‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ writers had no interest in the MCU’s Uncle Ben

By 2017, audiences were tired of seeing Spider-Man’s origin story. With Uncle Ben’s death a prominent plot point in both Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel Studios made the smart decision in Spider-Man: Homecoming to assume that folks already know how Peter Parker got his powers and why he’s driven to fight crime.

Now Homecoming writer Jonathan Goldstein has been answering fan questions on Twitter and confirmed that at no point did they plan to show the MCU’s Ben Parker:

But that’s not to say that Uncle Ben didn’t bite it in the MCU. Holland’s Spidey dropped a subtle reference to his past trauma when talking to Tony Stark, saying “Look, when you can do the things that I can, but you don’t… and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.” In addition, we saw his initials on a suitcase in Far From Home. 

The multiverse-hopping shenanigans of Spider-Man: No Way Home may mean that we’ll finally get to see the MCU’s take on this inspirational figure. After all, what better to pull at Peter Parker’s heartstrings than to give him a peek into a multiverse where he stepped up and saved Uncle Ben’s life?

I suspect at some point we’ll get to see some form of the MCU Spider-Man origin story, though I doubt it’ll be on the big screen. Perhaps a future episode of What If…? will show us how it all went down, and it’d be fascinating to see who they pick to voice this key character.

Spider-Man: Homecoming is available to buy on Prime Video, Apple TV Plus, Vudu, Google Play, or YouTube. Spider-Man: No Way Home hits theaters on December 17.