There are things that go well together. Peanut butter and jelly, nachos and cheese, burger patties and buns, Spiderman movies and funeral scenes, etc. Over the years…wait, what? Indeed. Spider-Man is one of Marvel’s most optimistic crime fighters. He is funny, pleasant and colorful, all aspects that have made him a family icon over the decades.
Overall, the Wall-Crawler makes for a perfect entertainment package for families. That’s exactly why he’s been a staple of the big screen for nearly three decades. However, Spidey’s reputation as a fun softy will probably come as a surprise to realize that his live-action adventures have a strangely consistent tradition of depressing funeral scenes.
Five Spideys and a funeral
There have been eight live-action Spiderman films since 2002 (note, I don’t count Sony’s live-action spinoffs as Madame Web Or Kraven the Hunter). Of these eight, five presented large pieces of funerary decoration. The tradition began with Spiderman (2002), with Tobey Maguire. In the film’s climactic battle, Norman Osborn’s Green Goblin impaled himself with his glider in an attempt to kill Peter Parker. This led to the film’s penultimate sequence: Norman’s funeral, where, strangely enough, Mary Jane confessed her love for Peter and kissed him… right there among the headstones.
Anyway, the 2004s Spider-Man 2 presented a brief interruption of what would become the aforementioned trend. This time, instead of mourning a death, the audience mourned Mary Jane’s potential marriage, as she decided to leave John Jameson for Peter. Don’t worry, because the funeral trend started to take shape in the 2007s. Spider-Man 3. Following a battle against Sandman and Venom, Peter’s best friend Harry Osborn died after being impaled with his own glider by Venom. This treated the audience to another somber funeral scene (oddly enough, for yet another Osborn).
Five years later, in 2012, Sony relaunched the franchise with The Amazing Spider-Manwith Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. A lot has changed from Tobey Maguire’s version, but one thing has remained: you guessed it, the funeral. The film culminated with a battle between the Lizard (Rhys Ifans) and Spider-Man. This time, however, Spidey wasn’t alone; he had the help of Captain George Stacy (Denis Leary), father of his girlfriend, Gwen Stacy.
While buying Peter time to stop the Lizard Serum from infecting New York, Captain Stacy was impaled by the former scientist and perished in front of Peter (but not without first making Spidey promise that he would leave Gwen out of his crime-fighting efforts). Following this, we were treated to another funeral scene for the captain. This one, however, was much more extravagant, featuring several law enforcement officers and what appeared to be the equivalent of a full movie theater.
Continuing the streak of three impressive films in a row, The Amazing Spider-Man 2The third act also featured a funeral, this time for Gwen Stacy. During Spidey’s final battle against the Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan), Gwen died in a clock tower. Despite Peter’s efforts to catch her, Gwen hit her head on the ground, leading to the second funeral scene in the rebooted franchise.
Break the streak…for a moment
Following The Amazing Spider-Man 2Facing perceived financial disappointment (it grossed $708 million worldwide), Sony struck a deal with Marvel Studios to bring the Wall-Crawler into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. From there, 2017 Spider-Man: Homecoming was born. The film, starring Tom Holland as Peter Parker and Marisa Tomei as Aunt May, was an optimistic reimagining of the Spider-Man mythos, which also meant (perhaps inadvertently) the removal of the funeral scenes.
This break with the commemoration of life continued into the 2019s. Spider-Man: Far From Homewhich saw the Web-Slinger head off to Europe for a well-deserved vacation… which, of course, was hijacked by super-villain Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal). However, just like a scorpion stinging someone out of pure instinct, the Spidey franchise couldn’t stay away from its roots for long. In 2021, Spider-Man: No Way Home did the unthinkable in live-action: he killed Aunt May. In an effort to help heal the villains who died in the battles against his multiversal variants, Peter and May brought the Green Goblin, Sandman, Doctor Octopus, Electro and the Lizard to Happy Hogan’s apartment.
Although he managed to cure Doctor Octopus, the Green Goblin character took over Norman Osborn, and after a heated (and, frankly, brutal) battle, Aunt May was hit by the Goblin’s glider. Although she seemed fine at first, she eventually died in front of Peter, paving the way for the funeral trend to return… sort of. You see, the funeral itself wasn’t shown in the film, but we did see Peter visit her grave in a bittersweet scene. So even though it’s not specifically a funeral, it still counts towards the trend.
Showcasing funerals or cemeteries in Spiderman films are, as mentioned, a curious trend, but ultimately I don’t believe it was developed deliberately. Despite the optimistic nature of Spider-Man stories, death and failure are important aspects of the hero’s mythos. As such, it makes sense that the creative teams behind his many films revisited the concept of Peter losing a loved one time and time again, without ultimately realizing the pattern that was developing in the process.
The question now is: will the funeral trend continue? Spider-Man: A Whole New Day? Who knows? That said, the odds might be high, given that Frank Castle, the fucking Punisher himself, is in attendance this time around.
Spidey’s latest big screen adventure, Spider-Man: A Whole New Dayarrives in theaters on July 31, 2026.
