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In Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Peter and May Parker encountered an alternate reality version of Uncle Ben, who experienced a tragic life.
Ben Parker’s demise is one of the foundational elements of the Marvel Universe. Ben helped raise Peter Parker into the noble hero he would become in his adulthood, with Ben’s death being the motivating factor to ensure Spider-Man became one of Earth’s greatest defenders.
There have been other versions of Ben from across the multiverse, but perhaps the most surprising was one who actually ended up in the primary Marvel Universe and was manipulated into briefly becoming a villainous version of Peter’s uncle.
Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #8 by Peter David and Roger Cruz introduced Earth-6078. Beginning in a way similar to the core-Marvel Universe of Earth-616, the world deviated one fateful night when May Parker took a tumble down a flight of stairs and died — leaving Peter and Ben together. Deciding to approach his uncle about his secret identity as the-then television star Spider-Man, he recruits Ben as his manager so they can formally and legally deposit Peter’s paychecks. Although Peter quickly becomes successful, fame also inflates his ego to an immense degree. Eventually, the pair have a falling out, and Peter moves out — and while he continues to send Ben a certain percentage of his earnings, the fame eventually leads him to become a movie star who loses contact with his last family.
A despondent Ben ends up being sent across the multiverse by the Hobgoblin of the year 2211– a well-intentioned time-officer who was driven mad by her time in a virtual reality prison following her arrest by her father, the Spider-Man of that era. In the process, Ben ended up on Earth-616 during a time when Peter, his wife Mary-Jane, and his Aunt May had relocated to Avengers Tower. Befuddled by the change, Ben ended up finding this world’s May out on a date with Jarvis, the loyal butler of the Avengers. The shaken May was convinced it must be a Skrull imposter, leading to Ben and Jarvis getting into a fistfight. Ben ultimately flees the conflict and ends up in an alleyway, where he’s accosted by a mysterious man who offers him a gun and the suggestion to kill Jarvis.
But Ben refused, sticking to his morals. This resulted in the mysterious figure — later revealed to be the Chameleon of 2211, chasing after Spider-Man of 2211 to the present-day era — murdering this Ben and taking on his appearance. The Chameleon of the future — capable of shape-shifting into different forms with ease — became an antagonist for Spider-Man and Sandman (whose father had been framed for the death of Ben). Working together, Spider-Man and Sandman were able to hunt down the villain and expose him — with Spider-Man 2211’s technology switching the Chameleon’s mind with Sandman’s father moments before he was executed by the State of New York.
Even if the original Ben Parker of Earth-6078 meant to be a good man, it’s clear that his grief over the collapse of his life pushed him to an edge. His attempts to reunite with May only prompted her horror, with the woman revealing that she never believes Ben could have become as violent or as desperate as the reality-displaced variant proved himself by attacking Jarvis. But even if he was haunted and shaken by the life he’d lived, Ben died standing tall, refusing to compromise his beliefs. It’s a somber ending to this variant of Ben Parker — and a reminder of the quiet dignity of the character that lives on in the heroic deeds of his nephew.
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