Spider-Man comics icon crowns Tom Holland the definitive Spidey, praises Spider-Man: Brand New Day
A legendary comic-book writer has hailed Tom Holland and Destin Daniel Cretton — and the praise doesn’t get much higher.
At the world premiere of Spider- Man: Brand New Day , comics icon Frank Miller didn’t just applaud — he planted a flag. After the screening, the writer-artist behind The Dark Knight Returns jumped on Instagram to call Tom Holland his favorite Spider-Man and singled out director Destin Daniel Cretton for delivering a film that, in spirit, took him straight back to artist Steve Ditko, who co-created Spidey with Stan Lee.
“The most Ditko movie yet and with my Hand in it for all to celebrate,” Miller wrote. “This fan’s dream come true. Tom Holland is my forever Spider-Man as romantic as he is heroic. Congratulations to Destin and the whole team.”
Miller’s post included photos from the premiere — among them a shot of him meeting Cretton — and it lands with extra weight given his résumé across Marvel and DC, including The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One.
He wasn’t alone. J. Michael Straczynski — the veteran writer known for a major run on The Amazing Spider-Man — praised the movie on X, calling it an emotional Peter Parker story that still moves.
“It’s a very human story, emotional without being slow or dull or self-indulgent. It feels like stepping into a really good Spidey comic,” Straczynski wrote.
Inside the edit
As the accolades roll in nearly five years after No Way Home, Holland has been candid about how tough it was to get Brand New Day to this version. In a promotional interview on Quotable, he said the team went through multiple edits — including one early cut that everyone agreed missed the mark.
“It totally didn’t work & it was what the people were asking for, but it wasn’t quite what we wanted as the creatives,” he said.
According to Holland, several sequences were cut or reworked along the way. One scene would have featured Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple, a character Marvel fans know from the Netflix- era shows; it didn’t make the final film.
Another idea — a showdown pitting Spider-Man against some of his oldest villains — was considered but never filmed as the creative team kept reshaping the story in the edit bay.