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Contains spoilers for “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”
After weeks of hints pointing in one direction, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” has finally confirmed what many Marvel fans suspected: Sadie Sink is playing Jean Grey. Her MCU version of the original X-Men standout arrives as one of the film’s most intriguing additions, though longtime viewers may find some of her emotional and supernatural story beats strikingly familiar.
Jean Elaine Grey’s journey in “Brand New Day” echoes, in several notable ways, the path carved out by Wanda Maximoff, played by Elizabeth Olsen, across “WandaVision” and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” Beyond the obvious surface comparison — two powerful, magnetic redheads at the center of chaos — both women function as sympathetic antagonistic forces pushed to dangerous extremes by grief. For Jean, the wound is tied to Sara Grey (Olivia Booth-Ford); for Wanda, it is the loss of Vision (Paul Bettany). Each also possesses the ability to seize control of others’ minds, bending people into unwilling instruments while wrestling with a profound sense of isolation.
The parallels become even clearer in the film’s third act. As Jean demonstrates in the standout finale of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” and as Wanda previously did in “WandaVision,” both characters are capable of generating enormous energy fields that trap civilians inside a reality shaped by their powers. Yet neither woman is framed as a simple villain. Their actions are deeply unethical and often terrifying, but the MCU presents both Jean and Wanda as wounded figures whose choices are rooted in pain rather than pure malice.
Jean has narrative similarities with Wanda, but is her own character
Marvel Studios
Still, the comparison only goes so far. Wanda’s darker chapter is defined by forces that overwhelm her. In “WandaVision,” grief becomes the engine of her collapse, while “Multiverse of Madness” places her under the corrosive influence of the Darkhold. During that stretch, she can be self-involved, ruthless and openly cruel to anyone blocking her path. But when the full scope of what she has become finally hits her at the end of “Multiverse of Madness,” Wanda is horrified enough to view her own survival as something she may no longer deserve.
Jean, by contrast, is written as a more grounded and self-aware presence for much of “Brand New Day.” She does not truly spiral until late in the movie, after learning the truth about what happened to Sara. Even then, her fury is largely aimed at the Department of Damage Control, making her apparent villain turn feel more targeted than indiscriminate. Her conflict with Spider-Man escalates only after he interferes with her mission, and even her early fixation on him seems driven partly by curiosity about another outsider rather than outright hatred. Jean becomes genuinely hostile after Spider-Man plays a role in her capture by Damage Control, but their rift begins to heal once the misunderstandings are cleared up and Spidey saves her life.
That makes Jean and Wanda more like thematic relatives than narrative copies. If the two ever shared a quiet conversation, they would have no shortage of trauma, power and loneliness to unpack. But placing them side by side would also highlight how distinct their stories really are. Jean’s MCU debut may borrow some of the same emotional and visual language used for Wanda’s apparent exit, but “Brand New Day” uses those familiar tropes to introduce a very different kind of Marvel figure.
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is now playing in theaters.
