The first page to my SpiderPheonix comic! There's gonna be two parts, so look forward to it ^^

Muscular Peter 🤤

Twitter post

Link to the post

https://www.instagram.com/p/DcrRX5AloEv/

Link to the artist

https://www.instagram.com/exoryer_ig

Go support the artist !!🤌🫵

(Other post was removed for mentioning Scott, I'll be sure to remember that for next time.)

I wanna see what shitshow this leads to.....

https://x.com/MagisterOfOz/status/2095690138852446511?s=20

https://x.com/Dirietist/status/2095803114175787323?s=20

Sauce: https://x.com/O2H2_OH4/status/2095598335558312296

https://x.com/redteneri/status/2095560015176221111

Spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day**.**

Yep, it's me again, Your Friendly Neighborhood UltimatePBP1610.

There is one argument that has followed SpiderPhoenix around since the ship took off, and after Brand New Day it has become much easier to state exactly what is wrong with it. The argument usually appears in one of two forms: "MJ is Peter's canon love interest, so MCU Peter cannot end up with Jean," or "Jean's canon love interest is Cyclops, so MCU Jean has to end up with Scott."

Both statements start with real pieces of franchise history. Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson have one of Marvel's most famous romances. Jean Grey and Scott Summers have decades of romantic history and a canonical marriage in Earth-616. The problem begins when "canon" quietly changes meaning halfway through the argument. A relationship that has existed in canon is treated as if it were a permanent, cross-continuity endgame instruction.

English-speaking fandom already has vocabulary that lets us separate those ideas. We should use it.

What "ship" and "canon" mean in English fandom

The modern English fandom use of "shipping" is usually traced through The X-Files fandom. Fans invested in Mulder and Scully were calling themselves "relationshippers" by the early 1990s, and the shortened "shipper" spread later in the decade (Sapuridis, 2024). Academic work now treats pairing names and shipping as established fan practices rather than official production terminology. DiGirolamo (2012), for example, studied the linguistic construction of Internet fandom pairing names, while Gonzalez (2016) describes shipping as the fan practice of romantically pairing fictional characters.

That history matters because a ship is not an award handed down by a studio. It is a fandom category for a relationship people are interested in. The source text may later make that relationship romantic, may already have done so, or may never do it at all.

"Canon" answers a different question. In fandom usage, canon refers to what the authoritative work has established. Fanlore's definition is built around that basic distinction between the source text and fan-created material. "Endgame" is separate fannish vocabulary for the relationship expected to be the final outcome. Those are plainly different claims. "Peter dated X in canon" is a claim about what happened. "X is Peter's endgame" is a claim about where the story will ultimately go.

Even fan archives reflect the need to keep relationship categories separate. AO3 uses "/" for romantic or sexual relationship tags and "&" for platonic, familial, or team relationships. English fandom has spent decades building vocabulary because "these two characters have a meaningful relationship," "these two are romantically involved," and "these two will finish the story together" are not interchangeable propositions.

For this post, I am going to use a few working definitions. A "canon romantic relationship" means the relationship has been established as romantic within the continuity being discussed. A "current couple" means the characters are together at the particular point in that continuity we are discussing. An "officially labeled couple" means an official profile, studio text, publisher page, or comparable first-party source explicitly calls them lovers, partners, spouses, boyfriend and girlfriend, and so on. "Endgame" means the claim that they are the eventual final romantic pairing.

These categories can overlap. They often do. They still are not synonyms.

Kirito and Asuna are an easy example. Bandai Namco's official profile for Asuna describes her and Kirito as lovers in both the real and virtual worlds. The Sword Art Online story also depicts their established romantic relationship directly. In that case, the source text, the current relationship, and the official labeling all point in the same direction. That makes Kirito/Asuna a very clean case. It does not mean every relationship that has ever been canonical acquires the same permanent status.

And yes, the tense distinction sounds pedantic until a shipping argument starts leaning on it. A breakup does not erase the earlier relationship from canon. It changes the characters' current status. "They dated in canon" can stay true after "they are dating now" becomes false.

Michelle Jones-Watson: canon history is not current status

Start with Michelle, because Brand New Day has made the tense problem unusually clear.

Peter and Michelle had a real, canonical romantic relationship in the MCU. That is not in dispute. Calling their relationship "canon" in the historical sense is completely fair.

But Brand New Day does not present them as a current couple. Sony's official synopsis describes Peter as struggling with seeing his old friends move on without him. More directly, The Credits, the Motion Picture Association's publication, refers to MJ as Peter Parker's "former girlfriend" in its interview with writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers (Hart, 2026).

The movie itself goes further. The apparent rooftop reunion is revealed not to be the real present-day encounter Peter thought it was. When Peter finally speaks to the real MJ, she tells him, "I don't feel that way about you." McKenna's explanation of the scene is equally clear about the dramatic function: Peter has to stop living inside that old chapter of his life and move forward (Hart, 2026).

None of that proves Peter and MJ can never reunite in a future movie. Marvel could write that reunion later. What it does prove is much narrower and much more useful: as of Brand New Day, "Peter/MJ was canon" and "Peter/MJ is currently a couple" are different statements.

The endgame claim is a third statement again. If someone argues:

Peter and MJ had a canonical relationship.
Therefore Peter and MJ must be the final MCU pairing.

the conclusion does not follow from the premise. A past fact does not establish a necessary future outcome. To get from one to the other, you need another premise, something like "once a Marvel character has a canonical partner, every later story in that continuity must restore that partner as the final relationship." The MCU has no such rule.

This is where the word "canon" causes so much trouble in ship arguments. It begins by meaning "this relationship really happened in the story" and ends by meaning "this relationship has exclusive rights over all future stories." Same word, different proposition.

Michelle and Mary Jane Watson also need to be handled carefully. In 2017, Kevin Feige explicitly explained that the Homecoming character was conceived as Michelle rather than a literal Mary Jane Watson reveal. His wording was blunt: "She's not Mary Jane Watson." He described the "MJ" nickname as an homage to Peter's past stories and love interests (Weiss, 2017). Later MCU films developed Michelle Jones-Watson on their own terms, and she became Peter's girlfriend through that continuity's story.

That point does not make Michelle somehow less legitimate as Peter's MCU love interest. It establishes the opposite principle: the MCU was already willing to create a distinct character, give her an MJ-associated narrative position, and build a Peter romance specific to this adaptation. Her relationship with Peter became canonical because the MCU wrote it into canon, not because Earth-616 issued her a transferable certificate.

The Earth-616 Mary Jane history remains what it is. Marvel's own character material describes Peter as the love of Mary Jane's life and records their marriage, along with the later continuity changes that altered that marriage. That history is massive. It is also Earth-616 history. Using it as evidence that Peter/MJ is a plausible or likely adaptation choice is reasonable. Treating it as a rule that forbids the MCU from writing another relationship is a different claim, and Marvel has never established that rule.

Jean Grey and Scott Summers: a real 616 marriage does not pre-write the MCU

The Scott/Jean side of the argument deserves the same standard.

There is no reason to minimize Jean and Scott's comic history to make a case for SpiderPhoenix. Marvel's official Jean Grey profile describes their long, on-and-off romance and their eventual marriage. Marvel's own "Marvel Marriages" feature identifies X-Men (1991) #30 as their wedding issue, and Marvel's facsimile listing for that issue describes the wedding of Jean Grey and Scott Summers directly.

So, if the question is whether Earth-616 Jean and Earth-616 Scott have a canonical romance and marriage, yes. Of course they do.

The unsupported step comes afterward:

Earth-616 Jean and Scott are a canonical couple.
Therefore MCU Jean and MCU Scott must become a couple.

That conclusion requires a cross-continuity inheritance rule that does not exist. Adaptations inherit characters selectively. They change age, chronology, family history, origin details, personality emphasis, supporting casts, conflicts, and relationships. Sometimes a famous comic romance is adapted closely. Sometimes it is delayed, altered, divided among different characters, or omitted. The existence of a relationship in one continuity is evidence about the source material available to the filmmakers. It is not a fact about another continuity before that continuity writes the relationship.

As of September 2026, Scott Summers is no longer hypothetical in the MCU. Disney's August 14 D23 announcement confirmed Kit Connor as Scott Summers in the new X-Men film, alongside Sadie Sink as Jean Grey. The film is scheduled for May 5, 2028 (The Walt Disney Company, 2026).

That is relevant. It gives the MCU a Scott and a Jean in the same developing X-Men corner. What the announcement does not do is label them a couple. Casting Scott Summers establishes Scott Summers. It does not retroactively establish a romance that the films have not yet written.

If the 2028 X-Men film puts Jean and Scott together, then MCU Jean/Scott becomes a canonical MCU relationship at that point. We can call it what the text makes it. Until then, citing their 616 marriage tells us what Marvel Comics has done with those versions of the characters, not what the MCU has already decided.

What Brand New Day establishes about Peter and Jean

The same restraint has to apply in the other direction. Brand New Day does not make Peter Parker and Jean Grey an explicit romantic couple. Calling SpiderPhoenix an already confirmed MCU romance would outrun the movie and the writers' public comments.

What the production history does establish is that the Peter/Jean relationship was deliberately built into this film rather than accidentally discovered by fans after release.

McKenna and Sommers have said Jean was not locked into the earliest version of the story. The character fell into place after Destin Daniel Cretton joined the project. McKenna called her the "missing piece" the story had badly needed, and the writers described Jean's journey as a "mirror and foil" for Peter's (Hart, 2026). That tells us why this version of Jean entered this particular Spider-Man story. Her function was designed around Peter's story and around the emotional structure of Brand New Day.

That is meaningful evidence about narrative construction. It is not a romance announcement.

Peter and Jean can remain friends, allies, emotional mirrors, or something harder to classify. A later film could turn that relationship romantic. A later film could also take it elsewhere. The honest status after Brand New Day is that the MCU has established a significant Peter/Jean relationship and has left its future romantic status open.

That is already enough to answer the "Scott has her reserved" argument. Jean does not arrive in the MCU carrying a completed romantic history imported from Earth-616. Her MCU relationships are being written in MCU chronology. Brand New Day has already given her a substantial relationship with Peter before the 2028 X-Men film has established any Jean/Scott romance.

Preference is not the same thing as a canon rule

There is a version of the anti-SpiderPhoenix position that is perfectly coherent: "I prefer Peter/MJ and Jean/Scott, and I want MCU adaptations to preserve those classic comic romances." That is a preference about adaptation. Someone can argue for it using comic history, character themes, popularity, or personal taste.

A prediction can also be coherent: "Given how important MJ and Scott are in the comics, I think Marvel will eventually return Peter to MJ and pair Jean with Scott." That may turn out to be right or wrong, but at least it is honestly framed as a prediction.

The logic breaks when either preference is renamed as an existing canon restriction. "I want Marvel to do X" becomes "Marvel is officially required to do X." "This happened in Earth-616" becomes "this has therefore already been decided in the MCU." Those statements are not equivalent.

The inconsistency becomes sharper when the standards switch from character to character. If someone accepts that MCU Peter's romantic history can be reorganized around Michelle, a character Feige originally distinguished from Mary Jane Watson, but then says MCU Jean is forbidden from having a reorganized romantic history because Earth-616 Jean married Scott, the two characters are being judged by different adaptation rules.

That is special pleading if no relevant difference is supplied. Peter is granted adaptation freedom when that freedom preserves the preferred conclusion; Jean loses the same freedom when it threatens another preferred conclusion.

There is an easy way to avoid that problem. Use one rule for everyone. Earth-616 relationships are canon in Earth-616. MCU relationships become canon when the MCU establishes them. Source-material history can inform our predictions about adaptation, but it does not convert those predictions into current MCU facts.

The fandom around Scott illustrates why this distinction is useful. One highly upvoted post in r/SpiderPhoenix came from a self-described lifelong Cyclops fan who said they still wanted to see SpiderPhoenix explored, partly because they wanted an MCU Scott whose story was not reduced to loving Jean. Other viewers who like Peter/MJ or Jean/Scott have said they still understand why Brand New Day created Peter/Jean shippers. Those posts prove nothing about Marvel Studios' future plans, and I am not using them that way. They do show that "likes Scott/Jean in the comics" does not logically entail "must oppose Peter/Jean in the MCU."

So where does SpiderPhoenix stand now?

As of Brand New Day, Peter/Jean is not an officially labeled romantic couple. The film and its writers have established a deliberately constructed relationship between them, one important enough that Jean was described as the missing piece of the story and as a mirror and foil for Peter. The romantic reading has become a real part of audience response, but the MCU has not yet turned that reading into an explicit relationship fact.

Peter/MJ, meanwhile, has canonical romantic history in the MCU, but Brand New Day treats MJ as Peter's former girlfriend and does not leave them as a current couple. Jean/Scott has canonical romantic and marital history in Earth-616, while the MCU has now cast both characters without officially establishing their romance.

That is the evidence on the table right now.

If a future movie reunites Peter and MJ, then they become a current MCU couple again. If the new X-Men film establishes Jean and Scott romantically, then MCU Jean/Scott becomes canon. If Peter and Jean eventually enter an explicit romantic relationship, SpiderPhoenix becomes canon in the same ordinary sense. The standard should not change depending on which result someone prefers.

"Canon" is useful for describing what a story has established. "Endgame" is a claim about where that story will finish. Treating the first word as automatic proof of the second skips the part where the future movies still have to be written.

English-language references

Archive of Our Own. (n.d.). Tags FAQ. Organization for Transformative Works. Retrieved September 4, 2026.

Cretton, D. D. (Director). (2026). Spider-Man: Brand New Day [Film]. Columbia Pictures; Marvel Studios; Pascal Pictures.

DiGirolamo, C. M. (2012). The fandom pairing name: Blends and the phonology-orthography interface. Names, 60(4), 231-243. DOI: 10.1179/0027773812Z.00000000034.

Fanlore. (n.d.). Canon. Retrieved September 4, 2026.

Fanlore. (n.d.). Endgame (fannish concept). Retrieved September 4, 2026.

Fanlore. (n.d.). Shipping. Retrieved September 4, 2026.

Gonzalez, V. M. (2016). Swan Queen, shipping, and boundary regulation in fandom. Transformative Works and Cultures, 22. DOI: 10.3983/twc.2016.0669.

Hart, H. (2026, August 12). "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" writers Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers on finding the story's missing piece. The Credits. Motion Picture Association.

Marvel. (n.d.). Marvel marriages. Retrieved September 4, 2026.

Marvel. (n.d.). Mary Jane Watson: Powers, enemies, history. Retrieved September 4, 2026.

Marvel. (n.d.). Phoenix (Jean Grey): Powers, villains, history. Retrieved September 4, 2026.

Marvel. (2021, June 9). X-Men Facsimile Edition (2021) #30.

RecordingLow8288. (2026, August 11). (Spoiler - Spider-Man: Brand New Day) Here are the reasons to believe in this duo for the Mutant Saga [Online forum post]. Reddit, r/CharacterRant.

Sapuridis, E. (2024, October 3). Expert insight: There's so much more to 'shipping' than wanting characters to kiss. Western News.

Sony Pictures Entertainment. (2026). Spider-Man: Brand New Day [Official film page]. Retrieved September 4, 2026.

The Walt Disney Company. (2026, August 14). Disney sets the stage for what's next in entertainment at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event.

Weiss, S. (2017, July 16). Marvel head explains Zendaya's "Spider-Man: Homecoming" character's name. Teen Vogue.

"Cyclops fan here, I'm rooting for you all." (2026, August 29). [Online forum post]. Reddit, r/SpiderPhoenix.

日本語文献

バンダイナムコエンターテインメント「アスナ」『ソードアート・オンライン フラクチュアード デイドリーム 公式サイト』（2026年9月4日閲覧）。

https://www.instagram.com/p/Db7qMiIm2Pk

Whatever happens to Peter Jean would just automatically crash out either be a small or big thing.

And whenever she gets the phoenix she will literally use any excuse just to use it whenever something happens to Peter

http://xhslink.com/o/4n3y06BMEYH

https://x.com/ReynaMadrista/status/2087892210587250779

Go support the artist guys 🫵🫵🥺🥺

Original post caption: "These don't look like Peter Parker"

Well her living conditions are probably like this or worse than this considering she's basically homeless. I guess she could mind control receptionists at random hotels so she could stay for the night lol.

But the moment u mention SpiderPhoenix stuff blows up and that argument vanishes like smoke

12 hour fight nonstop. Can MCU Spider-man survive?

I genuinely don't understand the insistence that Peter and Jean are “sibling-coded.”

I'm not even arguing that they have to be romantic. If you see them as friends, that's completely reasonable. Two characters can have a deep emotional connection without being either siblings or love interests.

But siblings? That's where I seriously don't get it.

And the kiss is the biggest reason why.

Yes, I understand the explanation. Jean was using MJ to psychologically torture Peter. It wasn't romantic. She wasn't genuinely trying to start something with him. The entire point was to exploit Peter's feelings for MJ and hurt him.

Fine. I agree.

But that doesn't mean the kiss can simply be written off when we're talking about the nature of Peter and Jean's relationship.

Jean still chose to kiss him.

And what's important is that Jean was already manipulating Peter in all kinds of ways. She impersonated MJ, exploited his attachment to her, played on his emotions, and used his own memories and vulnerabilities against him. She clearly had plenty of ways to hurt Peter without straight up kissing him.

And yet she did so.

That's what makes the sibling interpretation so strange to me.

The fact that the kiss was another form of psychological torture explains why she did it, but it doesn't make the choice itself irrelevant. The writers could have had Jean torment Peter in all the other ways she already was. They still chose to have her kiss him.

And “it wasn't romantic” doesn't really address the objection.

Once again I'm not saying, “Jean kissed Peter, therefore they're romantically interested in each other.”

No, what I'm saying is: if you're going to tell me these two are deliberately supposed to have a brother/sister dynamic, why would the story choose THAT as the way Jean psychologically attacks him?

Because siblings don't kiss.

And I don't mean “siblings generally don't kiss because it's socially unusual.” What I mean is the idea is fundamentally repulsive within an actual brother/sister relationship.

Even if siblings hated each other. Even if one sibling wanted to psychologically torment the other. You still wouldn't choose kissing as the method.

Speaking personally, as a brother, the idea of kissing my sister grosses me out beyond words. If someone told me that was the most effective way to prank her, I'd sooner cut off my own tongue.

That's how fundamentally incompatible that act is with the sibling dynamic people are trying to impose on these characters.

And that's why I don't buy “the kiss meant nothing, so it doesn't count.”

Of course it didn't mean anything romantically to Jean in that moment. That's not the point.

The point is that the movie deliberately put that interaction between these characters. You can't tell me that Peter and Jean are supposed to have an unmistakable brother/sister dynamic and then act like the fact that Jean literally kissed Peter is completely irrelevant because of her motivation.

The motivation explains why Jean kissed him.

It doesn't erase the fact that she kissed him.

Peter and Jean can have a powerful emotional connection without attributing it to siblings.

They can be friends who could maybe become something more one day. Or not. But they're not sibling coded for god's sake. It's fucking absurd to say such a thing.

https://x.com/augvertq/status/2095464608287105390?s=20

Mixing the Sadie Sink ad with the Sydney Sweeney's birthday thing to make a Marvel GirlxBlack Cat (JeanxFelicia). Bcs of that Sweeney fancast as Black Cat. Also letting here the pics I used as inspiration just for fun 😄

More spider-shii on Twitter, if you're interested: Octobionte

This song just popped up in my head during the "You Have Me" scene. Wherein Jean slowly turns to Peter and truly looks at him in the eye, just being lost in them and for the first time in a very long time, she sees the light swimming in his eyes and suddenly the darkness was vanquished, even for a short time.

In my mind, Peter was that ray of daylight during the darkest day of Jean's life.

I would have written it myself but I'm kind of busy with a completely different fanfic project so I won't be able to cater this. It would be a complete waste though so thought I'd share this little plot bunny.

• Not Canon Compliant to Doomsday onward (would be too messy given the multiverse shenanigans). The X-Men and Fantastic Four will just be founded post-BND (though the former is already going this route).

• The premise is that Peter and Jean suddenly found themselves in Midtown 2017 (between Civil War and Infinity War) while they were visiting Midtown in their current time as representatives for Xavier's school - Peter is working there full time (on-and-off retired as Spidey with Miles as his protégé/successor) and yes, mutants are much more accepted by then but there's still issues to consider. Naturally, via Parker Luck, the two spawned right in front of 2017 Peter and his classmates in their gym class.

• Peter and Jean confirmed from multiple sources there won't be any issues in their time travel. However, they'll be stuck there for a month or two so the couple pretty much decided to treat the whole thing as impromptu vocation of sorts.

EDIT: Sorry for the confusion. By "Adult", I meant Peter and Jean are in their early/mid 30s.

This is just them dancing in their kitchen of Peter's (now Jean's) apartment that they made into a home for themselves.

Dancing in the kitchen even if they suck at dancing but will dance anyways because they're in sync and just dancing for the hell of it.