Spider-Man: No Way Home Ruins the Perfect Peter and Uncle Ben Moment

Spider-Man: No Way Home sets up the most heart-wrenching storyline for MCU’s Peter Parker by killing off May. But it fails to live up to the Peter and uncle Ben canon.

MCU had deliberately chosen to not explore Spider-Man’s origin story because one, we’re all too familiar with it, and two, it gives the studios creative freedom to add in details later.

But in doing so, they undid his most crucial arc — Peter does not turn into a superhero because he was bitten by a spider. He becomes Spider-Man only because he failed to save uncle Ben.

Marvel’s decision to parallel May’s death with uncle Ben is understandable: Holland’s Spider-Man has always had a baby-brother, kid-next-door vibe to him. Despite being an orphan and the recent death of his father-figure Tony Stark, Peter has faced tragedy rather heroically.

It would need a death much closer to home to really shake things up for Peter. The best characters for this would inevitably be either MJ or May.

Still, given how the movies have dipped into exploring Peter and MJ’s chemistry, his dynamics with May seems a little lackluster in comparison. If we were given more to be invested in Peter and May’s relationship, her death could’ve been more poignant.

As much as I wanted to like Marvel’s insertion of “With great power, comes great responsibility,” it fell flat when compared to other Spidey films (or even the comics). It felt like nothing more than an Easter egg and sadly, added nothing of integrity to Marisa Tomei’s scene.

May’s death may have been important for character development because it forced Peter to show his ugly, vengeful side. But was it impactful? No.

This does not take away from Holland’s performance, which I personally thought was one of his best. It was almost alluring to see Peter spiral in thoughtless fury.

But I will hold my ground that it was Holland that made this plot decision work. Save for that, Marvel has ruined Peter and Uncle Ben’s perfect arc.

About Spider-Man: No Way Home

Spider-Man: No Way Home is an upcoming American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man. It is intended to be the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home.

The film was directed by Jon Watts and stars Tom Holland as Peter Parker / Spider-Man. He is joined by Zendaya, J,B. Smoove, Jacob Batalon, Marisa Tomei, Jamie Foxx, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Alfred Molina. The film is not yet available for streaming on Disney+ but the BluRay package is set to arrive March 22.

It will pick up from the events of Spider-Man: Far From Home whose ending revealed Peter’s Spider-Man identity to the world. Numerous villains from previous movies such as Doctor Octopus and Electro are also set to return.