http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WithGreatPowerComesGreatResponsibility/SpiderMan
The
Trope Codifier and Trope Namer, of course, is
Spider-Man, who initially took advantage of his bestowed powers purely for profit, competing as a wrestler. However, by failing to catch the criminal who would eventually kill his Uncle Ben, he takes up crime-fighting, learning that
with his inhuman powers come an obligation to use them for good ends. The only concession he makes is to take pictures of himself in action to pay the bills.
Comic Books
- The phrase people most often think of, "With great power comes great responsibility" (heard in, among other things, the 2002 film), is actually a Beam Me Up, Scotty!: The original quote came from a narration box in the final panel of "Spider-Man!" in Amazing Fantasy #15, with the narrator telling the viewer how Peter Parker has learned that "with great power there must also come — great responsibility!" The first time this was contracted this way and attributed in-page to Uncle Ben was in Christopher Priest's Spider-Man vs. Wolverine #1.
- The multiple phrasing is discussed during Spider-Verse. During one story, a very angry Spider-Girl confronts an Uncle Ben who gave up being a Spider because his world's Green Goblin killed his May and Peter. May, already angry that her brother was in the hands of the Inheritors, snaps at Ben for abandoning his role as a hero. She starts to use the motto before Ben corrects her with the real phrasing and uses it as the reason why he quit. Also in Spider-Verse, Ben reminds everyone that the actual quote is 'With great power there must also come great responsibility', implying that responsibility is at once a choice, and an inherent part of the package with great power.
Mayday Parker: Does the phrase "With great power comes great responsibility" ring any bells?
Ben Parker: "Must also come." A subtle, but profound difference. There's no guaranteed link between power and responsibility. Too many focus on the former without any regard for the latter.
- It is also the moral of the first arc of Ultimate Spider-Man, an expanded version of the classic origin story. Ben explained the concept to Peter, and cited the phrase, which was actually coined by Richard Parker, Peter's late dad. Peter was very angry at the time, and run away from him. He eventually realized that he was right, and returned home to apologize himself and reveal his new powers. The thief scene played out in a similar way, but added a Never Got to Say Goodbye to the mix.
- A What If? story depicts Spider-Man stopping the burglar for self serving reasons — he know he'll get good publicity off of it. As a result, Peter Parker becomes a pampered movie star and millionaire with beautiful women jumping into his bed on a nightly basis. He doesn't learn the "with great power..." lesson until Daredevil sacrifices his own life to protect him.
- Ezekiel, a person with powers similar to Peter, poses a question to Spider-Man.
"And what comes with great responsibility?"
"What?"
"If great power comes with great responsibility, what comes with great responsibility? Power? Freedom? Guilt?"
(Peter points a finger at the City's view) "You want to know what comes with great responsibility? This all."
- In issue #11 of Earth X, an older, fatter Parker answers this when he declares that he had the maxim backwards all along:
"It's
responsibility that brings power. It's knowing what needs to be done that brings strength. And courage. That's my daughter... and I won't let her remain a mindless slave of the Skull."
- This is the underlying moral of the 50th Anniversary storyline, "Alpha": a ordinary teenager is given incredible powers by an accident caused by a disgruntled worker. Peter, as himself and Spidey, attempts to reel him in, but his ego gets the better of him, turning him into a celebrity who'd willingly cheat on the girl he was crushing on and deciding to emancipate himself from his parents after the Jackal kidnaps them in a plot, not to save them, but because they were cramping his style. Spidey pulls the plug on Alpha's fun once and for all after a fight with Terminus nearly causes hundreds of deaths when his powers short circuit airplanes all over New York, two of those near-victims being Aunt May and her husband, Jay Jameson (JJJ's dad).
- It's also the underlying moral of the Superior Spider Man storyline: Doc Ock takes over Peter's body before his gives out and decides he can be a better Spidey than Peter ever was. While he creates his own company, gets his degree and creates an army to protect New York City with, it ends up alienating him from virtually everyone because of his massive ego. When the Goblin King brings everything down around his ears, Otto's forced to accept that Peter was the better Spidey because he allowed himself to have those chances to be better slip away because he felt he didn't deserve them.
- This is turned on its head in Nick Spencer's first issue of Amazing Spider-Man as a Take That! towards everything after that — Peter is exposed as a plagiarist when it's revealed that a paper Otto wrote to get his diploma in Empire State University was similar to what Otto actually wrote (in Superior, a man caught note of what "Peter" had done, but Otto stops him by using one of his old devices to pretend Otto had convinced him to accept it). After he's fired from the Daily Bugle, laughed at by Mary Jane and brushed off by Aunt May, Peter comes to realize that he screwed up big time — he should have dumped everything Otto had built up (he even admits the paper Otto wrote was on a subject he knew about just as well) and by taking in everything Otto built, he wasn't taking responsibility for it.
- Then it's subverted in the Secret Wars (2015) story The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows as Peter gives up being Spider-Man to protect MJ and their daughter Annie, making him the last superhero alive in a world ruled by the mysterious Regent. Even more, he goes so far as to ignore cries for help just to deal with his kid.
- Referenced and Played for Laughs in an issue of Spider-Girl:
May Parker: But daddy, it's my responsibility...
Peter: Don't give me the responsibility shtick, young lady. I invented the responsibility shtick!
- Gert has her own opinion of the motto in Runaways.
Victor: But... but I have
powers! And in that book
Webs, your photographer friend said your motto is, "With great power, there must also come great responsibility!"
Gert: Really? That's
inane. Most people in life don't
have great power, and the few that do are almost never responsible with it. The people who have the greatest responsibility are the kids with
no power because we're the ones who have to keep everybody else in check.
Spider-Man: Wow. You are totally going to be an Avenger when you grow up.
- Parodied in the 2018 relaunch of Fantastic Four. Spidey attempts to psyche up Franklin Richards, who is afraid his power isn't enough to stop the Big Bad of the storyline, using his motto, but the Thing, annoyed Spidey's going this route, grabs him by the back of his shirt, lifts him aside, and psyches up his godchild his own way.
- Deconstructed in the storyline Hunted as Curt Conners tells him that while Spidey does understand the idea of that, he doesn't understand it from the eyes of a parent, which is why he's willing to let loose the Lizard to save his son.
- Spider-Man Noir has its own turn on the concept with a lesson Peter learned from his Uncle Ben, who was a pilot in WWI:
If those in power cannot be trusted, it is the responsibility of the people to remove them.
- Nick Spencer’s run deconstructed this, pointing out that for all his talk, Spidey’s never really been responsible at all.
- Subverted in Edge of Spider-Verse (2022) by Night-Spider, the Felicia Hardy of Earth-194, whose version apparently goes, "With great power comes no accountability. You can go anywhere and take anything". She does only take from the rich, but still.
Films
- Spider-Man Trilogy: Aside from the first film having the words said as in the comic book, Spider-Man 2 has Otto Octavius telling Peter that "Intelligence is not a privilege; it's a gift. And you use it for the good of mankind." In the climax, Peter echoes these words to him to Talk The Monster To Death.
- The Amazing Spider-Man Series
- The Amazing Spider-Man Somewhat deconstructed:
Uncle Ben: You're a lot like your father. You really are, Peter, and that's a good thing. But your father lived by a philosophy, a principle really. He believed that... that if you could do good things for other people, you had a moral obligation to do those things. That's what at stake here. Not a choice, responsibility.
Peter: That is nice. That's really... that's great. That's all well and good, so where is he?
Uncle Ben: What?
Peter: Where is he? Where's my dad? He didn't think it was his responsibility to be here and tell me this himself?
Uncle Ben: Oh, come on! How dare you?
Peter: How dare I? How dare you?!
- This theme is explored in the parallel between Spidey and the Lizard. Both believe in this, but they disagree on what their responsibility is. Peter believes that his responsibility is to help other people and to take care of Aunt May. Connors believes that his responsibility is to give everyone else his powers.
- More explored in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, where Max uses all of his power as Electro to try to make everyone else feel as powerless as he once felt before getting his powers. Harry Osborn also refuses to accept any responsibility for his actions or for his condition. In reality, there is no one to blame for Harry's disease, but Harry blames Spider-Man and Menken for his crappy life, especially after he becomes the Goblin. Specifically, Menken had in fact framed Harry for Electro's creation so he can take over Oscorp, which still isn't a good way to handle responsibility of running a company, but Spider-Man's case, his apparent refusal to help him was only using his own responsibility to protect his friends and family, including Harry. Who still becomes the Green Goblin and decides to kill Gwen in retaliation. By the end, seems Harry now plans to use his power to create the future that Oscorp envisioned, starting with forming the Sinister Six.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe
- Spider-Man: Spider-Verse:
- Sony's Spider-Man Universe
- Inverted in Madame Web (2024), when Las Arañas tells Cassie “When you take on the responsibility, great power will come.” Sure enough, when she accepts responsibility for the three future Spider-Women in the film's climax, she unlocks the "Thread" power that allows her to be in three places at once, just like Las Arañas said she would.
Video Games
- That phrase, Spider-Man's trademark, is parodied in Marvel Ultimate Alliance in a conversation with Spider-Man:
"With great power comes—"
"Don't you dare finish that line, or you'll have so much webbing in your hair you'd have to shave yourself bald."
- Played straight with the actual character in-game, however, where he has the passive "Great Responsibility," which gives him a chance to protect an ally from an enemy attack. If he does, it switches to "Great Power," which increases his damage. Once he attacks, it changes back to "Great Responsibility."
- In Spider-Man: Edge of Time the Alchemax CEO, an evil 2099 version of Peter Parker, has his own twisted version after falling to despair over losing everything he loved.
"With great power comes great responsibility, and great opportunity. And the only way to live up to all that responsibility, is to use every opportunity to get all the power."
- Naturally this comes up in Spider-Man (PS4), but with a cruel subversion at the end of the game; it's a mentally corrupted and freshly-defeated Otto Octavius, having gone mad with vengeance and infected Manhattan with a deadly bioweapon, declaring that he and Peter Parker have a responsibility to do what's best for people in an attempt to get Peter to help him. At first Otto seems to be describing this very trope, but he perverts the very concept right after by proclaiming it's to do it for "those beneath us, whether they understand it or not." Peter, already beside himself in grief over his father-figure and mentor in this continuity becoming such a twisted man, immediately flips his lid.
- While the concept is never specifically stated in the ending of Spider-Man PS4, the sentiment is there when Peter chooses to sacrifice the life of Aunt May, so that the anti-serum can be mass produced for the civilians afflicted by the toxin Octavius released. Peter desperately wants to do what's right for Aunt May, but he realizes he can't do that because it would come at the expense of others. The responsible thing to do is obviously to surrender the anti-serum so it can be researched and countless lives will be saved, even though it hurts like hell to let Aunt May — the closest thing he has to a mother — die such in such a terrible way. Peter's story also comes full circle in a way: Uncle Ben died because of a lack of responsibility on Peter's part, but Aunt May dies because of Peter doing the right thing. Peter can hardly catch a break.
- In the evilest ending of Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, Peter has fallen so far that he rejects his former motto, claiming that he never knew what power was and he likes it.
Black Suit!Spider-Man: I was told that with great power comes great responsibility.
Symbiote!Black Cat: And now?
Black Suit!Spider-Man: I never knew what power was!
