Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers.
I have always loved Marvel movies. I enjoy them because they are fun stories full of action and adventure and superheroes. I love them because they are stories that wrestle with deep realities of life. The Guardians of the Galaxy explores how a group of people who have experienced deep suffering and brokenness can come together and create a family. From Iron-Man all the way to Avengers: Endgame, Tony Stark follows the same story as St. Ignatius of Loyola as Tony starts out as a self-obsessed billionaire tech tycoon whose whole life gets tossed upside down by a cannonball moment that ultimately results in him becoming a loving father who is willing to sacrifice his own life for others. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is no different. This movie wrestles with the struggle of identity that all of us face in our lives and presents an answer that not only is heart warming, but points to a deep spiritual truth that we all need to hear. The truth: You are loved.
In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Peter Parker is trying to live a new life in which no one even remembers his existence, including those he loves. He is left to figure out his identity on his own. He does find some fulfillment, or at least purpose, in being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man who helps the police to catch criminals. However, he is experiencing a change within himself that is not only new, but also scary and dangerous. His spider hormones are rising causing his spider biology to increase and sometimes take over. When this happens, he becomes more powerful, but also more angry and destructive since he cannot think clearly. His arachnid instincts of self-preservation kick in and will do anything to protect him. This occurs during his fight against the Scorpion (being controlled by Jean Grey). His spider instincts take over, and he flings the Scorpion onto a passing police car, hurting an innocent policewoman. Spider-Man proceeds to take his anger out on Scorpion, even though he knows that the Scorpion is not the true threat. When he comes to and his head clears, he is riddled with guilt and confusion for what he has done. He has no idea what to do with this “monster” inside of himself.
While none of us are Spider-Man, I think that there are definite parallels between his life and ours. We walk the world, finding our way, searching for ourselves, wondering who we are and what we are to do. Growing up in the Catholic faith, this results in us trying to do good in the world through helping people. We support our friends, donate money to charity, and volunteer our time and talent to help those in need. In the same way that Peter found purpose in being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, we do good things because we want to be good people with a sense of purpose. However, there is always within us the ability to do harm as well. This is the reality of sin. We feel the temptation to make ourselves more important, to store up resources for ourselves, to put others down because we need to be the ones on top. In Ignatian Spirituality, these are temptations of the evil spirit, the enemy of our human nature, that is trying to get us to turn inward and think only about ourselves because clearly no one else will. Unfortunately, we can give into the temptation of sin which might make us feel more powerful in the moment, but ultimately results in damaged relationships with other people. Our moment of realization is different for all of us. St. Ignatius was hit by a cannonball causing him to reflect on his past. St. Paul was knocked off his horse and surrounded by a vision of bright light. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, it is said that “coming to his senses” he considered going back to his father. For Peter, it was when his spider instincts relaxed and he recognized that he harmed an innocent bystander in his fight with Scorpion. We each have our moment when we realize the sins we have committed and are riddled with guilt and confusion.
The question then becomes what do we do? I think that many of us take the approach that Peter takes: Suppression. It is very scary to realize that there is a “monster” within us, and so our natural thought is to repress it. Don’t let it out. If we keep it trapped inside, then it can’t hurt anyone else. This does seem to work. Peter doesn’t have to look any farther than Bruce Banner who has been able to live an entire life as a university physics professor as long as he keeps his gamma inhibitor on his wrist, which keeps the Hulk contained. Why can’t Peter make his own spider inhibitor? Why can’t we make this work for us? The fact is that Peter can, and so can we. Well, kind of. We can move on, forgetting our sins, and going back to what we have done before helping the world, but the “monster” will always lurk beneath waiting for a time to come out. The temptation to sin is always there. Additionally, as Peter is figuring out how to suppress his spider genes, Banner actually asks him a very deep question that we need to be asking ourselves: “How would you decide … what parts of nature are good or bad? What if you’re trying to control the expression of something that needs to be expressed?” A deep question about a spiritual truth that I don’t think Banner even understands. For even Christ says in the parable of the weeds and the wheat to let them both grow and only at the end of time will they be separated. Here’s the truth, we are who we are, flaws in all. Our beings cannot be fragmented into the good parts and the bad parts, or at least, Christ does not desire that for us. We were created to be whole. We must find a way to live with ourselves.
We must find a way to reconcile. By repressing part of who we are, we reach a breaking point. A point where we can no longer live with ourselves because we are fragmented. In Peter’s fight with the Hand (controlled by Jean Grey), Jean challenges Peter saying that people don’t actually appreciate him, trust him, love him. They only present all that as long as they can use him. Therefore, he must choose who he is: Peter Parker, the boy trying to care for the world, or Spider-Man, the monster. Now, where does Peter go to find the answer? This is where we need to pay attention to the deep spirituality that the movie points towards. Peter goes within himself. He does not look to himself, thinking that he is the answer which would be a temptation of the evil spirit. Rather he goes deep within. He searches the core, the center of who he is. There he encounters Aunt May, the woman who has been his source of support his whole life. Whether he has a memory or a deep spiritual experience (or both) is unclear, but in this experience, which we don’t see until later, he allows Aunt May to say to him:
You are a really special person. And I would hope that that will make you feel really great about yourself, but I know sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you’ll be really lonely. And sometimes, because you’re special, people can do dark and monstrous things to you. But this is what I want you to know: You’re beautiful, and the people who love you, we love you not because you’re special, we love you because you’re you. I want you to remember that, even when it feels like you’re totally alone. That’s your deepest responsibility. Never forget that, no matter how powerful you become.
She points him to his indelible lovability. He is lovable not because of what he does or the fact that he is a special person. He is lovable without condition. This is the same spiritual truth that we find if we search the very center of who we are. At our center is Jesus Christ who sits next to us and says we are lovable without condition. The God who created us and calls us his children is fully aware of our flaws and mistakes, and yet He loves us anyways. When we travel to our center, which we do through prayer, we find the core of our being that God created and see that it is lovable. We see that we are one being, worthy of love not because of who we are or what we do, but because God created us in His image and likeness. We are lovable children of God.
It is this understanding of his lovability that allows Peter to respond to Jean Grey’s question, “I am both [Peter Parker and Spider-Man].” He has accepted fully who he is. Thinking back to Banner’s question, it is not about control, it is about love. Love for all aspects of who he is. When he lived out of his center that is true love (I would say the Love of God), not only does he gain access to more power, but he also is able to show others their lovability as well. He now sees with eyes that see more than the surface. He sees the lovable core within the people in front of him. It is this sight that allows him to help Jean Grey understand her own lovability as he shares Aunt May’s message with her. It is this love that gives Peter the strength to take a bullet for Grey, which demonstrates to the Punisher that true power and courage come from, in the Punisher’s previously disbelieving words, that “sentimental horseshit.”
This is the Brand New Day. Peter is now able to live out of his lovable center which pushes him to love others and, more importantly, allow others to love him. As we watch this, there is and should be a twinge of hope and desire for ourselves because this can be our Brand New Day too. We are called to journey to our center in prayer where we find that Christ’s spirit has been sent into our hearts (Galatians 4:6). St. Ignatius points to this in the Fourth Week of his Spiritual Exercises. We reflect on the resurrection of Christ and, through prayer, begin to understand that not only are we lovable, but, in fact, we are loved. We, in our entirety, are loved by the God who created us and continues to labor for us in love. When we begin to accept and live out of this lovable center, we begin to see the world with new eyes. We begin to see with the eyes of Christ, and can help others to see themselves in that way, too. Christ is our Brand New Day.
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Photo: Jay Maidment/CTMG