Spider-Man: Brand New Day has crossed $2 billion worldwide. It opened to $360 million in North America, the biggest domestic opening weekend in history, and roughly $932 million globally, second only to Avengers: Endgame. By every commercial measure, this is the most successful thing Marvel Studios has done in years. And now it has an AI problem, sitting inside a $50 hardcover that fans have already bought.“The Art of Spider-Man: Brand New Day” reached shelves on August 18, a 208-page collector’s book, and readers working through it have flagged one piece of concept art that looks machine-generated. The image is titled “Big City, Little Spider” and credited to concept artist Scott McInnes. At a glance it is an ordinary New York street, all yellow cabs and walk-up buildings. Zoom in and it falls apart. Two taxis heading in opposite directions fuse into each other mid-frame. A fire escape on the left twists into stairs that go nowhere. Traffic lights sit at strange angles. Windows land where no working artist would put them.
Two taxis warping into each other and a fire escape twisting into stairs that go nowhere: the telltale signs fans spotted in “Big City, Little Spider”
The find surfaced through The Artbook Collector, was reported by The Direct, and spread across X, Reddit and ResetEra within hours. The complaint is specific rather than abstract. A film clearing $2 billion apparently could not pay a human to draw a taxi correctly. Readers who went through the rest of the book say the other pages look clean, which suggests one image slipped past quality control rather than a pattern running through the collection.
Marvel’s AI problem did not start with this artbook
McInnes has a serious blockbuster résumé, including Morbius, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Guardians of the Galaxy, Andor, Barbie and Wonka. That history is part of why the reaction has been so sharp.The timing helps nobody. Marvel cut a large chunk of its visual development team months ago, the people who build a film’s look before cameras roll. Fans drew their own conclusions then. Secret Invasion’s AI-assisted title sequence from 2023 still gets brought up. DC recently pulled a Supergirl behind-the-scenes video after viewers spotted AI concept art of Jason Momoa’s Lobo.Marvel has not commented. Buyers found out after paying.
