First Official Bathouse Photo of Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova in ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Finally Surfaces

Marvel’s surprise crossovers have always been part of what keeps fans obsessively combing through every frame of a new release, and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” delivered exactly that kind of moment with a cameo few saw coming. The film hit theaters a little over a year after “Thunderbolts*,” and its story appears to unfold sometime between the end of that movie and its post-credits scene.

That cameo centers on Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, who pops up when Peter Parker turns to her for help investigating a mysterious body-jumping, mind-controlling villain terrorizing New York. Since debuting in 2021’s “Black Widow,” Yelena has steadily become one of the MCU’s most consistently beloved characters, with appearances spanning “Hawkeye,” “Thunderbolts*,” “What If?,” and “Marvel Zombies.”

Now, weeks after the film’s release, Marvel Studios has finally shared the first official photo from that cameo, giving fans their clearest look yet at the scene that had audiences buzzing since opening weekend. The new image was posted by Company 3 senior colorist Tom Poole on Instagram, marking the first picture from the sequence released by anyone officially connected to the film’s production.

The photo shows Spider-Man, mask and suit still on, standing framed in a bathhouse doorway while holding a towel, with the back of Yelena’s head visible peeking out of the steaming blue water. That setting lines up with how the scene actually plays out on screen: Yelena’s “office” turns out to be a New York City bathhouse, where she agrees to help Peter only on the condition that he joins her in the water.

That arrangement leads to one of the film’s more comedic beats, with Peter stripping down to his underwear while stubbornly keeping his Spider-Man mask on, much to Yelena’s amusement. She tells him he needs to strip down to make sure he hasn’t been “bugged,” and observes that he must be “a pretty lonely spider” given how guarded he remains even in her company.

Despite Peter hoping Yelena’s background as a trained Black Widow assassin might offer some insight into the villain he’s chasing, she comes up empty-handed, brushing off his concerns as “small potatoes” compared to whatever bigger threats the New Avengers are currently tracking. That dismissal doesn’t diminish the scene’s impact, though, since it still manages to offer Peter a moment of genuine, if reluctant, connection during an otherwise isolating chapter of his story.

Pugh has embraced the cameo’s popularity since the film’s release, previously sharing fan-made art of the bathhouse scene on her Instagram Stories, set to Charli XCX’s “Wink Wink.” That repost helped settle some of the more exaggerated fan speculation about how risqué the scene actually was, confirming both characters remained clothed beneath the water despite early rumors suggesting otherwise.

Beyond the fan service, Yelena’s brief appearance also plants a seed for the franchise’s future. With both heroes based in New York, the scene subtly reinforces just how interconnected Marvel’s street-level heroes have become, especially with Yelena confirmed to play a key role in the upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday.”

Looking further ahead, if Yelena survives the events of “Doomsday” and “Secret Wars,” this newer version of Black Widow could remain a mainstay of the MCU well into its next chapter, potentially even alongside the studio’s upcoming 2028 “X-Men” reboot. Whether Peter Parker factors into “Doomsday” at all remains unclear, but this bathhouse encounter suggests the New Avengers may already have an ally waiting in the wings.

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