Spider-Man: Brand New Day Star Teases Villain's MCU Future

Warning: SPOILERS for Spider-Man: Brand New Day are ahead!Following Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s release, one of the movie’s stars has teased the future for their villain character.

Michael Mando debuted as Mac Gargan in 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, where Gargan was depicted as a professional criminal looking to buy weaponry from Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes. Nearly a decade later, Gargan resurfaced in Spider-Man: Brand New Day in his full Scorpion getup, though he was back in prison by the end of the movie. However, Mando has already had talks about what might be ahead for Scorpion in the upcoming Marvel movies slate.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Mando shared that he’s spoken with Spider-Man: Brand New Day director Destin Daniel Cretton about what happens to Scorpion in the comics. That includes Gargan becoming Venom for a few years, which the actor sees as the character’s “ultimate form” and believes could be explored in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As Mando explained:

The potential growth of [Mac Gargan] is enormous. Brand New Day is level one of this character’s potential, and he has at least two or three levels up from here, one of them being the ultimate form of Venom. That’s exciting to think about for a moment, but I’ve got to let it go because it’s in the hands of Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal. They know what they’re doing, and I have to trust that.

Gargan has been primarily known as Scorpion ever since 1964’s The Amazing Spider-Man #20, the issue after the character was introduced. However, in the mid-2000s, he bonded with the Venom symbiote after it had been removed from Eddie Brock. As Venom, Gargan first served under Norman Osborn in the Sinister Twelve and Thunderbolts, then masqueraded as Spider-Man when the Dark Avengers were formed. The symbiote was forcibly removed from Gargan by the during the Siege storyline, necessitating him to return to his Scorpion guise.

Groundwork has already been laid for someone to become Venom in the MCU. During Spider-Man: No Way Home’s mid-credits scene, Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock inadvertently left behind a piece of his symbiote before he was transported back to his own universe. This tease was left unaddressed in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, so it’s unclear when or even if the Venom symbiote will return. However, if it does, having Gargan bond with it rather than the MCU’s Eddie would shake things up for audiences.

Scorpion was one of several members of Spider-Man’s rogues gallery who appeared in Brand New Day, with others including Boomerang, Tarantula, Ramrod, and Tombstone, as well as the ninja group The Hand. Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey served as the movie’s main threat, using her telepathic abilities to possess other people’s bodies. Eventually, Peter learned that the real villain at the center of this story was Trammell Tillman’s Bill Metzger, head of the Department of Damage Control.

Though Tom Holland confirmed there have been conversations about Spider-Man 5, the project hasn’t been officially greenlit. It also remains to be seen if Holland’s Peter Parker will swing back into action for either Avengers: Doomsday or Avengers: Secret Wars. Meanwhile, an alternate timeline take on Scorpion with a much different backstory than Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s version can be seen in the animated series Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.