Few characters in the Marvel canon packed more importance into fewer comic book panels than Ben Parker. Essential reading for the character consists of exactly one issue – Amazing Fantasy #15 – and yet without him, Marvel’s flagship character goes nowhere. Ben exists to be a good parent figure who dies due to Peter’s inaction, beginning his career as Spider-Man. He’s as simple and brief as he is indispensable.
Ben has yet to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, however, which is unusual owing to both his stature and the comparative ease of inserting him into the proceedings. With Tom Holland's third movie, Spider-Man: No Way Home, having come and gone, it’s quite likely fans will never see him, at least not in the "prime" MCU reality. Not only is that the smart call, but it demonstrates how well the MCU learns the lessons of past mistakes.
To begin with, Cliff Robertson makes for a hard act to follow. The Oscar-winning actor delivered a Ben Parker for the ages with the original Spider-Man, and escaping his shadow may prove impossible. Martin Sheen acquitted himself well enough in The Amazing Spider-Man, but the fact that an actor of his caliber couldn’t dent Robertson’s standing speaks volumes about the MCU’s prospects for outshining the first and best take on the character.
Repetition plays a part too. With two big-screen versions of the Spider-Man origin story, diminishing returns are bound to set in, and it becomes easier to lose the audience with yet another version of Ben's tragic death. DC faced a similar dilemma with the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne in the Batman movies, something the MCU doubtless took note of. It surreptitiously acknowledged the conundrum by casting Marisa Tomei as Aunt May, a brilliant defiance of expectations that steered well clear of Rosemary Harris’ similarly iconic performance from the Raimi films. With Uncle Ben, it was even warier, limiting mention of him to a few cryptic remarks during Spidey’s first MCU appearance in Captain America: Civil War and never evoking his name.
Instead, it found stand-ins that not only did the job but expanded on the concept of a lost parent figure in ways that would've distorted Ben past recognition. The most obvious is May, who borrowed Ben’s "with great power comes great responsibility" line, as well as a dramatic death in No Way Home that cemented Peter’s status as Spider-Man the same way Ben did. At the same time, it gave audiences more of a context for the loss than Ben alone could provide, since May played a central role in the first two MCU Spidey movies with no hint about her ultimate fate.
Spider-Man: Far From Home pulled a similar trick with Tony Stark, playing on his death in Avengers: Endgame to accentuate Peter’s feelings of guilt and responsibility. Like May, Tony comes with multiple movies’ worth of associations to convey the full scope of the loss, extending the emotional arc past what Ben could provide on his own. Far From Home even added a tombstone for Stark to invoke Peter’s guilt and shame, exactly as images of Ben’s tombstone might do in the comics.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that the MCU has thoroughly covered the emotional ground of Ben’s death. Adding him now would bring nothing to the equation and likely invoke negative comparisons to Robertson at best. Spider-Man: No Way Home brought the earlier films full circle by connecting Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield to the MCU. That connects both previous Ben Parkers to the franchise by default. Adding another would be nothing but a waste.