Popverse's top stories

• Think you want the Critical Role live events to be streamed into your home? According to lore-keeper Dani Carr, you don't
• DC Studios Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters - what changed, what got added, and what went away after the first announcement
• The MCU’s original Thor director wants to return for a Logan-inspired “final story” with Chris Hemsworth

We’ve already explained how the end of 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home sets up the status quo for this summer’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but there’s one important link between the two movies that has just been revealed: the MCU Peter Parker might have misunderstood one core piece of Spider-Man lore.

For those who might not remember: there’s more to Spider-Man: No Way Home than a multiversal team-up of Spider-Men or Doctor Strange removing everyone’s memory of Peter Parker at the end of the movie. Arguably the most important beat of the movie is the fact that May Parker dies, and in doing so, becomes the Uncle Ben of the MCU — by which I mean, she gets to give the core line of Spider-Man’s origin story.

Specifically, the MCU Aunt May says, just before her death, “Peter, you listen to me. You have a gift. You have power — and with great power, and with great power there must also come great responsibility.” 

Here’s the thing, though — according to filmmakers behind Brand New Day, Peter didn’t actually get the message. Entertainment Weekly has script pages for the opening of the next Spider-Man movie, annotated by director Destin Daniel Cretton and others involved with the movie (including Tom Holland himself), and one of the annotations is particularly telling.

The annotation from Cretton for Peter Parker saying, “Maybe that’s my responsibility: to live alone with the truth,” reads simply, “Misinterprets what May said to him.” In other words: that’s not the great responsibility Aunt May was trying to remind you of, Peter — and, having this called out in the opening of the movie might just suggest that he’ll realize that before the end of the movie. After all, surely Peter can’t stay alone throughout the whole thing, especially given how obviously lonely he is in the first trailer for the movie.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day comes out July 31.

Marvel's most reliable superhero has proven he can do a whole lot more than just 'whatever a spider can.' Swing into Spidey's history with Popverse's...

• Best Spider-Man comic books 
• Spider-Man movie watch order
• Spider-Man's actors, ranked
• and the Spider-verse explained!

Just watch out for that radioactive blood.