Spider-Man: Brand New Day May Finally Give Homecoming’s Most Wasted Villain a Second Chance

Spider-Man: Brand New Day has accumulated the sort of rogues’ gallery that recalls an older understanding of Spider-Man: not as an Avenger who periodically saves reality itself, but as an exhausted young man whose workday consists of dismantling criminal syndicates and cleaning up the messes New York keeps manufacturing. Industry insider Daniel Richtman claims that Spidey’s rogues gallery is adding Shocker (played by Bokeem Woodbine) in the movie on his Patreon. If true, the rumour offers Marvel Studios a rare opportunity to correct one of the MCU’s more curious acts of creative neglect.

Spider-Man: Homecoming, which was the first solo movie of Tom Holland’s Spidey, was a bit too dismissive about Herman Schultz. The movie, correctly, understood that Spider-Man lives in a world of both mad scientist villains and criminals from the working class. But it still did not let Shocker develop beyond being just another piece of Adrian Toomes’ (Michael Keaton) plan. He survives the movie and disappears into oblivion.

Shocker Is Reportedly Returning in Spider-Man: Brand New Day

As mentioned above, Richtman recently claimed that Shocker will appear in Destin Daniel Cretton‘s Spider-Man: Brand New Day. It has yet to be confirmed by Marvel Studios. But even the possibility feels overdue. The MCU’s version of Shocker was unusual from the outset. Homecoming split the mantle between two characters: Jackson Brice (Logan Marshall-Green) briefly wielded the vibro-shock gauntlets before Adrian Toomes accidentally killed him with Chitauri technology, after which Bokeem Woodbine’s Herman Schultz became the second Shocker. Schultz survived his encounter with Spider-Man, making him one of the several villains from the film left available for future stories.

His survival promised he has unfinished business with Spider-Man. Unlike more popular Spidey villains such as Green Goblin or Doctor Octopus, Shocker does not rely on psychological tragedy or Shakespearean excess. In the comics, Herman Schultz is fundamentally a career criminal. He is a gifted engineer who designs his own weapons and repeatedly crosses paths with Peter Parker only because they inhabit the same city. He is refreshingly prosaic in many ways.

Marvel Finally Has a Chance To Do Him Justice

Shocker, one of Spider-Man’s classic recurring villains | Credits: Marvel Comics

We know Peter Parker is living anonymously in a modest apartment. He listens to police scanners and operates as a neighborhood vigilante after the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home (wherein his Peter Parker identity was erased thanks to a ritual performed by Doctor Strange). This setup obviously gives an edge to street-level criminals like Shocker rather than cosmic or multiversal despots like Thanos or Doctor Doom. We know Shocker, if he is in the movie, will be only one of Brand New Day‘s many villains.

More importantly, it allows Marvel to rediscover something the best Spider-Man stories have always understood: Peter Parker’s greatest enemy isn’t necessarily the strongest one. It’s repetition. It’s waking up every morning knowing another robbery, another gang, another super-powered thief is waiting around the corner.

That is where Shocker has always excelled. His vibro-shock gauntlets can topple buildings. Yet his goals seldom go past his next score. It is fascinating. He doesn’t need to have an origin story to give him meaning.

If the report is accurate, Spider-Man: Brand New Day doesn’t need to transform Shocker into its principal antagonist, and it doesn’t look like they are. What it needs to do is something both simpler and rarer: allow Herman Schultz to become part of the texture of Spider-Man’s world instead of another forgotten footnote in it. 

Do you think Shocker deserves a second chance in the MCU? Let us know in the comments.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day hits theaters in the US on July 31.