Your friendly neighborhood wallcrawler is caught in a web of mystery in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. In the time since we last saw Tom Holland‘s Peter Parker, he’s tangled with a rogues’ gallery of villains that has grown to include the Scorpion (Michael Mando) and a handful of assassins like Boomerang, Tarantula, and the Hand ninjas. The shadowy Daredevil adversaries seem to be the focus of Det. Jean DeWolff’s (Liza Colón-Zayas) investigation into a string of crimes across New York City, but like any good detective story, the red-clad Hand ninjas could be a red herring for another secret Spider-Man villain from Marvel comic book lore.
Spider-Man’s Easter egg-filled evidence board was on display for a limited time at Peter Parker’s apartment pop-up in Brooklyn, offering the first look at crime boss Tombstone (Marvin “Krondon” Jones III) and a masked man wearing glasses and a suit. That appears to be the Rose, who in the comics is the alter ego of Richard Fisk, son of Spider-Man/Daredevil archnemesis and Kingpin of Crime Wilson Fisk.
How ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Sets Up ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’
Spoiler warning for Daredevil: Born Again season 2. By the end of the Marvel Television show’s second season, Peter’s former lawyer Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) outed himself as the vigilante Daredevil in order to take down Mayor Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) in a court of law. With Murdock in jail and Fisk in self-exile, it seems the absence of both the Man Without Fear and the Kingpin of Crime leads to a resurgent Hand, as well as a power vacuum that Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) found himself dealing with in The Punisher: One Last Kill.
Enter the Rose. While the circumstances were different, the Born Again storyline from Marvel’s Daredevil comics saw the Kingpin implicated in a crime that ended Fisk’s facade as a legitimate businessman. The aftermath of Born Again unfolded in issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, in which multiple Spider-Man villains — including the Rose and the Hobgoblin — battled to become the new Kingpin of Crime in Fisk’s absence.
‘Spider-Man’s Brand New Villain Could Be the MCU’s Biggest Yet
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A Secret ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Villain Is the MCU’s Kingpin Replacement
After the Kingpin disappeared, 1987’s Amazing Spider-Man #284 marked the start of “Gang War,” a five-part arc by writers Tom DeFalco and Jim Owsley and artists Ron Frenz and Brett Breeding. Fisk’s son Richard, having previously adopted a masked identity as the Schemer in a plot to subvert his father’s criminal empire, eventually donned the purple mask of the Rose as the leader of his own criminal syndicate.
In his role as a recurring Spider-Man villain of the 1980s, the Rose sought to undermine the Kingpin and formed a shaky alliance with the Hobgoblin. Fisk’s disappearance created a power vacuum that left the city’s crime lords, like the Rose, Silvermane, and Hammerhead, fighting for control over the New York City underworld, while the Kingpin’s right-hand man (alias the Arranger) was left in charge of his organization.
The Arranger, um, arranged attacks on the cyborg crime lord Silvio “Silvermane” Manfredi and the metal-skulled mobster Hammerhead, hiring the costumed mercenary Jack O’Lantern to take out his rivals. Meanwhile, Rose’s enforcer was the Hobgoblin, who planned his own coup to take over the underworld.
After ‘Brand New Day,’ ‘Spider-Man 5’ Could Cross Over With Daredevil and the Punisher
While Spider-Man turns to Castle for help in Brand New Day, a trigger-happy Punisher was more antagonist than ally when he crossed paths with a black-suited Spider-Man during the gang war. (Peter took to wearing a cloth version of his new costume after learning it was a living alien: a symbiote.) Spider-Man also came to blows with Daredevil during “Gang War” when the arachnid avenger intervened to put an end to the escalating violence as it spilled over into the streets — risking innocents getting caught in the crossfire.
The Punisher fought Spider-Man over his interference in the war, which Castle saw as an opportunity for the rival gangs to wipe themselves out. (The gun-toting vigilante would, of course, pick off the rest.) Spider-Man stopped Punisher from killing the gang lords during a meeting at Fisk’s headquarters, leaving the wallcrawler to wrestle with whether he’s responsible for the deaths that might be prevented if he allowed a bazooka-firing Punisher to put a swift end to the war.
Murdock also objected to Spider-Man’s intervention in the gang war. The blind lawyer argued that their mutual enemy must be allowed to return to New York due to the Kingpin’s stabilizing influence over the underworld, and that Fisk should be brought to justice through legal means. Once the Kingpin officially returned from Europe in Amazing Spider-Man #287, it was revealed Fisk knew the Rose’s secret identity as he put into motion a plan to end the feud with his son and the weeks-long gang war.
If Kingpin Isn’t the ‘Spider-Man 5’ Villain, It Could Be a ‘Brand New’ Foe
Amazing Spider-Man #288 saw Spider-Man, Daredevil, Black Cat, and the Falcon team up in the conclusion to “Gang War.” The Punisher planned to ambush a meeting of Kingpin’s lieutenants, who Fisk planned to offer to the police as a token gesture for aiding his return. (The ruse allowed Fisk to smuggle his wife, Vanessa Fisk, safely out of the city after an attempt on her life.) It turned out that Spider-Man was a pawn used by both Daredevil and Fisk, who ultimately ended the gang war while retaking his place as Kingpin of a decimated criminal empire.
The pieces are there for similar events to take place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, albeit with some major changes: Ayelet Zurer’s Vanessa is off the proverbial chess board, and unlike her comic book counterpart, the Daredevil villainess didn’t share a son with Fisk. So who could be the Rose in Spider-Man: Brand New Day? If not Richard Fisk, a potential alternative is Byron “Butch” Pharris, Wilson Fisk’s illegitimate son from the comics who once replaced him as the new Kingpin.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings into theaters July 31.
- Release Date
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July 31, 2026
- Runtime
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150 Minutes
- Director
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Destin Daniel Cretton
