Spider-Man: Brand New Day's most surprising character rewrites 46 years of Marvel canon

Published Jul 30, 2026, 3:00 PM EDT Spoiler alert! Image: Sony ​ If you’ve been tuned into the Spider-Man: Brand New Day rumor mill, you might not be too surprised by one of the big reveals in the film. Fortunately, the Marvel movie isn’t entirely reliant upon that twist in order to tell a good story. Indeed, a certain character in the movie introduces a major status change to the Marvel Cinematic Universe that will undoubtedly have repercussions in upcoming films. However, that character’s motivations in the film may lead some audience members to wonder about another character we meet in the film. Sorry to be so vague, but we're honor-bound to protect our readers from Spider-Man: Brand New Day spoilers. That said, if you've already seen the movie — or don't care about spoilers — read on for an explanation of the most intriguing character in the movie. Warning: Spoilers ahead for Spider-Man: Brand New Day Who is Jean Grey's sister Sara Grey in Spider-Man: Brand New Day? Much like the rumors have been saying about Sadie Sink’s character in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the Stranger Things star plays Jean Grey, one of the original X-Men, who had the powers of telepathy and telekinesis. And while she originally comes off as a villain in the movie, it is eventually revealed that she’s just trying to rescue her sister from the Department of Damage Control. Jean’s sister is named Sara Grey (played in the movie by Olivia Booth-Ford), but unless you’ve been reading X-Men comics pretty consistently since 1980, you might not know she exists. Sara only pops up in X-Men comics occasionally and she’s only been seen in passing on X-Men: The Animated Series and X-Men: Evolution. Image: Marvel In the comics, Sara (sometimes spelled “Sarah”) first appeared in X-Men #136 in May 1980 as an attendee at Jean Grey’s funeral after Jean died during the Phoenix Saga. Unlike Jean, Sara was not a mutant. She was just a regular woman with a husband and two kids living in Albany, New York. After Jean’s death, a memory Jean had erased from Sara’s mind reappears. Years earlier, the two had been kidnapped by the Atlantean Attuma and were transformed into water-breathers. Jean defeated Attuma and quickly reverted to being an air-breather, but she had to entirely reconstruct Sara’s biology before she could return to the surface. While Jean was successful, the transformation was taxing on her powers and she collapsed afterward. The newly rediscovered memory was so touching to Sara that she became an advocate for mutant rights. Unfortunately, this made her a target for anti-mutant activists, who kidnapped her and handed her over to a techno-organic alien race known as the Phalanx, who absorbed her into their hive mind. Years later, Sara’s children were killed along with her parents and her and Jean’s three other siblings by Shi'ar Death Commandos who came to Earth to eradicate the Grey bloodline and prevent any possible return of the Phoenix. Those members of the Grey family stayed dead, but Sara didn’t, nor did she stay human. Image: Marvel What are Sara Grey's mutant powers in Marvel? In a comic published in 2025, Jean Grey had the Phoenix force again and she willed Sara back into existence. When she returned, Sara had the mutant ability to sense mutant powers in others and unlock them. That power set for Sara Grey, while unrealized until 2025, was proposed by X-Men writer Chris Claremont back in the mid-1980s, when he suggested Sara for the first lineup of X-Factor. Image: Marvel While Spider-Man: Brand New Day portrays Sara as another psychic like Jean, the way she helps Jean use her powers and realize her potential may be a nod to her comic book ability. In a touching flashback scene in the film, we see the girls lament their mother abandoning them and Sara teaches her younger sister how to control people’s minds and jump from person to person. Then we see Sara abducted by Damage Control and she uses her powers to keep Jean safe. While I doubt we’ll ever see Sara Grey again in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the part she plays in this film is a fitting tribute to a relatively obscure character for casual X-Men fans, but a significant presence in many of Jean Grey’s best stories. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now in theaters. ​