Commentary — ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Recreates Comic Panels But Ruins Their Context

As a visual medium, comics are perfectly suited to adapt into films. The comic medium can almost serve as storyboards for the movie itself; there are so many iconic comic panels filmmakers can choose to replicate. They aren’t just key moments in and of themselves, but also homages to the source material that fans can rally behind. However, these panels don’t exist in a vacuum. There is a tremendous amount of story context connected to these panels that can often be lost in translation. One such panel was completely flipped upside down in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

A huge component of the movie is the dynamic between Spider-Man (Tom Holland) and the Punisher (Jon Bernthal). Spider-Man tries to save Jean Grey (Sadie Sink) while the Punisher just wants to put her down. After Jean’s powers explode, holding many innocents hostage, Punisher tries to shoot her from a distance. Spider-Man saves her at the last moment by taking the bullet. Realizing his terrible mistake, Frank scoops Spidey up and brings him to the hospital.

The image in the film of Punisher bringing a near-death Spider-Man to the hospital was taken from the comic book Civil War, however the context there is completely different. In that story, Spider-Man is attacked by super villains and the Punisher saves him. It is an iconic moment for the Punisher, who was justified in his stance during the superhero Civil War. By contrast, the moment in the film was due Frank’s mistake. He went from saving Spider-Man to almost accidentally killing him, completely flipping the circumstance of the comic panel. So while it is nice to see a panel recreated on the screen, it would have been better to see it within its original context.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now in theaters.