Spectacular Spider-Man (vol. 2) #27

Peter Parker is visiting the grave of his late Uncle Ben around Christmas time. He remembers how when he was young when he and his Uncle Ben had a snowball fight. As Peter remembers it, Uncle Ben had just pelted him with snowballs. To get revenge, Peter asked Uncle Ben to look out behind him. Playing along, Ben waited until Peter could make a snowball and pelt him with it. Finishing his recollection, Peter wishes Ben a Merry Christmas and leaves a present at his grave. Suddenly, Ben appears ath is grave and wishes Peter a Merry Christmas as well. Peter apologizes for being late, telling Ben that it was the Rhino this time that kept him delayed.

Peter then complains about the cold, thinking it gets colder every year. When Ben asks why Peter isn’t wearing the gloves that Aunt May knitted for him, Peter reminds him how uncomfortable they are and how Ben used to drop off all the scarves she knitted off at the local homeless shelter until they asked him to stop because the wool was giving people rashes. Ben remarks how much he loved the holidays and how Aunt May hated the snowmen they would make because they were always hideous. Always calling them a pair of twits. They remember how one year they made a bunch of snowman standing around one of their fallen brothers with a pickax in his head. Another year they blocked the chimney with a Santa snowman. The year after that they built their snowmen driving the family car.

By this point, the pair are doing snow angels when Ben decides to get to more serious subjects. He says that when he looks down and watches Peter he can tell when things are right and when things are wrong and asks Peter what’s troubling him. Peter admits that something is bothering him but it’s not any specific thing, it’s just everything. Ben asks if it' has anything to do with May finding out that he’s Spider-Man.[2] He says that’s part of it and says that everything is changing and he doesn’t know how to make it stop.

He just recently got Mary Jane back, but he doesn’t know how to tell her how she really means to him when he spends half his time as Spider-Man, and she spends that time worrying if he will make it back home alive.[3] However, how can he tell her he loves her more than anyone when there isn’t a day that goes by where he thinks about Gwen Stacy and how she was taken away from him before he could tell her how he really felt about her.[4] He also wants to make the world a better place but it’s a dump full of nasty people and he says he can’t escape it, even when he dreams.

Ben tells Peter that he’s being too hard on himself, Peter gets this all the time from others and it doesn’t change how he feels. He tells Ben about this dream where he is walking down a corridor knowing someone is after him. He always ends up running past a curtain onto a stage that is suddenly flooded with a blinding white light and he finds himself surrounded by all of his foes. This time they all know who he is and they are not going to stop until he is dead. Ben tells Peter to stop tormenting himself telling him that his life as Spider-Man isn’t his identity, it’s something he chooses to do every day. Ben reminds Peter that they’re not really talking — that Peter is just talking to himself — and decides to give him some insight into his recurring dream. He reminds Peter of when he was an ant in a first-grade play. Peter made sure his costume was just right but when the play began and Peter had his big moment on stage he suddenly froze from stage fright. Ben concludes by saying that he didn’t just become Spider-Man to make up for his murder, that he was always going to be Spider-Man even without his powers and not for Ben, but for his parents. This makes Peter cry, and Ben tells Peter that he shouldn’t feel like he failed his parents.[5] He tells Peter that no matter what he needs to move past his regrets and learn to live with the people he loves, telling him the dead can wait.[6] Peter asks if he is stubborn and Ben tells him that he’s just like his mother and her sister. Peter then says goodbye, telling Ben that he’ll be back on his birthday. Before he leaves, Peter wraps his scarf around Ben’s tombstone and walks away. Moments later, Aunt May arrives and finding Peter’s present, the scarf, and that Peter left a snow angel as well as one of his snowman scenes, she smiles with a tear in her eye calling her nephew and her late husband a pair of twits.

That night, Peter Parker sleeps and he dreams of his younger self taking the stage. His teacher tells Peter that everyone is waiting for him. Peter then walks out and then, joined by a number of foes he has fought recently, takes a bow.[7]

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, (in flashback) Aunt May, Uncle Ben, Richard and Mary Parker

Continuity Notes

1. Uncle Ben died when he was shot in a home invasion in Amazing Fantasy #15. A-Doy.Per the Sliding Timescale, Uncle Ben has been dead for roughly 11 years at the time of this story.

2. At the time of this story, May had just recently found out that Peter was Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #35.

3. Peter and Mary Jane went through a separation that lasted from Amazing Spider-Man Annual 2001 until Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #50.

4. Gwen Stacy was Peter’s previous girlfriend, she was murdered by the Green Goblin in Amazing Spider-Man #121.

5. Peter’s parents were government agents who were killed while on a mission as we learned in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #5. This story presents Peter’s parents as being alive when he was old enough to be in the first grade. This contradicts every past story that says that Peter was a toddler when his parents died. Given the surreal dream-like quality of this story, one could assume that the inclusion of his parents attending the school play is the product of Peter’s imagination.

6. Ben mentions that Peter blames himself for what happened to Flash Thompson. Flash has been in a catatonic state since the Green Goblin forced him into a drunk driving accident in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #44-47. He will remain in this state until Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #3.

7. All of the characters bowing with Peter are from Paul Jenkin’s run on Peter Parker: Spider-Man, as well as Spectacular Spider-Man (vol. 2).

Topical References

• Peter blames the cold weather on Global Warming, which is an outdated term to explain planetary warming caused by humans. This story was published when this was the commonly used frame. The correct term now is Climate Change, since the phenomena actually create extreme weather on both ends of the thermometer.