Ben Parker, despite only appearing in flashbacks outside of his first appearance, is not just important to the origins of Spider-Man, he might be the most important thing after the spider bite that gave Peter his powers. The ending line of the origin story first presented in Amazing Fantasy #15, “with great power comes great responsibility”, the alleged heart and theme of Peter as Spider-Man, was retroactively attributed to Uncle Ben, a rare example of a retcon done right. When I heard that Uncle Ben was pulled out of Peter’s origin, I thought it was one of those retcon bombs destroying the whole point of the character and why Peter does what he does.
The good news is that Marvel Comics is not taking Uncle Ben out of Peter’s history…yet. Instead it’s the Russo Brothers deciding he shouldn’t be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In a recent interview with the website formerly known as Comic Book Resources, Joe Russo explained what he and his brother are thinking after the multiversal crossover of Spider-Man: No Way Home.
“Spider-Man was one of my favorite characters growing up, If not my favorite,” Joe Russo said in an exclusive interview with CBR’s Sean O’Connell. “And what I related to was this idea of a kid with incredible responsibility, right? And I think you could manifest that responsibility through accidental death, right? And feeling the pressure, and the sense of loss in your life in a way that would keep the spirit that we wanted.
Russo continued: “[But] what Tom Holland is as an actor, if he blamed himself for his Uncle Ben’s death, I think he becomes a very different character. So in our minds, no, he wasn’t responsible for Uncle Ben’s death. That would have been a different interpretation. A more intense interpretation of the character.”
If he becomes a “very different character” because of the actor, then he’s the wrong actor for the part. For the record I don’t have any issues with Holland as Spider-Man. He does okay with the quips and he’s playing a younger Peter who at times is out of his depth with his situation. Part of that is on the writers, but my problems with the MCU Spider-Man, and why I haven’t watched since Homecoming, is the lack of getting Peter’s world and supporting characters right, thanks in part to Sony (who haven’t gotten Peter right since Rami’s second Spider-Man movie–and even then there’s the whole “organic webbing” nonsense) not wanting to risk damaging the character with its iconography if MCU Spidey failed–and currently it’s been the only thing the MCU has gotten praise for. So that was for nothing.
However, to pull Ben out of the origin, and I think we all suspected that since Homecoming, is to show how little you understand about the character. Then again they don’t understand anything else given what they did with the supporting cast, but for someone who claims to have been a Spider-Fan from the earliest years we instead have what looks like the usual “oh, I’ve always loved…” line that usually turns out to be more Hollywood BS.
I shouldn’t have to tell you this story by now. It was in the Rami movie. It’s been in almost every animated incarnation I grew up with, at least as late as Spectacular Spider-Man if not the Disney XD shows. Peter Parker is a science geek, usually focused on chemistry with some engineering interest. He’s shy, awkward, and the only interactions we see in Amazing Fantasy #15 with his peers is being ridiculed while everyone cheers bully jock Flash Thompson. When Peter gets bitten by a radioactive spider that accidentally showed up in the experiment (changed to a genetic experiment in the original Ultimate universe comics, which is what was used for the Sam Rami version), he ends up with the ability to climb walls and sense danger, with Rami adding organic webbing because he missed the chemistry and engineering skills that led him to make wrist mounted silly string…WHICH WAS USED TO PROMOTE THE MOVIE ALONG WITH WATER SHOOTERS IN MY RICE KRISPIES! That’s why I can’t let go of the organic webbing in his wrists instead of near his butt like a real spider. Of all the comic-related hills he didn’t want to die on, how was that the one?
“They gave me a microscope instead of a swirly. They’re the ones that matter.”
Otherwise the origin is the same. Peter’s Uncle Ben and Aunt May, old enough to be his grandparents, are the only people Peter cares about because they’re the only ones in his life that don’t make him miserable. Everyone else can pound sand, whether it’s a supervillain or not. So when he becomes a performer (and in some versions stiffed by the promoter) and some thief runs past him, Peter doesn’t care. He was in his costume. He could have webbed the guy. Heck, the guy ran so close he could have tripped him. The officers weren’t that far away. Peter was angry at the world. He didn’t take it out on people, making money to help his surrogate parents more than himself in the comic, but that doesn’t mean he was going to help people, either.
Until that came back to bite him like a radioactive spider.
The thief took to robbing houses next, and while Peter was out it was his house they went after. In a What If story, Peter was home and the crook went after their neighbor, Mary Jane’s aunt (I forget if MJ got shot as well). In the regular timeline Ben is the one shot, and when Peter goes after him he sees the crook was the same guy he let past. By not helping others he lost something precious to himself and his Aunt May went through a series of money and health issues when she wasn’t engaged to Spider-Man’s supervillains and doting on Peter. (AKA the only four storylines May has: money, hospital, romance, and doting.) This is what makes Peter realise that he had to do more with his gift than showing off on television shows and became a superhero.
Can you tell the story without Uncle Ben? The American live-action Spider-Man show, the one without a giant robot so nobody talks about it despite Nicholas Hammond clearly being the inspiration for the Fox Kids cartoon design, didn’t have Ben in his origin, but it also didn’t have Peter being bullied. In the pilot movie Peter just works in the college lab and a spider ends up near some radioactive materials and turns mutagenic. In the MCU we still see Peter being bullied after getting his powers. So why did he turn crimefighter? I’m all for “because it’s the right thing to do”, but that doesn’t sound like Tom Holland’s Peter. He’d most likely not do anything with his powers because he’s too shy and awkward to think of it, at least from what I’ve seen. Even with Tony Stark’s guidance he was clumsy and made mistakes. I don’t believe this Peter would be angry at the world but I also don’t believe he’d become a hero without Uncle Ben offering some early guidance and becoming a crime victim. Not because Peter wouldn’t care but that he’s have no motivation to go hero.
Instead, his entire world revolves around Marisa Tomei’s Aunt May, and it’s his inability to save her from Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin — the very same one from Maguire’s non-MCU universe who, oh by the way, Holland’s Parker initially allowed into his good graces as Norman — in Spider-Man: No Way Home that nearly pushed Holland’s Parker to the brink of murder … prior to being stopped at the last possible second by Maguire.
Wait, really? They just redid what Rami did in the first Spider-Man movie? Even Rami had Ben’s death involved, changing it to a carjacking to speed up the timeline. (The house robbery was days later.) As it was May was de-aged (also the version they used for the Disney Jr cartoon where they did that to pretty much everyone) and were pushing a romance with Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan, which was a major change to his character when most of the Iron Man cast were getting better adaptations. I’m almost willing to believe it was the response to Spider-Man finally being in the MCU despite all the changes are why we get the “in name only” brandfics that Marvel Studios content has become, the mirror opposite of what Marvel Studios was created for in the first place. It also appears that it’s a dying May that told Peter the “great power” line, which as Geeks & Gamers contributor Alex Gherzo points out, changes Peter’s whole motivation for being a superhero Spider-Man instead of a TV stuntman.
Another wrinkle to this is that the “With great power comes great responsibility” message means something a bit different, considering the different roles Peter played in losing Uncle Ben and Aunt May. With Ben, it means Peter’s responsibility to those he can save but won’t due to his own inaction, whereas with May, it’s Peter’s responsibility to help those against whom he wants revenge. Peter wants to beat the life out of the Green Goblin for what he did to Aunt May in No Way Home, but May implores him to save the Goblin anyway, as he must save the other wayward multiversal villains who still have a chance to be better men. Ben’s death forced Peter to overcome sloth and avarice, but May’s forces him to overcome hate and anger, something he almost doesn’t.
It also means that May stole what Gwen Stacy brought to Peter’s story, that his superhero life could be a problem for his loved ones, forcing Peter to choose between them and who he risks. Plus his reason for going after his reality’s Green Goblin for revenge and everything that followed that with Norman and Harry Osborn now gets put on May. There was and probably won’t be a Gwen as depicted in the comics in the MCU, right Michelle Jones? We might get Ghost Spider, the alternate universe Gwen of the Spiderverse and Disney Junior productions formed from a What If story and an obsession with Gwen frickin Stacy, but May has her part in Peter’s life also covered. So she took over Ben and Gwen’s stories.
So I have further reason to not care about MCU Peter Parker. The original movie already gave us barely-Spider-Man and it seems the Peter of Earth-1999999 is even less like Earth-616’s Peter than he was before. I’m not telling you folks to not enjoy it. It might be the only series still praised in the MCU. I’m just not invested in seeing it. Outside of the costume and powers it just doesn’t look or sound like Spider-Man to me.
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