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How many Spider-Men does it take to beat Doctor Doom? Zero, apparently… Tom Holland, Tobey Maguire, and Andrew Garfield's names remain conspicuously absent from the Avengers: Doomsday cast list – something that's all the more surprising considering Spider-Man: Brand New Day will be the last Marvel movie releasing before Doom arrives.

Surely, though, the webslinger's next outing will go some way to setting up Avengers: Doomsday? After all, other than a tease at the end of Fantastic Four, we've yet to see anything substantial of Victor Von Doom, who, lest we forget, was shoehorned in to replace Kang the Conqueror after a major(s) pivot.

Unfortunately, nothing publicly revealed about Brand New Day so far has suggested the movie will play any role in setting up the next Avengers. In fact, the marketing for Holland's fourth major Spider-Man flick has heavily leaned into this being a grounded, New York-set adventure with cameos from a couple of MCU heavy-hitters (Punisher and Hulk) and maybe (maybe not) introducing a new-look Jean Grey in Sadie Sink.

Doomsday, meanwhile, will feature basically every other character that’s ever featured in a Marvel movie. There will be classic Avengers (Steve Rogers, Thor), The New Avengers (Yelena, US Agent), Alternate Avengers (Captain America, Shang-Chi), Fox-era X-Men (Patrick Stewart's Charles Xavier, Ian McKellen's Magneto), Wakandans, and the recently introduced Fantastic Four.

That's a lot of superheroes – so perhaps it's unsurprising that returning directors the Russo brothers couldn’t fit Peter Parker into Doomsday. Yet there's also another potential reason: Brand New Day and Doomsday were originally going to be released the other way around, with Doomsday coming earlier than Brand New Day, which would instead have led into Avengers: Secret Wars.

Scheduling clashes

If Brand New Day and Doomsday were intrinsically related to one another, that scheduling change would have surely caused a substantial headache for Marvel, and there has been barely a whisper about the switcheroo having any effect on either film. The same could not have been said when Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and Spider-Man: No Way Home changed release order a few years ago due to the pandemic, with No Way Home’s writers saying it had a major impact on Doctor Strange's role in the film.

In other words, it would appear Brand New Day will be almost entirely self-contained as Peter Parker contends with The Hand and his own body morphing in potentially very weird ways. Even more telling is that the always-interesting, never-very-accurate online rumor mill has primarily avoided claiming Holland's character will play a major role in Doomsday. However, it has not ignored Spider-Man completely; various speculators have claimed Tobey Maguire’s Parker will be involved somehow.

This would mean very little for Brand New Day, of course. Maguire's Parker may have appeared in No Way Home, but there’s little room for him in Brand New Day. Plus, before his "secret" appearance in No Way Home, basically everyone and their uncle knew he would be turning up in the multiverse adventure. Again, Brand New Day is staying stubbornly grounded, minus the Man-Spider of it all.

There is still a chance Holland's Spider-Man could turn up in Doomsday. The character was recently pictured filming scenes in London – but whether these are for Brand New Day or Doomsday remains unclear. It would, you would think, be too late in the day to be doing additional photography for Brand New Day, coming to theaters so soon. The general consensus seems to be that this could be something akin to a Doomsday post-credits scene, which, while pure speculation, would actually tie neatly into another rumor making the rounds online: that Peter Parker will be central to Avengers: Secret Wars.

Best kept secrets

So, a few things to think about. Ant-Man and the Wasp and Captain Marvel were both released in theaters between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, and both leading heroes played key roles in Thanos' downfall. Brand New Day was originally meant to release between Doomsday and Secret Wars… see where I'm going here?

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It makes perfect sense for Marvel to save its biggest hero for a starring role in the second Avengers film, presumably lining up Peter Parker to take on Victor Von Doom, should the Big Bad defeat the other Avengers in Doomsday (almost a certainty, unless Marvel’s saving another new villain for Secret Wars…). This would mean that, rather than setting up Doomsday, Brand New Day is instead paving the way for Spidey's Secret Wars role.

That is pure speculation, but there’s one more rumor to consider. If Secret Wars takes its cues from the comic books, namely the 2015 Secret Wars run, then the movie will take place on Battleworld, a planet that combines various versions of Earth from across the multiverse, with Doom acting as its emperor. Some unconfirmed concept art from a few years back seemingly confirmed the film will also go in this direction (and the movie wouldn’t really live up to the Secret Wars name without Battleworld, would it?).

Here's where the rumor comes in: there’s been talk of Doom wiping each Avenger's memory in order to make them serve him on Battleworld. Now, we've seen how crucial memory is to Spider-Man’s story in the MCU: the inciting incident of No Way Home was Doctor Strange making the world forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. We also know that Brand New Day continues this theme as Parker struggles being Spider-Man without his friends, MJ and Ned, by his side.

Could Brand New Day introduce something that allows Parker to retain his memories, should Doom wipe out everyone else's? Perhaps the remnant of symbiote left behind in the No Way Home post-credits from Venom will retain memories of Spider-Man and give them to Parker? Or perhaps Sink's maybe Jean Grey will go into his mind and protect him from a memory wipe? Or perhaps this is all a load of rubbish, and Spider-Man won’t appear in Doomsday or Secret Wars!

There's a whole web of conspiracies out there to speculate about, and when Brand New Day finally arrives in theaters, we may be a step closer to working out what’s in store for us when Doomsday and Secret Wars release. Until then, are we sure Mobius won't be in Brand New Day? What about Kraven? You never know…

Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings into theaters in the UK on July 29 and the US on July 31. For more, check out our guides to all the upcoming Marvel movies and shows on the way, as well as our breakdown of how to watch the Marvel movies in order.