10 Most Tragic Deaths In The History Of Spider-Man

2. Uncle Ben

The orphan's ordeal is such a genre cliche, it even has a TV Tropes article. You see it in books, films, TV shows, folk songs, video games, and especially in comic books. Superman is the last son of Krypton, jettisoned from a dying planet as his parents died. Then his adoptive human parents, the Kents, passed away too. Batman's whole motivation comes from the murder of his parents by a street criminal, before his very eyes, when he was a child. In Spider-Man's case everything is, somehow, a little more tragic than that - well, maybe not more tragic than your entire race being destroyed, but close. Because Peter Parker has been orphaned two times over in his life. Which isn't a thing that should happened to anyone, ever, let alone our wisecracking webhead hero. First there was his biological parents, the aforementioned Richard and Mary Parker, who were six feet under before Peter was four feet tall. You know losing your parents before you've had a chance to really know them is super sad. Then he was raised by his kindly Uncle Ben and Aunt May, the former taking the place of his absent father, becoming the best dad Pete could hope for. Then he went and died too! What's up with that, huh? That's gonna lead to some proper bad abandonment issues. Or at least they would, if Spidey could ever get over the crippling guilt for his part in his adoptive father's death. We all know the story, right? The burgeoning Spider-Man, still working as a wrestler, fails to stop a criminal, who later guns down Ben Parker. So that's a two-fold tragedy right there: lost parents, lost replacement parent, it was sort of your fault. Good gravy.