Spider-Man is raking in billions, but Marvel has created its own problem with this character

Marvel has run into an unusual problem for a franchise of this scale. Tom Holland has played Peter Parker in four solo movies now, but the character still hasn't gotten a personal villain whose rivalry with him would feel special.

Brand New Day didn't break that pattern either.

Let's run through a quick retrospective:

1. The conflict in Spider-Man: Homecoming revolved around Vulture, whose grudge was aimed at Tony Stark rather than Parker. Their clash was basically a coincidence.

2. Mysterio in Far From Home was seeking revenge for stolen Stark technology. Like Vulture, he existed in Iron Man's shadow – Peter just happened to get in the way.

3. No Way Home brought five classic villains to the screen at once: Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Electro, Lizard and Sandman. But all of them belonged to other universes, other versions of Peter Parker. The emotional connection worked through nostalgia, not through any relationship built with Holland's character. Once again, there was no rivalry with a single dedicated foe.

4. Brand New Day kept the same trend going, leaning on brief cameo confrontations while the main threat came from an entirely different world. It didn't give Peter a personal enemy – instead, he's fighting loneliness.

Many Spider-Man fans think Marvel has backed itself into a corner here. Holland has already met versions of Norman Osborn, Otto Octavius and Curt Connors. Bringing in new MCU versions of the same characters would need some serious narrative justification, and matching that same emotional weight without the recognition factor would be much harder to pull off.

Then there's Kraven and Venom, but Sony handed those characters to a different universe and can't merge them with the current Marvel movie lineup. Morbius is better left unmentioned.

Peter Parker's rogues gallery includes Chameleon, Mister Negative, Shocker (well, used to), Kingpin (currently facing off against Daredevil in his own series), and Hobgoblin – Parker has dozens of comic book adversaries with strong personal motivations. That's a solid way to send the character off in a fifth movie, otherwise Peter Parker risks staying a superhero without a single epic personal showdown against an iconic villain.

And for now, that's the main problem running through all four movies released so far.