{"id":777959,"date":"2026-05-06T19:38:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T19:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/777959\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T19:38:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T19:38:16","slug":"the-russos-say-making-spider-man-responsible-for-uncle-bens-death-wouldve-made-him-too-intense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/777959\/","title":{"rendered":"The Russos Say Making Spider-Man Responsible for Uncle Ben’s Death Would’ve Made Him Too ‘Intense’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Uncle Ben\u2019s death is one of the most defining moments of comics history: the origin story<\/a> of one of the greatest superheroes ever created, a turning point so profoundly impactful that not only has it never been fully reversed or retconned<\/a>, but as the mythology and multiversal existence of Spider-Man have expanded across decades, it\u2019s become deified as a circumstance practically every iteration of the character must endure: A spider-hero is not a spider-hero unless they endure the responsibility of loss<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s kind of wild that, for\u00a0Captain America: Civil War, the Russo Brothers apparently decided that the MCU\u2019s Peter Parker just didn\u2019t need that.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpider-Man was one of my favorite characters growing up, if not my favorite,\u201d Joe Russo told CBR<\/a> in a new interview looking back at a decade since\u00a0Civil War\u2018s release. \u201cAnd 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cause of Ben Parker\u2019s death in the MCU, as well as the man himself, is kept off-screen and only loosely described as a defining factor in why Peter decided to keep his identity as Spider-Man a secret\u2014rather than it being the reason he became a hero at all. So the Russos decided that, internally at least, Peter himself actually played no part in Ben\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\u201c[But] what Tom Holland is as an actor, if he blamed himself for his Uncle Ben\u2019s death, I think he becomes a very different character,\u201d Russo continued. \u201cSo in our minds, no, he wasn\u2019t responsible for Uncle Ben\u2019s death. That would have been a different interpretation. A more intense interpretation of the character.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putting aside the fact that describing Peter having a role in Ben\u2019s death as just \u201ca different interpretation\u201d is insane, given that it\u2019s arguably the interpretation of the character, it\u2019s wild that the Russos couldn\u2019t imagine Peter\u2019s flaws playing a part in how he would be shaped as Spider-Man. The whole point of Peter\u2019s actions leading to the consequence of Ben\u2019s death is that he makes a profoundly selfish choice: his decision to not use his powers to stop a thief, because he\u2019s more focused on making money out of them, is what creates the circumstances for Ben to try and stop that thief and be killed in the process. Peter Parker, when we first meet him in his origins, is not immediately a wholly good person<\/a>; part of the process of him becoming one is accepting that and changing to embrace his role as a hero. There\u2019s a reason it\u2019s one of the most famous comic book origin stories of all time!<\/p>\n

It might seem like a minor choice in what is otherwise a largely well-received iteration of the character, but now that the Russos have said it, it\u2019s hard not to see the weird throughline it created throughout the first phase of Spidey\u2019s MCU existence\u2014all the weirdness of making Tony Stark the father figure in his life<\/a> and enmeshing Spider-Man\u2019s connections to Iron Man even closer after his death, all the way up to the fact that it has to be Aunt May who finally delivers the \u201cwith great power must come great responsibility\u201d lesson in No Way Home<\/a>. Even that is altered, because May\u2019s death is framed as a punishment for Peter trying to do the right thing in trying to help the multiversal villains instead of sending them back to face their grim fates, an undeniably heroic thing, rather than it being a result of Peter\u2019s own flaws.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only really now with the launch of\u00a0Brand New Day that it feels like this version of Spider-Man is actually going to feel more like his comics counterpart, which is absurd given that it\u2019s actually Spider-Man\u2019s seventh movie in the MCU. How much of all that weirdness could\u2019ve been avoided if the Russos decided that Spider-Man, of all people, needed to take a little responsibility?<\/p>\n

\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Uncle Ben\u2019s death is one of the most defining moments of comics history: the origin story of one…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":777960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[288758,171,7644,53,80729,65165,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-777959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-captain-america-civil-war","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-marvel","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-russo-brothers","13":"tag-spider-man","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116529326211370449","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}