Having sat through Peter Parker’s backstory in two separate films from the last decade-and-a-half, many fans were relieved to see Spider-Man emerge pretty much fully formed in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, skipping the introductory saga entirely. Nonetheless, the killing of Uncle Ben lends an element of tragedy to Peter’s roots that you could argue the Tom Holland version is lacking, and according to a new fan theory, the MCU might provide an equivalent death in next year’s Avengers: Endgame.
Though Ben’s demise has been retold in many different ways over the years, one of the defining elements of this pivotal moment is the guilt that Peter feels for his death. For the Holland version, however, Ben’s passing happens before we’re introduced to the wall-crawler, and we get no indication that Peter believes himself to be partly responsible for the incident.
The new theory argues that this element of guilt could instead come about from the death of Tony Stark in the Avengers: Infinity War sequel. Indeed, Iron Man remains a popular favorite among the fans for most likely fatality in next year’s release, and so the case is made that Tony may sacrifice himself in order to save his young protégé. But to make this scenario even heavier, the theory goes as far to suggest that Peter himself might have to make the choice of sacrificing Tony in order to acquire the Soul Stone.
Overall, there’s a certain logic to the idea, but the question is raised of how necessary it even is for Peter to feel guilty about a mentor’s death. After all, the MCU has already strayed from tradition in telling Peter’s story, so why try to give the character a surrogate Uncle Ben now? Besides, it feels like Spidey has more or less learned the lesson that Ben’s death was supposed to teach him. In the web-slinger’s own words, “When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.”
But regardless of how much validity there is to the theory, Tony should will still want to tread carefully when Avengers: Endgame hits theaters on April 26th, 2019.
