III Peter Parker’s parents

Spider-Man and other characters mentioned in this article are trademarks of Marvel Characters, Inc., unless otherwise noted. No infringements on their ownership of these characters are intended or should be implied. Use of the characters in this articles is for historical and entertainment purposes only. Original material used for the creation of this article is © Marvel Characters Inc. and its predecessors unless otherwise noted. Original text for this article © Mark P. Steele.

Richard Parker, Peter’s father, was introduced in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #5, Nov. 1968. Peter finds a wedding picture and a newspaper clipping while moving a trunk in his Aunt May’s attic:

From Amazing Spider-Man Annual #5, Nov. 1968.
Original art by Larry Lieber & Mickey Demeo (Mike Esposito) © 1968 Non-Pareil Publishing Corp., Marvel Comics Group.
Original story by Stan Lee.

During the course of this adventure, Peter struggles to unravel the truth about his parents, and if they were, indeed traitors who betrayed their country. But – WHO WERE THEY?

Richard Parker:

Peter’s father

Peter’s father, Richard Parker, is a man who has had very few facts revealed about him. His brother is Ben Parker, the elder of the two. Richard accompanied his older brother and his fiancée, May Reilly, on dates during their younger days.

According to May Parker, Richard had been a war hero, with many medals and decorations. The circumstances under which he met his future wife, Mary, are unknown. Richard and Mary married and had a boy, Peter. Richard never talked about his work in front of his sister-in-law, May.

In May 1949, Richard told his brother and sister-in-law that his new job would take him overseas for a few months, and that he was taking Mary with him. They left their son with Ben and May.

One month later, the newspaper article reporting their death appeared, and with it the claim that they were traitors. Ben told May that he could not believe that they were traitors, but both decided that they would never talk about Peter’s parents in front of him, but that they would raise him like their own child. Ben told May at the time that they were his only living relatives.

Little else was known about Richard Parker, until his son, Peter, began investigating the circumstances of his death, Traveling to Algeria, Peter (as Spider-Man) was soon deep within the Casbah, oldest, most intrigue-laden part of the city.

Confronting the owner of a restaurant that had identified the bodies, Spider-Man was told that everyone there had known that Richard Parker was a spy, working for a master of intrigue headquartered in that city. He gave Spider-Man the address of the mysterious spy chief.

Breaking into the headquarters, Spider-Man discovered a hidden series of file drawers. One held the name of his father. Within was a black card with a skull face on it, and the numbers: 7Y6834-R Division 58-B. On the back was Richard Parker’s name and signature.

The complex belonged to the Red Skull (or, more properly, the man who had assumed the identity after the 2nd World War, a Russian spy). After a battle between the Red Skull and his men, Spider-Man escaped, fully believing that his father had been a traitor.

The Red Skull sent an assassin named the Finisher after Spider-Man. During the ensuing battle, the Finisher was fatally injured. Thinking that it might make it easier for him, the Finisher confessed that he had sabotaged the engine of the plane that the Parkers had been flying. The Red Skull had discovered that Parker was a double agent. He sent Parker on a mission with incriminating papers. When the plane crashed, and the papers found, the Skull and the Finisher’s plot to dishonor the Parkers succeeded. Other papers planted by the restaurant owner at the Skull’s direction on Parker’s body confirmed it. However, the membership card was recovered and returned to the Skull’s files.

Armed with this information, Spider-Man returned to face the Red Skull again, only to lose him in a blaze. Leaving the burning building, Peter noticed that the flame singed the card that his father had had, and a corner of another card hidden within could be seen.

Inside the card were his father’s credentials as an American counterspy, answerable only to the USA. The card has his father’s name on it, and the letters “U.S. GOV” visible, along with a blue seal surrounded by yellow triangles, and an illegible signature.

To recap: Richard Parker was a war hero from World War II, who after the war became a counterspy and double agent infiltrating a communist organization run by a communist Red Skull. When his dual identity was discovered, he and his wife were murdered, and their reputation discredited, until nearly 20 years later when their son found the evidence to vindicate them.

Given the time, Richard Parker would have almost certainly been working for the CIA. And, given the CIA’s roots in the wartime OSS, the chances are good that Richard Parker worked for this organization during the war, under the command of “Wild Bill” Donovan. As such, readers might get a better idea of Richard’s activities during this time from such works as “Inside the OSS” and many other fine texts on this organization.

However, what else might have Richard Parker’s life been like, before his involvement with this wartime espionage organization?

For the answer, we turn to other heroic literature from a different time, a different company, to look into the secret past that may be Richard Parker’s…

Rex Parker:

The Masked Detective

One of these magazines, published by the Pines magazine group, featured The Masked Detective. His adventures were published in his own magazine, from 1940 to 1944. Norman Daniels wrote them.

According to Will Murray’s pulp heroes site (linked above), the Masked Detective had 12 issues of his own magazine, from V1 #1, Fall 1940 to V4 #3, Spring 1943. An additional adventure was published in Thrilling Mystery V22 #2, Fall 1944.

(Readers are invited to compare Rex Parker’s unmasked picture on one of the cover illustrations linked to above with that of Peter’s dad at the top of this article.)

The Masked Detective was Rex Parker, reporter for the New York Comet. When his reporting leads led him to criminals that needed vigilante justice, Rex donned the identity of the Masked Detective and fought on in this other identity.

The Masked Detective came not in the heyday of the hero pulps, but near the end, when their popularity was already fading, due at least in part to the four colored comics that would soon replace the pulp magazines as tellers of tales of heroic fantasy. Nevertheless, a four-year run was a respectable time for a magazine to be published, even during the 1930’s and ‘40’s.

It is not unreasonable to presume that this ‘Rex’ Parker was the same man as Richard Parker, Peter’s father. Although the published adventures of the Masked Detective continued into 1944, there is no reason to believe that they did not happen earlier, and that Parker went from being a masked hero to an OSS agent to a counterspy. The progression is quite reasonable, and would explain a great deal about Richard Parker’s mysterious past. In fact – as certain items about Richard’s brother Ben may show, there may even be more than that.

Unfortunately, the Masked Detective’s adventures are so rare that I have been unable to locate even a single issue of the magazine that I can examine. The current copyright holders of this book have never allowed any reprint editions to be made, though they contain many of the classic characters of the time – The Phantom Detective, Capt. Future, and many others. Maybe time will change this –

Mary Parker:
Peter’s mother

Mary Parker’s background is, if anything, even more mysterious than her husband’s. We know nothing of how they met, or married, and the only information we have about her family is Ben’s assertion that he and May are Peter’s only living relatives, which means either all of her family are dead, or that Ben knows nothing about them (that he can tell May). It is generally believed that she was a spy along with Richard Parker, and that somehow they met during a shared case.

It is known that, at the time of their deaths, Mary was indeed helping her husband on the Red Skull case, in a very dangerous assignment. It is also known (or at least believed by Ben and the general public) that she was a United States citizen, and a spy for the United States government.

However, this is not necessarily true.

To unravel the mystery of Mary Parker, mother of Peter (Spider-Man) Parker, we must turn again to an earlier body of literature, and investigate another Peter Parker, and not one, but two Mary Parkers.

Wimsical connections?
Mary Wimsey and Inspector Parker

Dorothy Sayers wrote a considerable body of detective literature on the adventures of Lord Peter Wimsey. In it, Lord Peter, a son of the Duke of Dover, plays the ‘amateur sleuth’ and unravels a host of mysteries, accompanied by Inspector Parker of Scotland Yard, who is undoubtedly a very distant English cousin to Richard and Ben Parker.

In Sayers’ stories, Lord Peter has a sister, Mary Wimsey. Mary eventually marries Inspector Parker, and becomes Mary Parker. They have 2 children, Peter (named after her brother), and Mary. These children were born some time in the early part of the 20th century, and would have been young adults during the WW II time period.

Lord Peter is a member of what is called the Wold Newton Family, a family of characters whose exploits read like a who’s who of detective and heroic literature. First expounded by science fiction writer Philip Jose Farmer, it postulates a mutated strand of humanity from whose family tree sprung most of this world’s heroes.

The sheer fact of a Peter and Mary Parker existing in these earlier times in a family whose genes have already been altered by radiation (in this case, a meteor that landed in England in 1795) is too suggestive to be mere coincidence.

I believe that Mary Parker, mother of Peter (Spider-Man) Parker, is the same woman as Mary Parker, sister to Peter Parker the nephew of Lord Peter Wimsey. (For convenience, we will refer to Peter’s mom henceforth as Mary Wimsey-Parker and to the earlier Peter as Peter W. Parker.)

Mary W-P was the granddaughter of a Duke, and thus highly placed in the English social scene. Her father, however, was an inspector of Scotland Yard, which, while it might be a noble undertaking, was not necessarily admitted to the best parties in the social round. Growing up in a household where the tensions between the social classes of her parents may have been quite evident, Mary W-P may have easily been drawn into the type of activities that such organizations as MI-6, the British secret service, would be looking for intelligent agents. Certainly, with the connections her family had, it would not have been difficult for her to gain employment in this field.

Falling for an American intelligence agent with the same last name (a very distant cousin) would also not be at all unreasonable to expect. We can presume that Richard Parker and Mary Wimsey-Parker met in circumstances during the end of World War II that the current Marvel administration might be reluctant to reveal. We can only hope…

After the war, Richard and Mary were married, and lived in America. She may have had a falling out with her family. They may have died (unlikely – according to Sayers – though she never wrote the story – Lord Peter was set to inherit the family title, as his older brother, the heir, was unlikely to survive the war). Most likely, given their espionage background, Richard and Mary decided that the less said about her background to his family, the better. She may have become a naturalized American citizen, or she may have kept her British citizenship, and been still an Agent of British Intelligence.

In any case, during the time leading up to the birth of their son, Peter, Mary was not involved in any active, dangerous missions. After Peter’s birth, the assignment that led to her and her husband’s death was given to the couple. What is known is that, like her mother, she named her son after her brother – Peter.

Readers wanting to know more about the Wimsey family are encouraged to follow the link for their family tree.

IV: Peter’s Stepparents

Ben Parker:

Peter’s Uncle

Ben was Peter’s uncle. He raised Peter with his wife, May, after Peter’s parents died.

Ben was born in 1907 (A S-M #181, June, 1978, as seen on Ben’s tombstone, which Peter was visiting on the anniversary of Ben’s death) in Brooklyn, NY (Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Deluxe Edition, #19, Dec., 1987).

According to the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe (published many years after the original accounts), Ben was a carnival barker at Coney Island during the Depression, born in Brooklyn, New York. He was attracted to May Reilly, an attractive but naïve young woman. She was attracted to a man called Johnny Jerome. Jerome was well to do for the time, and May was attracted to him in those times of economic insecurity.

Ben believed that Jerome was a gangster, but May thought that this was just jealousy. Ben’s suspicions were confirmed one day when the police caught Jerome, and May realized that she could never marry such a man. (Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #4, 1982)

Sometime after this, Ben and May married, and moved into a house that had been owned by gangster “Dutch” Mallone. Mallone had hidden a fortune in the house before being sent to prison, but no one except Mallone knew of this.

Ben’s employment and activities after this are not well documented. It is known that he had a younger brother, Richard, who fought in World War II. Ben would more than likely also served in the conflict, though he does not seem to have distinguished himself in the same way as his brother.

According to the recent animated series, Ben knew a man called Keen Marlow (AKA the Destroyer) who was one of 5 heroes called the American Warriors who had worked with Capt. America during the war. According to the animated series, each of them had been advanced with variants of the Super Soldier Serum used to create the Captain. Marlow had lived for a time with the Parkers, and had also left a secret hidden in the house.

After the War, Ben’s brother married and had a son Peter. Ben and May were asked to look after the child while Richard and Mary Parker went to Algeria for a new job that they had been offered. A month later, the newspaper reported the deaths of Richard & Mary Parker. Ben told his wife that he couldn’t believe what the papers said about Richard & Mary being traitors. He decided that, since he and May were Peter’s only living relatives that they would bring him up, like their own son. He also decided that they would never tell Peter about his parents, leaving the shame and the sorrow to be buried with them.

By the time Peter was in high school, Ben was retired (though from what or where we don’t know). He encouraged Peter’s scientific curiosity, buying him a microscope and encouraging his scholastic interests. He also taught Peter a very important lesson that would remain with Peter his whole life: “With great power comes great responsibility”. When and how this was taught to Peter has never been revealed, to my knowledge. Ben does not appear to be an extremely powerful man, by most standards on how power is measured. In addition, Peter, though possessing a powerful intellect, does not seem to have been in a position that would have involved having to ingrain this belief into him. Perhaps Ben sensed, somehow, Peter’s destiny in some way, and helped encourage the qualities that would make him the great hero that he is today.

However, that phrase does appear in the Marvel Mythos in a very strange place – as the prime law of the Vishanti.

The Vishanti are, in the Marvel Universe, a supreme trinity of beings called on by Dr. Strange, known variously as Sorcerer Supreme, Master of the Mystic Arts, Master of Black Magic, and other arcane epithets. With a career nearly as long as Spider-Man’s Dr. Strange remains to this day one of the mainstays of the Marvel Universe.

Ben’s teaching of this important item to his nephew Peter indicates that Ben may have been able to tune into the mystical principles governing the Marvel Universe on an intuitive level. Alternatively, he may have studied the mystic arts himself at sometime in the past, and in particular, the branch of Tibetan mysticism taught by the Ancient One, Dr. Strange’s mentor, to the point that he had learned one of their highest, most secretly guarded principles. Dr. Strange’ series has only referred to this axiom once, as a reminder to Aggamotto, one of the Vishanti, of his duties to those less powerful to himself.

How and why Ben might have received training in the mystic arts, and his connection to Dr. Strange, has never been revealed. It does open the possibility (despite Ben’s ‘only living relatives’ statement) that Ben and Dr. Strange might be related – a postulate developed further in this article, in the section on the descendants of Wayne Morgan.

A burglar killed Ben in his home. Though the burglary at first seemed to be a random act of violence, there are at least two stories, and one possibility, that indicate otherwise.

First, in Amazing Spider-Man #200, it is revealed that the burglar who killed Ben had been a cellmate of “Dutch” Mallone. Mallone had hidden a treasure in the house, which he was trying to find when the Parkers discovered him. Ben attacked the man for threatening May, and he was shot in the process. He lingered long enough to tell May one last time that he loved her before dying.

The burglar spent years in jail for the murder, before eventually returning to the home in Forest Glen where the Parkers had had their happy home. He discovered at the time that whitefish had eaten the cash.

A second, more recent tale claims that the burglar had targeted the home because there was a computer in the home. Ben bought the computer (rather than a microscope) for Peter. This account is at odds with the original accounts, and can be deemed a parallel universe variant. However, the idea of a computer may lead in other directions.

Consider – computers during the 1962 time period were rare, even in the Marvel Universe. Personal computers did not become common until the 1980’s, and though the earliest Internet communications were active in the mid-fifties, governments, businesses and large corporations generally only kept them. For a private individual to have one (other than Reed Richards) was unheard of. If Ben had a computer at that time period, he must have been someone with a lot going on.

Consider – Ben Parker was a man who, coming from a carnival background, moved to a fairly prestigious neighborhood. His brother was a government agent, a war hero, and (possibly) a masked mystery man. Ben knew something of Tibetan mysticism, and had connections with the government’s Super Soldier project. If there were information on any of the above on a computer in his possession, certainly it might make him a target for those who might know of its existence.

The Super Soldier Project (also known as Operation: Rebirth) is a series of experiments that created Capt. America. Gifting a thin, weak young man, Steve Rogers, with incredible strength and agility, and training him in fighting skills produced the hero known as Capt. America. A generation later, thin, weak Peter gained similar, but more extensive abilities when a radioactive spider bit him. What was there about Peter (and /or the spider) that could have produced these abilities?

Is it possible that there were stronger connections between the Parker Brothers and Project: Rebirth than anyone expected. Were they, perhaps, test recruits on whom versions of the serum were tested? Could they, like others during that time period, have gained so-called superhuman abilities, even if for a brief time? In addition, if they were – what possible result could such experiments create in the genetic structure of their offspring?

There have been suggestions in many different branches of literature about selective breeding programs, designed to create advanced ‘supermen’. Rumors of a hidden, economic ‘Eugenics Wars’ during the 1990’s (the same time as the so-called ‘spider-clones’ wars) indicate that humanity, without most of them realizing it, may have been manipulated by behind the scene schemers.

If Ben did indeed have information pertaining to the Super-Soldier Project, at a time when interest in such subjects, possibly due to the Viet Nam war, but more likely by the newly created Fantastic Four team, was rising once again, another motivation for the burglar’s break-in might be found.

At the time, there was a multitude of scientists interested in data on these experiments. In Canada, the Weapon X project was being developed. LMDs (Life Model Decoys – chemical android duplicates of people) for SHIELD were soon to be developed by Stark Industries. Certain of the Communist nations were attempting their own experiments in various related fields. Competition for this type of biochemical ‘weapon’ was intense. Anyone knowing of the data would want it…and not all of them would have been scrupulous about how they could get it.

One of the companies researching the chemical and its effects at that time was Osborne Industries. Its President, Norman Osborne Jr., had discovered sometime in 1956 or afterward a chemical formula that his former partner, a man named Stromm, had had among his notes. Experimenting with the serum, it turned green and exploded. The serum heightened Osborne’s intelligence, strength, endurance, and other qualities. It also drove him mad.

It is unknown exactly when between 1956 (10 years before Norman Osborne is revealed as the Green Goblin, in Amazing Spider-Man #39, Aug., 1966) and his first appearance as the Green Goblin in AS-M #14, July 1964 that Osborne was splashed with the deadly chemicals. [Insert information about –1 story here.] It is possible that, in 1962, he was still doing research on Stromm’s notes, and may have wanted more information.

How or why Osborne might have learned of the information stored in Ben Parker’s house. Perhaps the espionage ring that the Red Skull had run had gained information on the Parker Brothers’ connections to Project: Rebirth. Perhaps some agent connected to Anim Zola’s genetic research programs leaked the information to Osborne deliberately.

In any case, if Norman Osborne, still unscrupulous even before his transformation into the Green Goblin, had learned of this, hiring a petty thug to steal the computer would not have been beyond him. The shooting death of Ben Parker, though tragic, was simply another life.

[Though I am not yet, at this time, ready to trace the Osborne family tree, and its connections to the Wold Newton Family by way of Sir William Clayton, Phileas Fogg and James Bond Sr., I had to put this speculation on a possible connection between the Green Goblin and Ben’s death into this. Keep watching, and drop me a line if you want to see it, and maybe I will add that soon…]

May Reilly Parker
Peter’s Aunt

Though she is not, by blood, a Parker, she did marry into the family, and raised Peter from infancy. No family tree of Peter Parker could be complete without his Aunt May.

May was born in 1902. (A S-M #196, Sep. 1979 – her tombstone is on the cover, when Mysterio faked her death). May Reilly lived in Brooklyn during the depression era.

It is not known how closely she might be related to the richer Reillys who, in various Quality and DC comic books, became known as Firebrand, Rod and Danette Reilly. It is known that their father was a steel magnate, and might not have cared for his poorer relations. It is possible that May could be a first cousin to the Firebrands.

May was courted by 2 men during the depression, Ben Parker, a Coney Island fair baker, and Johnny Jerome, a well-off, smooth talking man. One day, Jerome came to her proposing marriage. Jerome had just robbed a jewelry store, and killed a man. He wanted May to elope with him, and embark on a life of crime.

May, learning the truth about him, decided that she could never love such a man. Ben was there to soothe her tears.

One issue says that May had to encourage Ben to propose to her, but gives no details.

In time, they married, and moved to a house in Forest Hills, Queens. Their life was idyllic, but they had no children (that we know of).

One day, May’s brother- and sister-in-law left their young son Peter in her and her husband’s care. They told May and Ben that his new job meant he would be working in Algeria. A month later came the horrifying news – Peter’s parents were dead, and the papers were calling them traitors.

Ben decided then and there that they would raise Peter as their own, and that they would never mention Peters’ parents’ death to him.

May raised Peter to be a cheerful young man, and always tried to inspire confidence in him. However, he was a slight child, and was picked on constantly by the bigger boys. May tried her best to protect him, but she could only do so much.

Peter’s incredible intellect was both her vexation and her joy. Though she could not understand most of what he studied, she encouraged young Peter’s curiosity. He became a straight-A student with no problems, and in high school began receiving offers of college scholarships at a young age. The Parkers decided not to advance Peter in grade, however, feeling that a high-school education was necessary to him for his social development as well as his intellectual.

One day, a burglar entered the home. Grabbing May to have her show him around the house, May’s husband attacked. He was shot, and died in May’s arms.

Peter, on learning this after returning home, was filled with grief and rage. He disappeared for a while, and when he returned, a man called Spider-Man had captured Ben’s killer.

May followed Spider-Man’s career after that with a mixture of fascination and horror. She was appalled by the life of violence described there, but fascinated by the contradictions between the hero who captured her husband’s killer and saved an astronaut and the menace described by the Daily Bugle. She also saw her Peter entering into this world, by photographing pictures of Spider-Man for the Bugle.

Does anyone doubt that certain suspicions might have easily entered her mind? Does anyone believe that a cloth costume could hide, during close physical contact on numerous occasions when various villains had kidnapped her that she could not fail to recognize her beloved Peter?

Peter’s income from a photography job with the Daily Bugle helped supplement May’s income from her and Ben’s retirement, his pension, and whatever money from any insurance might have been left after burial expenses. Still, she felt guilty about taking the boy’s hard earned money, and often just let him find and pay the bills that she claimed to have forgetfully misplaced. Soon, she was rewarded for her years of devotion to Peter by watching him graduate from High School, summa cum laude, the Valedictorian of his class.

Peter, after his first picture sales to J. Jonah Jameson, said that he had paid Aunt May’s rent for the next year. (A-S-M #2) However, given the fact that she is later revealed (A S-M #170) to own the house, we can presume that this was a mortgage payment rather than home rental.

May’s best friend was her neighbor, Anna Watson. May and Anna worked as matchmakers for nearly a year to get Anna’s daughter Mary Jane to meet May’s nephew Peter. Finally, they succeeded – and succeeded so well that the two were eventually married.

Soon after Peter moved out on his own to college, May moved next door into Anna Watson’s house. They later opened up a room of her home her home for a boarder. May realized that, even with various grants, loans and scholarships, Peter needed more money to survive as a college student, and apparently rented her home out as a way of making money. She also wanted to earn money of her own, so as not to be a burden to the poor boy.

Dr. Otto Octavius, better known as Dr. Octopus, rented the spare room at Mrs. Watson’s, and began a relationship with May Parker. Later, May moved into Octavius’ own home as a housekeeper. May nearly married Octavius. (A S-M #131, Apr 197X) Peter was dead set against this, knowing that Octavius was a criminal mastermind. The wedding (which Peter was never informed of) was interrupted by an attack by Hammerhead and his men, and was never completed.

May was set to inherit an island in Canada that was rich in Uranium ore, where a breeder reactor was built. Although Peter believed that Octopus was only interested in the island, later texts have shown that Octavius had genuine feelings for May. Who left this island to May is uncertain. We can presume 2 theories: 1) rich relatives, in which case her relationship to the other Reillys is more probable, or 2) Norman Osborne, leaving it to her because of Peter’s relationship with his son, Harry. The entire incident was also said to have part of a scheme by the Jackal.

After the aborted wedding, May apparently moved into an apartment complex with Anna Watson. After a severe coronary, she spent some time in a nursing home before eventually moving back into her own home, and taking on more boarders. She has had close relationships with a number of her male boarders, including the late Nathan Lubenski and Willie Lumpkin, former postman to the Fantastic Four.

Though May always appeared to be frail and helpless, she was made of stern stuff. Surviving numerous heart attacks, mysterious ailments caused by transfusions of her nephew’s blood, and many other menaces, Aunt May lived for years, following Peter’s career and maintaining her role as a point of stability in Peter’s troubled life.

Then, one day, she passed on. She died in Amazing Spider-Man #400.

Oh, yes, I know that many of those reading this might react: “What, died? She’s in the comics being published right now!” And others might react: “Yes, but it was revealed later that this was a clone, and that the real Aunt May returned in issue #--“, or even (that was the 2nd time she died. The first was in…”.

And, yes, you would all be right. Nevertheless, so am I.

For, in that final story, it was revealed that May had known for years that her nephew was Spider-Man, and had kept the secret from her nephew for his own peace of mind. This is so like May that, even though she returned, supposedly not knowing her nephew’s secret, that for me, the current May is the clone. Perhaps her memory of her nephew’s secret was wiped from the memories that she shares with her original.

If so, than this clone was obviously meant to soothe Peter in his tumultuous life, rather than torture him with images of past failures. For surely, in a world where so many have and practice the art of cloning, there is at least one who wants nothing but good for Peter Parker. In addition, while we may not be certain who he is, he is certainly Peter’s best friend…

V: Peter’s cousin Laura

Not on the family tree is Peter’s Cousin Laura. Not much is known of her, whether she is his cousin on his mother’s or his father’s (or even his Aunt May’s) side. She has sent Peter a present on his birthday with her name on it in Spider Man: Chapter One #1. I know nothing else about Cousin Laura.

For more on the Parkers, see Other Parkers.
For Peter’s great-grand father and his other descendants, see The Masked Rider and his kin