as uneasy allies navigating a rising mutant threat.
Spider-Woman’s Comic Origins and Her MCU Debut
Here is where the theory takes shape – connecting Jessica Drew’s, AKA Spider‑Woman, comic origins to the MCU’s ramp up to Doomsday and Secret Wars!
Why did I choose a Spider-person? Because the cut scene after the credits at the end of Spider-Man: Brand New Day. It was a shot of Ned’s ‘Spidey Tracker’ app signaling that there had been a new sighting of an unknown Spider-person, and that it was out in space. Which immediately raises the question; who could be in space, that would have Ned’s app? Possibly a member of the X-Men aboard Peak. (Note: Peak is the name of the S.W.O.R.D. space station.)
Jessica Drew was recruited to S.W.O.R.D. by Abigail Brand, because Drew’s reputation on Earth had been irreparably damaged by the Skrull Veranke during the comic book events of Secret Invasion.
Jessica’s first mission as a new S.W.O.R.D. agent was in Madripoor, to locate a Skrull posing as Spider-Man. While there she has run-ins with Hydra and the Thunderbolts. Taken together, these Madripoor breadcrumbs suggest Marvel is quietly positioning the city as a nexus for espionage and mutants. The ones that immediately come to mind are:
–The Power Broker, from The Falcon & Winter Soldier Series;
–One of the supporting characters in Ironheart mentions being from Madripoor; and
–In Deadpool & Wolverine, when Deadpool is jumping timelines looking for Logan, he happens upon Patch, who is one of Logan’s alter-egos in Madripoor.
The Wundagore Factor
Jessica’s father, Jonathan Drew, worked with Dr. Herbert Wyndham, who later becomes the High Evolutionary (the main antagonist in Guardians of the Galaxy 3). Jonathan and Dr. Wyndham worked and lived near Mt. Wundagore, due to its natural Uranium deposits their experiments required. However, the constant exposure to Uranium made Jessica deathly ill. In efforts to save her, her father injected her with an untested concoction of several species of spider genes after studying their regenerative properties. When the serum proved to be effective, but not timely enough, Jonathan sealed Jessica in a genetic accelerator that placed her into a kind of stasis. The accelerator sped up the regenerative properties of the spider genes, while slowing the damage caused by the Uranium exposure, enough to fully cure Jessica of her ailment. However, while successful, this process took decades. This decades long stasis is what gave Jessica Drew her powers. And while how she gained her powers isn’t wholly significant, the connection to Mt. Wundagore can’t be completely written off as it’s the location that Wanda Maximoff seemingly died at the end of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.
In Conclusion
If the Brand New Day cutscene truly shows a Spidey‑sighting in space, then Jessica Drew is a naturally strong candidate. And if that sighting came from an X‑Man aboard Peak, then S.W.O.R.D. may already be assembling a next generation cadre of Earth’s defenders ahead of Doomsday and Secret Wars.
What do you think – will Spider‑Woman join S.W.O.R.D. before Secret Wars? Drop your theories below!