Your Good friend Neighborhood Spider-Man, Disney Plus’ new Spider-Man animated sequence, takes numerous inventive liberties with Peter Parker’s backstory. For one, his spider powers got here from a mysterious interdimensional spider that appeared from a portal seemingly conjured by Physician Unusual. For one more, his highschool BFF is none aside from goth queen Nico Minoru. And although this model of Peter Park is barely MCU adjoining, in that Peter has an excellent wealthy mentor determine to assist finance his spider-activities, as an alternative of Tony Stark, it’s Norman Osborn.
With all these tweaks to Peter’s story, there’s chance for something, actually, and I’ve one large concept that may simply shake the foundations of the Spider-Man story: I don’t suppose Uncle Ben is lifeless.
Hear me out! Not like within the typical model of Peter’s story from the comics and numerous film variations, Uncle Ben is absent earlier than Peter will get bitten by the spider. Additionally, within the first two episodes, nobody truly says Uncle Ben is lifeless. Might and Peter simply kinda speak about how he’s “not round.” Which leads me to imagine that there’s a selected motive that the showrunners have determined to not explicitly say he’s lifeless.
We’ve seen Uncle Ben die many, many, many instances in films and TV exhibits and it’s at all times particularly in order that Peter can sensible up and notice he wants to make use of his powers for good. We don’t essentially must see that story play out once more, however it’s jarring that he’s already out of Might and Peter’s lives earlier than the spider. It’s even extra jarring when everybody’s kinda speaking round what occurred to him. I get that possibly it will be clunky for Peter to go “Man, when Uncle Ben obtained shot by that mugger final yr, issues have been tough for me and my aunt,” but additionally, each point out of Ben appears to be intentionally ambiguous.
So what occurred to Ben? Did he go away Might? Does he have a secret household within the New Jersey suburbs that he determined to stay with full time? Or did he get kidnapped or disappear in some form of super-powered incident? Has he been recruited by SHIELD to go deep undercover? Or is he in jail? Or did he get a job that relocated him to a special borough and now he can’t make the commute to see his spouse and nephew, as a result of rattling, have you learnt how annoying it’s to get from Brooklyn to Queens by way of public transport?
We’re solely two episodes into the present, however I’m side-eying the vagueness round Uncle Ben and can hold an eye fixed out for any additional Ben mentions that affirm or deny my concept.
Your Pleasant Neighborhood Spider-Man’s first two episodes at the moment are streaming on Disney Plus. New episodes drop each Wednesday.