The latest Spider-Man film is a surprisingly moving meditation on isolation, identity and the human need to be truly known - with lessons that speak directly to the Church, says Holly Price. As Jesus’ prayer in John 17 makes clear, becoming who God made us to be was never meant to be a solo mission
Warning: Contains minor plot spoilers
“Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing, even if it breaks Peter Parker’s heart. Maybe that’s my responsibility: to live alone with the truth.” This is one of the saddest lines in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Peter Parker finds himself utterly alone. Worse still, he increasingly believes that isolation is his duty.
The film opens with people searching for connection: gratitude videos are posted online, petitions are addressed to AI companions, confessions are rehearsed but never sent, and Spider-Man is praised as “the hero every adult relies on and every child wants to be”.
But beneath the mask, Peter is exhausted. It’s been four years since Doctor Strange’s spell erased him from everyone’s memory. Saving the world, he discovers, is much easier than knowing who you are when nobody really knows you at all.
Behind the mask
In previous Spider-Man films, Peter was surrounded by people who loved and shaped him: Aunt May, MJ and Ned, even the Avengers. Now, he is alone.
This isolation isn’t just a plot line: it reflects a growing concern in the real world, too. The World Health Organisation’s 2025 Commission on Social Connection argues that loneliness is a symptom of a deeper lack of connection, purpose and belonging – and that social health is as vital as physical and mental health.
The question is no longer how to help lonely people, but how to build lives and communities where people are genuinely known. Even church communities can become places where our masks stay firmly on. We learn how to share prayer requests without sharing ourselves. We can be surrounded by people and still carry our struggles alone.
For all the multiversal chaos found within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), I’ve always found its most powerful moments in the relationships that shape its heroes. That’s where Brand New Day is at its strongest.
As Peter fully throws himself into being Spider-Man, the battle isn’t just against villains. It’s against the growing belief that he can carry everything himself. Ironically, the person who sees through his mask most clearly is outlaw Frank Castle. Their clashes are often hilarious, but also surprisingly honest.
When Peter jokes about their shared loneliness, Frank isn’t laughing. “You think this is a life choice?” he snaps. “This is a sentence.” It’s a line that lands with force. What Peter presents as noble self-sacrifice has become something closer to self-imposed isolation.
In it together
Throughout the Spider-Man films, one phrase repeatedly pulls Peter back from the brink: “This isn’t you.” Those words only have power when they come from someone who truly knows and cares about him.
We all need people like that. It’s easy to forget who we are, hide our failures and trust fear’s lies. When we listen in on Jesus’ prayer, we hear a startling truth: “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us…Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:20-23).
Even church communities can become places where our masks stay firmly on
The Father loves us with the very same love that He has for his Son. It is our responsibility to believe the reality of His love and reject the lie that keeps us distant from God.
Jesus is equally clear that this truth is not meant to be carried alone. His prayer is saturated with togetherness. We are invited into the Trinity itself, and into relationships shaped by that same love. As Augustine famously wrote: “If you see love, you see the Trinity.” Jesus vision was always a people, not just individuals; a community formed by the love of the Trinity and through relationships of honesty, encouragement and grace.
This is how God wants to transform the world. This is what Jesus is constantly praying for us.
If Spider-Man has learned anything, it’s that we cannot become who we’re meant to be alone. As heroes gather for the upcoming Avengers:Doomsday (released later this year), the same question remains: who will they become together?
The invitation is simple: pull off your mask. Walk alongside someone. Remind them of what’s true – and let them do the same for you. Becoming who God created us to be isn’t a solo mission. It’s something we learn together.
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