Ultimate Spider-Man: [Spoiler] Gives “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility” Speech

“With great power there must also come — great responsibility!” With those words, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko concluded the 11-page Spider-Man origin story in Amazing Fantasy #15. In most media, Spider-Man’s mantra is a tragic lesson learned with the death of Peter Parker’s beloved Uncle Ben, who typically speechifies a variation of “with great power comes great responsibility.” But in this week’s Ultimate Spider-Man #4, written by Jonathan Hickman with pencils by guest artist David Messina, the lesson comes not from Ben Parker — who is still alive in this continuity — but a heroic Harry Osborn, the Green Goblin.

The twist happens after Harry — the billionaire heir of Oscorp Industries with an executive wife, Stane/Stark Industries CEO Gwen Stacy — discovered Spider-Man’s secret identity when they teamed up to battle Bullseye. The assassin was sent by Wilson Fisk, the kingpin of crime and owner of The Daily Bugle, who has been covering up the truth of this world: that it’s ruled from the shadows by The Maker’s secret council.

While a teenage Tony Stark assembles a new Ultimates team to restore the superheroes erased from existence by the villainous Reed Richards, Spider-Man and Green Goblin formed a pact to expose secrets about the corporations running North America. Meanwhile, ex-Bugle staffers Ben Parker and J. Jonah Jameson started an independent online outlet, The Paper, to get to the bottom of Fisk’s corruption.

In their civilian identities, Peter and Harry become acquainted over dinner. Harry reveals that Gwen knows he’s the masked vigilante Green Goblin, but Peter hasn’t told his wife, Mary Jane, that he’s moonlighting as a costumed crime-fighter. “I have to protect them, don’t I?” Peter says of his wife and kids, still unsure he even wants to be a superhero.

“At the end of the day, I’m just a guy in a suit. And you, with your abilities, are a good bit more than that,” Harry tells Peter. “It’s all on us, pal.” Peter is content to be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and protect people from street-level bad guys like the Shocker, but Harry tells him they need to save the world.

Unbeknownst to Peter, the Maker’s council was behind the “terrorist attack” that destroyed Stark Tower in Manhattan and killed thousands— including Harry’s parents, Emily and Norman Osborn, and Peter’s AuntMay — during a coup to seize control of the North American Union fromthe late Howard Stark and Obadiah Stane.

“You need to understand where this is headed and what we’re up against. These people… they’re playing god, and they’re playing for keeps,” Harry says of the cabal that includes world leaders like Lord Khonshu and the Hulk. “And worse than that, they’ve been doing it our whole lives. It’s institutional. It’s systemic. It’s the whole damn world. And you… you have great power, Peter. And with great power comes great responsibility. It’s such a gift… but only if you use it.”

Ultimate Spider-Man #4 is on sale now from Marvel Comics. See solicitations for upcoming issues here.