Madame Web May Have Stealth Revealed a New Take on a Classic Spider-Man Character

A trailer for Madame Web, the latest entry in Sony’s divisive live-action Spider-Verse, has finally dropped, giving us a hint of the movie’s intriguing time-travel plot, the young women set to develop spidey powers, and the villain hunting them all – Ezekiel Sims. But another thing that the Madame Web trailer has given us is a first look at who Adam Scott will be playing. His name is technically not uttered in the trailer, but according to IMDb he will be playing an important character in the Spider-Verse – Ben Parker.

Most people know Ben Parker as Uncle Ben, the man who raised Peter Parker alongside his wife May after the death of Peter’s parents. Uncle Ben has been played by Cliff Robertson in the Tobey Maguire-led Spider-Man films and Martin Sheen in the Andrew Garfield-led Amazing Spider-Man movies, but has not yet been shown in the MCU-connected Spider-Man movies. Regardless of the universe, Uncle Ben is usually an important father-figure in Peter’s life, and his death inspires Peter to use his powers for good. Tom Holland’s Spider-Man has already dealt with the death of Uncle Ben before we dive into his story in Spider-Man: Homecoming, leaving Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) to kind of fulfill this moral-compass role for Peter.

Whether this is in fact the Uncle Ben that MCU Spider-Man lost has yet to be determined. Because he died off screen before we meet Peter in this universe, we don’t know much about Uncle Ben or what he was like. It’s also still not super clear how the Sony live-action Spider-Verse is connected to this version of Peter Parker or how Madame Web fits into the bigger picture. 

In the trailer, Ben Parker is working alongside Dakota Johnson’s Cassandra Webb as a New York Paramedic, but his role beyond that is still a bit of a mystery. IMDb also lists Emma Roberts as Mary Parker, Ben’s sister-in-law and Peter’s mother. Based on what we’ve seen so far, Madame Web appears to be focused on Cassandra protecting Julia Carpenter (Sydney Sweeney), Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), and Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor) from Ezekiel Sims – a man who wants to kill them because of who their potential to develop Spider powers. If Mary is pregnant with Peter, or at least some multiversal version of Peter Parker, Ezekiel could come after them as well.

Regardless of how Ben Parker’s story entwines with Cassandra’s or how much of him we get to see, Adam Scott is a great choice to play a younger version of this character. The only versions of Uncle Ben that we’ve seen in live-action so far have clearly lived a long life and gone through some tough stuff – how else would they be able to impart such valuable wisdom upon their nephew? 
Uncle Ben is an iconic character, and his presence has been missed by fans. Even though Marisa Tomei has done a great job of portraying Aunt May as a sort of amalgamation of the two, Ben is barely mentioned by either of them despite how much they clearly miss him. We don’t know how he died or when, but maybe Madame Web will give us some answers about what this version of Ben was like.