The MCU’s Biggest Change to Spider-Man Officially Confirmed & Explained by Joe Russo, 10 Years Later

Along with Superman and Batman, Spider-Man has the best-known origin story in superhero comics. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the characters knows about the tragedy of Uncle Ben and great power coming with great responsibility. It’s something that’s been depicted numerous times in Spider-Man media (including the first installment of not one but two separate film series), so it wasn’t surprising to see the Marvel Cinematic Universe bypass it when Peter Parker officially joined the franchise. For a decade, fans have just assumed that the MCU’s Uncle Ben died in an incident Peter could have prevented, but that isn’t the case.

Speaking with CBR, Joe Russo explained how he and his brother Anthony changed Spider-Man’s origin for the character’s first MCU appearance in Captain America: Civil War. “Spider-Man was one of my favorite characters growing up, if not my favorite,” he said. “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. [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.”

What Spider-Man’s Origin Change Means for the MCU

Viewers will surely have divided opinions on this matter. It’s one thing to not show Uncle Ben dying on screen again and just jumping to the part where Peter is fully active as Spider-Man. It’s another to make it so that he wasn’t responsible in any way for Uncle Ben’s passing. The guilt Peter feels over that has always been the main driving force behind the character. After Uncle Ben’s death, Peter realizes it’s his responsibility to use his powers for good, protecting people so that others don’t have to experience personal tragedies.

Interestingly, a passage of dialogue in Civil War seemed to hint that the MCU’s Peter followed the same trajectory as his fellow variants. During his initial meeting with Tony Stark, Peter says to him, “When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.” That line felt like a direct reference to Uncle Ben, and that would have made sense (considering the decades-long history of the Spider-Man character). However, the script almost intentionally doesn’t make a direct reference to Ben, and there apparently was a reason for that.

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We know in the MCU, Uncle Ben has died by the time viewers become acclimated with Peter. But what happened to him remains a mystery. Rather than being violently murdered by a criminal, Uncle Ben could have died from natural causes or in some kind of accident that Peter couldn’t have prevented. It’ll be interesting to see if any future MCU projects make any references to Ben’s fate, but it seems like that ship has sailed. Peter’s relationship with Aunt May was part of the emotional core of his initial MCU trilogy, and her death in No Way Home basically took the place of Uncle Ben’s (May even got to say the “great responsibility line”). If the MCU was going to bring Uncle Ben to the fold in a direct way, it likely would have happened by now.

In the MCU, it sounds like Peter was motivated to become Spider-Man more out of an obligation to protect the city than anything else. In a way, that makes a great deal of sense. Peter idolized Tony Stark and was undoubtedly aware of the Avengers, who all used their super powers to keep people safe. Knowing that he had abilities of his own, Peter was probably trying to emulate his heroes, doing whatever he can to stop the horrific crimes he was reading about. Some could argue that makes Spider-Man’s origin less personal, but it still highlights the connection he has to New York City, which is another integral part of the character.

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