Ever since the Marvel Cinematic Universe was established, Spider-Man has been pulled between two worlds. While he’s featured in his own MCU movies, Sony owns the rights to the character, and has used those rights to revolutionize animated superhero movies with the Spider-Verse trilogy of Into the Spider-Verse, Across the Spider-Verse, and the upcoming Beyond the Spider-Verse.
The streams between these movies don’t usually cross — Spider-Man: No Way Home gave the MCU’s Peter Parker his own Spider-Verse to deal with — but a recent casting announcement revealed that the two separate universes share a key player, even if he’ll look a lot different.
Tombstone rules over a crime syndicate in Marvel’s comics.
According to Deadline, Marvin Jones III, aka Krondon, has been cast in Spider-Man: Brand New Day as Tombstone. Jones already voiced Tombstone in Into the Spider-Verse, where he’s Kingpin’s right-hand man and head of security for Fisk Industries. Because Marvel’s Spider-Man movies are set in another universe, it’s likely Brand New Day’s version of Tombstone will serve a completely different role. In the comics, he’s a crime boss on par with Kingpin, so perhaps we’ll see him mess with Peter Parker while the Marvel version of Kingpin is busy with Matt Murdock.
Jones is bringing this character into live-action for the first time, but he’s no stranger to playing supervillains: he previously played crime boss Tobias Whale in the CW Arrowverse series Black Lightning. Jones, like Tombstone’s comic book iteration, has albinism, so he’s perfectly suited to bring him into live-action. In fact, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Tombstone would have been played by Jones in El Muerto, the Bad-Bunny-starring Sonyverse spinoff movie that was quietly taken off the schedule in 2023.
Marvin Jones III as Tobias Whale in Black Lightning.
We still don’t know what Brand New Day will be about, but as the cast rounds out, an image is starting to emerge: Mark Ruffalo will appear as the Hulk, Zendaya is back as MJ, and Sadie Sink will appear in a still-unknown role. Now that Tombstone is involved, it’s looking like Spider-Man will face a street-level threat, even if the main villain is someone else entirely. Whatever’s going on, Spidey’s attempt to start fresh is clearly going to get complicated.
