When I say take this with a grain of salt, I meant like pour the container of salt down your throat. We don’t know if this is true because it’s just one report, but love of my life Adam Scott potentially playing a character that means a lot to me is worth talking about just because it is plausible.
According to The Cosmic Circus, who attribute the information to confirmation with their “own trusted sources” (so, again, we have no way of know if this is accurate), is that Adam Scott is playing … a younger Ben Parker! So yeah, obviously, this is a rumor I was going to write up and cry over, because it certainly could be true and would have big implications if it were. We just have no way of knowing at this point.
The rest of the rumor is fine, just filling out the cast with other Spider-Man characters, like Julia Carpenter and beyond, but let’s talk about what it would mean for Ben Parker to make an appearance.
With great power …
The problem with Uncle Ben is that we’ve only ever seen him in one capacity on the big screen: Peter’s uncle who is about to die. That’s why, when Spider-Man: Homecoming came around and we got Marisa Tomei as Aunt May with an already gone Ben Parker, it felt refreshing because we didn’t have to watch the same beats repeated for the third time in live-action.
It’s not that I didn’t want to see Uncle Ben again; I did! I would have loved if the origin of Spider-Man was skewed a bit and he’d had more time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe if he was included, but I also liked the idea that it happened, Peter watched his uncle die, and then kept on Spider-Maning and that’s how Tony Stark found him.
But this kind of story with Ben Parker fascinates me because we never really had the chance to see Ben Parker outside of his time as Peter’s uncle, and this rumor would put him at an age where Peter isn’t even born yet. So, we could see a lot of Scott’s take on the character and maybe even see when Ben meets May for the first time (or at least a younger relationship with them together).
All I’m saying is that if they wanted to bring back Uncle Ben in some capacity, since the MCU Spider-Man has already moved beyond him, this is the way to do it. And casting Adam Scott as Ben Parker? That just feels like a gift to me specifically, and I happily accept.
(featured image: NBC)
