10 Things Marvel Wants You To Forget About Spider-Man
8. Aunt May's Almost Husband
The defining moment in Spider-Man's career is, of course, the death of his Uncle Ben, who was murdered by a petty burglar. Spider-Man had an opportunity to stop the murderer earlier in Amazing Fantasy #15 but declined out of selfishness. The sequence is so iconic and important to the Spider-Man mythos, it has been dubbed his Uncle Ben moment.
Except Spider-Man almost didn't have an Uncle Ben. In the rarely referenced issue of Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #4, readers learn that Peter's Aunt May was getting set to marry a rapscallion named Johnny Jerome - a criminal who was once convicted of murder.
If you consider how Aunt May also almost married another murderer, Doctor Octopus, in an issue of Amazing Spider-Man, one has to wonder how she ever settled on the tame, non-murdering Ben Parker. Of course, the comic also begs the question what would have happened to Peter and Spider-Man if May stuck with a crook like Jerome? What would have been Spider-Man's defining lesson? With great power, comes... what?