Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home and Marvel's Spider-Man video game! Be sure to check out IGN's review of the new Spider-Man movie.
If recent Spider-Man movies have taught us anything, it's that Peter Parker is just one strand in the vast web that is the Spider-Verse. No two versions of Spider-Man are identical, but as Spider-Man: No Way Home showed us, many of them experience similar tragedies and failures over the course of their respective careers. Tragedies like the death of Aunt May.
Like so much in No Way Home, this depressing plot twist has its origins in Marvel's Spider-Man comic books. Let's take a closer look at how the comics handled the death of Aunt May, and how that death has been reimagined in other branches of the Spider-Verse.
Aunt May's Death in the Spider-Man Comics
The classic comic book version of May Parker is depicted as being quite a bit older than the MCU version, and it's often seemed as though the chronically ill May has been near death's door for most of Peter Parker's adult life. Fate finally catches up with May in 1995's The Amazing Spider-Man #400.
Having recently suffered a stroke in an earlier issue, May's condition worsens in this chapter. However, she hangs on long enough to receive the happy news that Peter and MJ are expecting a baby. May also reveals that she's known for years her nephew is Spider-Man and is proud of him. Having come clean, May finally succumbs to her illness and dies, prompting a tearful funeral scene.
This issue was published at the height of Marvel's infamous Clone Saga crossover, though it's generally much more highly regarded by fans than the rest of that storyline. Peter's clone Ben Reilly also plays a heavy role in this story and grieves May's death as deeply as Peter himself. And compared to No Way Home making May a casualty of Norman Osborn's feud with Spider-Man, it's interesting to note that this death is purely through natural causes.
How Was Aunt May Resurrected?
If you've read more contemporary Spider-Man comics, you've probably noticed May is alive and well again. It turns out even she isn't immune to the revolving door of death and resurrection that affects nearly every popular Marvel character.
As the increasingly convoluted Clone Saga wound to a close in the late '90s, Marvel introduced a number of plot twists that effectively canceled out the biggest developments from earlier in the crossover. After temporarily handing the Spider-Man mantle to Ben Reilly, Peter discovers he was the original after all. Peter and MJ's baby is quietly written out of the picture. And May rejoins the Spider-Man supporting cast after it's revealed she had been kidnapped by Norman Osborn and replaced with an impostor.
Somehow, May retained no memory of that ordeal, and it turns out the real May never knew Peter was Spider-Man. However, she does discover the truth later on when she walks in on a badly injured Peter sleeping off his fight with Morlun. That prompts an uncomfortable conversation between the two, with Peter forced to apologize for hiding the truth from May all that time.
Marvel nearly killed off Aunt May a second time in 2007's One More Day. With May mortally wounded by an assassin's bullet, Peter agrees to a bargain with the demon Mephisto. He sacrifices his marriage in exchange for May's life. These days, May is still alive and once again doesn't know her nephew's secret.
Clearly, Marvel Studios and Sony borrowed elements of One More Day to craft the plot of No Way Home. However, Mephisto doesn't factor into the plot of the movie, and Peter's end goal is recovering his secret identity, not saving May's life. Another key change: In the MCU, May is the one who gives Peter the iconic lesson about power and responsibility, not Uncle Ben. Whether or not the MCU's Ben was even a major figure in Peter's life is still one of the biggest mysteries in this series. Maybe Spider-Man: Freshman Year will have the answer?
Ultimate Spider-Man's Aunt May
Marvel's long-running Ultimate Spider-Man comic remixed and reimagined many elements of the Spidey mythos when it debuted in 2000, and perhaps no character changed more as a result than Aunt May. The Ultimate Universe's May is much younger and more assertive than her classic counterpart. She's also arguably dealt with more personal tragedy.
That much was made clear in 2010's Death of Spider-Man, which indeed culminates in the death of Peter Parker. Peter dies heroically defending May from Green Goblin, an intriguing contrast to May's death in No Way Home. That death paves the way for Miles Morales to step up and fill the void as the Ultimate Universe's Spider-Man.
Peter's death and Miles' origin story heavily inspired the plot of 2018's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. May's own post-Death of Spider-Man role is also reflected in that movie, as she becomes a loose sort of mentor to Miles as he first comes to terms with being Spider-Man.
Thankfully, this version of May is given a happy ending. Shortly before Marvel ended the entire Ultimate line in 2015, writer Brian Michael Bendis revived Peter and reunited him with his loved ones. There may even be some version of this alternate universe where Peter still serves as Spider-Man. Miles, for his part, is now a resident of Marvel's core comic book universe.
Aunt May in Insomniac's Spider-Man
Alongside The Amazing Spider-Man #400 and No Way Home, the 2018 game Marvel's Spider-Man completes the holy trinity of Aunt May deaths.
The game's storyline draws a fair amount of inspiration from writer Dan Slott's Amazing Spider-Man series (Slott and his frequent co-writer Christos Gage consulted on the game), including depicting May as an employee of Martin Li's FEAST charity. That much is also reflected in No Way Home.
However, in the game's case, May becomes one of many victims of the Devil's Breath plague outbreak. As Peter races against time to develop an antidote, May refuses to allow him to use some of his precious supply to save her. In a scene very similar to the events of The Amazing Spider-Man #400, May reveals she always knew Peter was Spider-Man before she dies. Unlike that comic, however, there's no reason to assume May will return in the upcoming Spider-Man 2.
For more on No Way Home, find out what the mid-credits scene means for Venom's future and see IGN's 10 biggest WTF questions about the sequel. You can also dig in on our No Way Home ending explained!
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
