Just an Old Sweet Song

Spider-Man arrives at Aunt May’s home and as he changes out of his costume in a nearby tree, he thinks about how he always loves coming back home. Peter has arrived for his usual dinner with his Aunt May. When he enters the house he hears her listening to old music on the new audio set up that Peter set up for her. She also shows him two old trunks that she moved out of storage. Inside one, Peter is delighted to find all of Uncle Ben’s old comic books[1] and learns they were spared from the fire that destroyed May’s home because they were in storage.[2] Peter also finds an old photo album full of pictures of May when she was growing up. He happens upon a photo of her when she was nineteen and is surprised by how attractive May once was. May finds a photo that was taken of her when she was eighteen and tells her it was around this time that she met Ben Parker and decides to tell Peter all about it.[3]

She tells Peter that at the time she and her friend Shirley Rosenbaum went to Atlantic City for an all-girls getaway so Shirley could meet her boyfriend, Harvey Goldberg. Harvey was in the military and was on furlough and brought along a friend with him, Ben Parker. She was smitten by Ben instantly and the pair had a great time. May and her friends spent their Atlantic City getaway having fun. When Peter asks if that was when the pair became a couple, May says that’s not exactly true. While she and Ben kept in touch while he went back overseas, she fell for another man, Johnny Jerome. Johnny was a slick customer who impressed May by taking her out on expensive dates. One day when they went out dancing, two years into their relationship, she recognized the voice of the live crooners singing. Sure enough, when she looked over at the bandstand, May saw that Ben Parker was one of the singers. Reflecting on this now, May can still remember the look of hurt on Ben’s face when he saw her dancing with another man. She remembers how a few weeks later she bumped into Ben Parker on the Coney Island midway after she dodged his phone calls. Catching up with May, Ben told her he had been working the carnival until his singing career took off. He also wanted to warn her about Johnny Jerome, whom he knew as nothing more as a cheap hood. May ignored Ben’s warnings, thinking he was jealous. But now she looks back on it she thinks about how naive she was not to see that Ben was right. Peter can only imagine, thinking of how he found himself in a similar situation when he dated the Black Cat.[4]

She soon came to believe the truth on the night that Johnny suddenly came in through her bedroom window. When he kissed her, she could feel the gun inside his jacket press against her. Hearing sirens, Johnny suggested that the go, but that’s when Ben Parker came barging in to tell May that Jermone had just held up a jewelry store and the police were after him. May was horrified to discover that he was a crook, so Johnny decided to leave without her but he eventually got arrested about a block away. It was that moment that she realized that Ben Parker actually cared about her and it was on that night that May decided that she was going to one day marry Ben Parker. Peter was unaware of this part of Uncle Ben and Aunt May’s life before, but May says that he’s old enough to understand and hence why she told him this story. She tells him how she had saw Johnny years later after he had gotten out of prison and that the years had not been kind to him. She helped him get an apartment to live out the last years of his life but wishes there was more she could have done for him. This makes Peter think about how he couldn’t save Gwen Stacy, and admits that you can’t save everyone all the time.[5] When Peter asks when she and Ben got married, May says that the pair worked on building a nest egg first. Ben started working in sales and eventually excelled at it while May waiting tables. She recalls how Ben proposed to her one night while they were out for dinner with Ben’s younger brother Richard. Ben had given his brother money for the jukebox and was trying to muster up the strength to propose when Richard programmed the song that Ben used always sing about May, giving him the courage to go through it. Sure enough, when he proposed, May accepted right away. As it turned out, May knew Ben was going to try and propose and orchestrated the whole thing, something Ben didn’t realize until their first anniversary.

Seeing pictures of his father, Peter remarks how young he was.[6] They then get to talking about Richard’s own marriage to Mary and how they soon had Peter shortly thereafter. May remembers how Richard and Mary Parker left Peter in the care of her and Ben while they went overseas for a few months on a job. Then came the news that they died and were branded traitors to their country. Peter remembers this and how a friend of his helped clear the Parkers name, revealing that they were actually government spies who were trying to get intel on the Red Skull.[7] Peter thinks how his parents left him in good hands as his Aunt May and Uncle Ben gave him the best home anyone could have asked for. This causes May to tear up and she decides to tell Peter why she never had any children of her own. She says that early on in their marriage, she and Ben tried to get pregnant and eventually succeeded. However, May suffered a miscarriage and adding to the tragedy Doctor Bromwell informed them that May had a cardiac anomaly that would make it impossible for her to carry a baby to term. Still, she looked at how fate made it so she and Ben ended up raising Peter and how they raised him like he was their own child. Looking at old photos of himself, Peter remarks how Ben was always there for him. This leads to Peter’s guilt still feels for not stopping a burglar when he first became Spider-Man and how this burglar ended up murdering his Uncle Ben.[8] When reflecting on Ben’s death, May recalls how it took her a long time to get over it. In fact, for the first year she slept next to his old robe because it still smelled like him and she could pretend he was still there laying next to her. She remembers what he said to her on the day she came back from the hospital after her miscarriage. Ben told her that even though there was no cure for her condition he figures she’ll outlive him, and reminds her that people’s love for one another lasts longer than anyone lives.

She thinks how she moved on with her life and almost married Nathan Lubensky had he lived,[9] now she is going to be married to Jay Jameson after he proposed to her.[10] They then propose a toast to all the loved ones they have lost over the years. Later, when Peter leaves, he thinks about how everyone from his past all had secrets he never knew about until recently. He looks forward to the future and knows that May and Jay are going to have a happy life together, and tries to ignore the fact that he’s soon going to be related to J. Jonah Jameson. With Peter gone, May digs out Ben’s old tuxedo jacket since today is the day of their anniversary and has one last dance with it, for old times sake.

Recurring Characters

Aunt May, Peter Parker, (in flashback) Uncle Ben, Richard Parker, Mary Parker, Johnny Jerome, Nicholas Bromwell

Continuity Notes

1. As we learned in Amazing Spider-Man #-1, Ben Parker had a collection of old Golden Age comics. How he came upon these old comics is not explained here, but since he was a person with a natural human life span in the Modern Age, his life is part of the Sliding Timescale, as such one should assume that Ben obtained them after their original releases since it has become increasingly impossible for Ben to have been alive during the Golden Age of comics.

2. May’s home was destroyed by Charlie Weiderman in Amazing Spider-Man #518. It was later repaired by Harry Osborn, as revealed in Amazing Spider-Man #581-582.

3. This recounting of how May met Ben Parker is adapted from the story originally told in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #4. This story explains away why May was dressed like someone out of the 1920s, saying that it was the theme of her 16th birthday (at any rate, any indication of May’s past being part of a specific time period should be considered topical because her life is also tied into the Sliding Timescale) According to Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #2, May is 71 at the time of this story, making her 16th and 18th birthdays as happening 51 and 53 years prior to this story respectively, or 39 and 41 years prior to the start of the Modern Age.

4. Peter had dated the Black Cat previously from Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man #75 to 100.

5. Gwen Stacy died in Amazing Spider-Man #121.

6. When looking at a photo of Richard Parker on the day of May and Ben’s wedding, May remarks how Richard was younger than Peter is now. Per Civil War #2, Peter is about 27 at the time of this story.

7. This was all detailed in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #5. Specifically, Peter calls the man his parents were spying on was a “Red Skull wannabe”, he is referring to Alber Malik, the second Red Skull who was a communist operative who first appeared in Young Men #24.

8. May dated Nathan Lubensky from Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #47 until he died of heart failure in Amazing Spider-Man #336. Although they were engaged during this period, May never ended up marrying him due to his gambling problems and increasingly embittered attitude.

9. Jay Jameson proposed to May in Amazing Spider-Man #592, they will get married in Amazing Spider-Man #600.

8. You know this is a reference to Amazing Fantasy #15, you don’t need me to tell you this.

Topical References

• Outdated technologies: Aunt May listening to music on an iPod.

• May states that she waited tables at Macy’s. While Macy’s does have in-store restaurants, this should be considered topical since Macy’s is a real-world business.

Loa and Order

Another really bad Petey story by Fred Hembeck. In this one, Doctor Voodoo shows up so Hembeck could make the truly horrible pun that is the title for this awful story.

Recurring Characters

Petey Parker, Flash Thompson, Liz Allan, Fancy Dan, J. Jonah Jameson, Frederick Foswelll, Doctor Voodoo

Continuity Notes

1. These truly awful Petey stories are, thankfully, only exist in another reality designated as Reality-77640 per the Unofficial Appendix.