From in-universe assessments like the X-Men’s omega-level mutants to the strength scale in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, there are plenty of ways to rank the power level of Marvel’s many heroes and villains. And as the Marvel Cinematic Universe faces one of its biggest threats yet in Avengers: Doomsday, one scene from Spider-Man: Brand New Day introduces a new way to rank the problems each superhero in the MCU is capable of facing. It might seem like a throwaway joke, but this one line could just be pivotal to understanding how Spider-Man and the many other characters that make up the current MCU fit together in the fight against a formidable supervillain like Doctor Doom.

[Ed. note: This article contains spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day]

In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) encounters a villain with the psychic power to jump between people, reading their minds and controlling their actions in the process. Clearly out of his league, Spidey consults Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), who has taken on her sister’s mantle as Black Widow as a member of the New Avengers. In her sauna/office, Yelena explains that the villain Peter is facing isn’t using psychological conditioning, like the Red Room Academy where she and Natasha Romanoff were trained, but is doing something more akin to demonic possession. While that’s a big problem for Peter, Yelena dismisses it as “baby potatoes” compared to the “big potatoes” the New Avengers are dealing with.

Marvel has long had an informal division between its superheroes, who face world-ending threats like alien invasions and genocidal robots, and the street-level heroes who mostly keep specific neighborhoods of New York safe. Luke Cage protects Harlem, Daredevil prowls Hell’s Kitchen, and Iron Fist guards Chinatown. Spider-Man is based in Queens and often operates at that same level, which is why he’s referred to as “your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.”

Yet the MCU has repeatedly had Spider-Man dealing with problems above his weight class. While his fight against Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming was a classic street-level tale, the tech Peter inherited from Tony Stark effectively put him on Iron Man’s level in Spider-Man: Far From Home, which also moved the action to Europe and raised the stakes considerably. Stark previously enlisted Peter to fight Captain America in Captain America: Civil War and gave him a special nanotechnology suit so he could go to space in Avengers: Infinity War. While Peter was facing classic Spider-Man villains with the help of other versions of himself in Spider-Man: No Way Home, the nature of the threat was far above street level because Doctor Strange was involved and the entire multiverse was seemingly in danger.

Brand New Day starts off returning Spider-Man to street level. He’s got some very good tech he’s made himself, but he doesn’t have the full resources of Tony Stark or even a man in the chair to help him. He’s proving himself as a hero by assisting the police and taking on gangsters and minor supervillains like Scorpion (Michael Mando) and Tombstone (Marvin Jones III). But the situation evolves over the course of the movie. Yelena comes to realize that the threat Peter is facing is “slightly bigger potatoes,” as Jean Grey (Sadie Sink) is capable of controlling the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), making her extremely dangerous. Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), another classic street-level hero, tries to help Spider-Man stop Jean, but seriously regrets it when he realizes that means fighting the strongest Avenger. He knows he's out of his league.

Thankfully Peter doesn’t need a more powerful hero to bail him out. Over the course of the movie he’s also going through a sort of spider puberty, developing organic webs and even sharper senses. He tries to suppress these changes until he finds himself vastly outmatched by Jean, who herself becomes far more powerful while held captive by Damage Control, developing telekinesis and the ability to mind control everyone within a kilometer of her. In a last-ditch effort to change the trajectory of the fight, Peter removes his inhibitor chip and embraces his new abilities. That allows him to unleash a mass of webbing and battle a group of ninjas and Damage Control soldiers with his incredible reflexes.

Spider-Man won’t be in Doomsday, but he’s expected to return to the MCU for Secret Wars. With the entire multiverse at risk, that storyline is the very definition of big potatoes. Now Peter Parker is ready to handle that level of threat, and possibly pass the torch to a new friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in Miles Morales.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters now.