Top 5 superheroes with the most tragic origin stories

3. Spider-Man

Tom Holland’s Spider-Man has a lot planned in the future, what with an appearance in a third Marvel Cinematic Universe Spider-Man movie on the horizon. There have also been rumors of more spin-off movies and perhaps even an appearance in Venom 2 – signaling a lot of new things for Spider-Man.

What has remained fairly consistent, however, is Spider-Man’s tragic origins. Yes, the MCU’s Peter Parker is generally an orphan living with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Or at least he was, until his Uncle Ben was killed.

In general, Peter is the inadvertent cause of his Uncle Ben’s death. Each iteration has changed the small details of how it all happened; whether it was a wrestling promoter that under-paid him or a rude cashier that Peter was trying to spite, but the general idea is still the same – Peter lets a robber get away, Uncle Ben catches the robber only to be killed in the process, and Peter lives with the regret of not stopping him and saving Uncle Ben’s life.

This is of course the crux of Spider-Man’s motto, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Uncle Ben’s death is what inspires Peter to become a hero.

Even before then, Peter is living under some type of low-income situation. In Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man, Aunt May is literally a victim of the mortgage crisis. Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man aren’t as poor, but they’re not exactly living it large either.