The speculation and rumours surrounding Sadie Sink's Spider-Man: Brand New Day role have grown tiresome in recent weeks. With it not outside the realm of possibility that her character's identity could be kept a secret until the movie's release, we were bracing ourselves for a long seven months.
However, while the leaked trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day stops short of naming who Sink is playing, it's finally established been she's playing a villain...who is almost certainly Shathra.
"You're a mess, Spider-Man," she can be heard saying. "Don't get in my way. Otherwise, it won't just be your friends who don't remember who Peter Parker is."
This confirms that she somehow knows who Peter Parker is, even after Doctor Strange's spell. The Cosmic Circus's Alex Perez has since taken to social media to explain that the Department of Damage Control is after Sink's character because they incorrectly believe she's a mutant.
So, short of a huge, borderline-nonsensical twist, she's not Jean Grey! Now, though, the Shathra rumours are starting to make a lot more sense.
After sharing a post with a fan theorising that Sink's character is a cosmic entity, Perez strongly hinted at that being the case and explained, "DODC has been slowly building itself up to become the anti-Mutant task force in the Mutant Saga. It’s why they’ve been after people like Kamala, Peter, Jennifer and Simon. They’re anti-superpowers basically."
In the comics, Shathra is a Wasp-Goddess and totemic predator. She first encountered Spider-Man when he travelled to the Astral Plane, and followed him back to Earth-616. Able to deduce his identity, she posed as Sharon Keller to destroy his life as Peter Parker before hunting Spider-Man as Shathra in a bid to capture and feed him to her offspring.
In recent years, she's been established as a Multiversal threat, perhaps explaining why Sink is confirmed to return in Avengers: Secret Wars.
It's no secret that Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige is a big fan of J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita Jr.'s Amazing Spider-Man run, and Shathra was one of the first major villains introduced after Morlun (Feige wrote the foreword for the "Coming Home" arc when it was released as a TPB).
As for why she's taking centre stage in Spider-Man: Brand New Day—a street-level adventure—it links the movie to the wider Multiverse Saga. In the MCU, we'd bet on Shathra having made her way through one of those cracks that formed in reality in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings helmer Destin Daniel Cretton directs Spider-Man: Brand New Day from a script by returning Spider-Man franchise writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers.
Tom Holland plays Spider-Man in a cast that also includes Jon Bernthal (The Punisher), Mark Ruffalo (The Hulk), Zendaya (MJ), Sadie Sink, Michael Mando (The Scorpion), Tramell Tillman, Marvin Jones III (Tombstone), Jacob Batalon (Ned Leeds), and Liza Colón-Zayas. Avengers: Doomsday star Florence Pugh is expected to reprise her Thunderbolts* role as Yelena Belova.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day will be released in theaters on July 31, 2026.