Spider-Man’s Brand New Day nearly featured one of Marvel’s most ridiculous villains

Quick one from the world of Spider-Man, and it’s a bit of a deep cut for anyone who’s into the stranger corners of Marvel comics. Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is currently on screens everywhere, nearly included a character so absurd even Marvel diehards tend to raise an eyebrow: the infamous Pace Pot Pete (yes, that’s an actual villain, not something out of a parody sketch).

Here's how director Destin Daniel Cretton explained it in his chat with OutNow: "We played around with a lot of villains who didn't make it into the final cut in the end. We looked at the different covers and considered which ones could help us tell our story... One character we had a lot of fun with and wanted to include in the film was Pace Pot Pete, but he didn’t quite make it in."

Cretton, who’s clearly done his homework on the Spidey back catalogue, said the team actually sifted through old comic covers to decide which villains should make an appearance in the film’s lively opening montage. The goal was to nod to Spider-Man’s classic comic book history – those covers where Peter Parker is either socking some C-list baddie or (sometimes less impressively) getting belted himself given the era. According to Cretton, those latter scenes weren’t much use: he didn’t fancy recreating moments of Spidey getting a pasting, and quite a number of classic Spider-Man poses didn’t fit what they wanted for the sequence, either.

Baddies in the Opening Montage

The end result? Instead of Pace Pot Pete, viewers got a line-up of lesser-known (but at least slightly more credible) villains from the Spidey universe. Here’s who turned up in that blink-and-you’ll-miss-it opening — all paying tribute to Peter Parker’s crime-fighting hustle in New York:

• Boomerang
• Tombstone
• Scorpion
• Tarantula
• Ramrod

The film's opening montage throws in not just these niche villains but also a little hat tip to the Manfredi crime family, keeping the comic-book crowd happy with another bit of Spidey history.

Instead of spotlighting just one major bad guy, Cretton and the writers made the call to highlight a spread of offbeat enemies, presumably because it was more fun than watching Spider-Man endlessly square off against the usual suspects like Green Goblin yet again. Can’t say I blame them.

For those keeping track, Brand New Day stars Tom Holland (obviously), Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Michael Mando, and Mark Ruffalo. The film borders on an Easter egg bonanza for comic fans, if only to see which forgotten villain will pop up next. Mark your cards: somewhere, in some corner of the multiverse, Pace Pot Pete is still waiting for his moment.