Tom Holland Thinks Tony Stark Is The New Uncle Ben Figure
When it comes to Peter Parker aka Spider-Man, it seems he’s unlucky with father figures. Every version of Spider-Man has lost one of its favorite person in his lives.
We saw the tragic scenes unfold in both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man movies, but the MCU seemed to gloss right over Uncle Ben when it came to be Tom Holland’s turn.
Also, see Spider-Man: Far From Home Swings In With Spectacular Rotten Tomatoes Score
Holland in an interview
In a recent interview, Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home star Tom Holland opened up about Peter Parker’s relationship with the late Tony Stark, whom he had come to look up to after the death of his Uncle Ben.
The demise of dear ol’ Ben after Peter failed to stop the crook who would be responsible for the crime is a well-known part of Spider-Man lore, having first been depicted in the character’s debut appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15.
Previous film incarnations of Spidey have always prominently featured the narrative beat; Tobey Maguire’s Peter sobbed over the body of Cliff Robertson’s Uncle Ben, while Andrew Garfield’s version of the wall-crawler mourned the loss of an uncle who happened to look a whole lot like Martin Sheen.
In their interview with Holland, Uproxx mentioned that the MCU’s Peter didn’t initially have an origin story based on losing Uncle Ben.
Though, as we saw in Avengers: Endgame, Peter ended up losing Tony Stark, who became more of an important figure in his life than any Uncle Been we saw on screen. Holland agreed that Tony has taken over that role, saying:
“I think he probably was, you know? I think he was very– very much took on the mantle as his father figure, and losing him is a huge blow to Peter Parker obviously. And that’s what’s so nice about Mysterio kind of flying in is that he can fill those shoes a little bit and be Peter Parker’s mentor and his big brother at the same time”
Holland playing Spider-Man’s character
Holland has mentioned before that his character and Mysterio will get on quite well in the movie.
And we’ve said countless times before that were highly suspicious of Mysterio’s motives. He is a comic book villain after all, and we don’t think he’ll be innocent for long.
We don’t doubt that he and Peter will be best of friends, though. That seems pretty solidified at this point. But the disappointing thing will be if Peter loses Mysterio’s trust, especially since he’s still hurt about losing Tony.
becomes the Uncle Ben figure in the MCU, that doesn’t take away the fact that Peter became a hero because of the death of his original mentor. Whether or not the MCU will fully tackle that moving forward is another conversation.
But in the service of what’s been established in the MCU, it makes sense that Iron Man’s death affects his mentee deeply reminiscent of how past incarnations of the character were impacted by Uncle Ben’s demise.
