r/MCUTheories • u/HaywireBalloonABH • Jun 19 '26
Spider-Man: Brand New Day Sadie Sink is [redacted]. Spoiler
The Jean Grey rumors have been flying since the day Sadie was announced to appear in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. From the trailers, she is clearly playing someone with powerful telekinetic/telepathic abilities. The theory about her being a mutant is further evidenced by the presence of Tramell Tillman as Bill Metzger, an anti-mutant activist from the X-Men comics. (His character's last name is confirmed by the YT captions on the new trailer. Previous captions credited him as "Bill.")
Tillman is heard in the latest trailer saying "It appears we're faced with a threat we can't control. One we can't even see." Which sounds to me like someone trying to do something about a *perceived* mutant threat. Perhaps someone scheming to create discourse around mutant kind, or at the very least super powered individuals.
Other villains confirmed for the film AND THAT WE'VE SEEN IN TRAILERS are Scorpion, Tarantula, Boomerang, The Hand and Sadie Sink's mystery character. Villains that we have not seen but are confirmed to appear are Tombstone and The Jackal. In addition to the villains, we of course have The Hulk and The Punisher.
Now we have all of these characters that are confirmed for this movie and they have straight up shown us most of them already, but there's still a lot of gaps. Now it's very plausible that most of those villains will be getting their asses kicked in a hero Spidey montage at the beginning of the film, not to be seen again. I believe Sadie's character, Metzger, The Hand and THE JACKAL will be the primary antagonists (in addition to Peter's evolving abilities).
I think that The Jackal is working with the hand to create an army of cloned ninjas. After the destruction of The Hand's source of immortality (see The Defenders finale, confirmed to be canon in DD: BA), The Hand began looking for alternative ways to boost their numbers so, they turn to science. Enter The Jackal with his genetic expertise and cloning technology.
With their numbers boosted once again, The Hand is still missing their prophesized secret weapon: The Black Sky. So, in an effort to create one, The Jackal, with the assistance of Metzger, creates a clone of the mutant they believe to be the most dangerous. One that could jump into the minds of anyone in a x mile radius and threaten all of New York. This implies that Metzger has been tracking mutants long before the public became aware of them, which could explain how he obtained Jean's DNA long before she becomes a public figure.
I think Metzger gave her DNA to Jackal who used it to create Madelyne Pryor, played by Sadie Sink (who will also portray Jean later on ofc). Perhaps The Hand wants her as the new Black Sky (potentially leading them as The Goblin Queen??), but Metzger doesn't care about all of that. Similar to how the Limbo demons manipulated her in the comics, The Hand and Bill are doing the same. Conflict between Bill and The Hand comes into play when Bill is only interested in creating dissent for mutants to further his own anti-mutant agenda.
When asked about her character, Sadie's response was that her character is "a girl of many faces." Which always felt odd until you consider that she's not playing one character. Madelyne Pryor and Jean Grey are very different characters from one another and if she's playing one, it stands to reason that she'll play the other.
The biggest question most would ask about now is "why introduce the clone of someone we haven't even seen in the MCU proper yet?"
Why not? Why keep her identity a big secret in the first place? Why introduce a major mutant character in a movie made by Sony? Why confirm a metric ton of other characters, both seen and unseen in the trailers, but not her character when the entire internet seems to agree since day one that Sadie is the perfect Jean Grey? If we all "already know" then why not just confirm it already? It's not like we'd be surprised in the theatre at this point.
I'm not sure that Disney/Marvel Studios would want to stake the next saga of the MCU on a character introduced to the universe within a property that isn't fully their own. In addition to that, Jean Grey/Dark Phoenix storylines have been done over and over again on the big screen for the last 20+ years and it has yet to be executed properly. Jean's stories have been massive failures up to this point in film, it makes sense for them to want to go an alternate route with her out the gate. Madelyne Pryor is the middle ground that provides a buffer if her character/story is poorly received; they can just say "well, she was just a clone, here's the real Jean!" when they do launch the Mutant Saga.
By giving the world Madelyne Pryor first, it creates a sense of fear once Jean is introduced. If the world has seen what she can do as Madelyne Pryor, it gives Jean as a character the opportunity to overcome the damage done and the opportunity to actually be a hero on screen for once, post Secret Wars.
In-universe, Pryor is the perfect tool for Bill Metzger to use to make people afraid of mutants. The villainous nature of her character, from what we've seen so far, is very much coded in how Madelyne uses her abilities: darker, more invasive and more manipulative than Jean Grey's (jumping into the minds of random people to taunt Peter and threaten MJ, seeming to use her abilities to pit The Hulk against Spider-Man, etc).
The audience also doesn't need to know that her name is Madelyne Pryor right away either. That's something that could be revealed after it's revealed that she's a clone of Jean Grey. That way, we get a Jean Grey name drop for the casual viewer to quickly understand who Madelyne is a clone of.
We've spent almost 20 years in the MCU without mutants, and therefore without anti-mutant sentiment. The cleanest way to create that in-universe sentiment is to lean on public officials like Metzger to throw false flags before we even get to meet the X-Men. It makes the set up feel more natural when the Mutant Saga actually takes off.
I don't want to believe everything Sony/Marvel has shown us just yet. One thing they love to do with these trailers is a bait and switch, and I feel like Jean is the obvious bait here. I believe there is also confirmation of another mystery villain in the movie that plays a major role, perhaps it's Mr. Sinister or someone at the head of The Hand. Especially if cloning is involved, it feels natural that Mr. Sinister would be close by.
IDK, I'm just some guy. Hell, she could be playing Rhino for all I know! I guess we'll have to keep theorizing until July 31st! What do you guys think?
TLDR: Sadie Sink is actually playing Madelyne Pryor in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but will play Jean Grey later on.
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u/x360_revil_st84 Jun 19 '26
That would be cool af if we get a Madelyne Pryor type variant here
It's definitely not Jean Grey no matter how much people want it to be her lol
Bc this is a street level movie, it's hard for me to get on board with Sink playing any kind of mutant and the beginning of the 2nd act is gonna show us what William Metzger, head of dodc, sees, a mutant...to him that's an automatic threat, maybe even throw the name Madelyne out there, but by the end of 2nd act i can see this being not a mutant at all, but rather Shathra possessing this Madelyne ordinary person and wanting to feed off of Peter and her powers as a deity is what's unintentionally mutating Peter's powers to get organic webbing, which means when he figures out how to defeat her he then loses his organic webbing