Why Tom Holland’s Spider-Man never got the classic Uncle Ben origin in the MCU

Joe Russo says Marvel deliberately avoided the classic Uncle Ben tragedy when introducing Tom Holland’s Spider-Man

The filmmakers behind Captain America: Civil War have finally explained why Spider-Man’s origin story was handled differently in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

When Tom Holland made his debut as Peter Parker in Civil War, Marvel avoided directly retelling the classic moment that defines Spider-Man across comics and earlier films, Peter’s responsibility in the death of Uncle Ben.

In an interview with CBR, Joe Russo said the creative team made that choice deliberately.

Russo explained that what always mattered most to him about Spider-Man was the idea of a young person carrying enormous responsibility. But instead of building that version of Peter Parker around direct guilt over Uncle Ben’s death, the filmmakers wanted to preserve the spirit of loss without making Holland’s Peter responsible for causing it.

In Russo’s view, if Holland’s version of Peter blamed himself for Uncle Ben’s death, it would have created a much darker and more intense interpretation of the character.

That marked a major shift from earlier Spider-Man films.

In both Spider-Man starring Tobey Maguire and The Amazing Spider-Man starring Andrew Garfield, Uncle Ben’s death is directly tied to Peter’s failure to stop a criminal. That moment becomes the emotional foundation of the character and the reason he embraces the “great responsibility” philosophy.

The MCU took a different route.

Rather than centering Peter’s emotional trauma around Uncle Ben, Marvel gradually tied that defining loss to Aunt May. Throughout Holland’s trilogy, Aunt May becomes Peter’s closest emotional anchor.

That approach reaches its breaking point in Spider-Man: No Way Home.

After Peter chooses to trust Norman Osborn, the same man who is secretly the Green Goblin, Aunt May is killed during the fallout. Her death becomes the moment that pushes Holland’s Peter closest to revenge, before he is stopped from crossing that line.

In effect, the MCU shifted Spider-Man’s defining trauma away from Uncle Ben and placed it on Aunt May instead.

The Russo Brothers’ explanation makes clear that the change was not meant to erase Spider-Man’s core theme, but to shape a different emotional foundation for Peter Parker when he first entered the larger Marvel universe.