Spider-Man is one of Marvel’s biggest masked superheroes, who refuses to reveal his true identity as journalist, Peter Parker… but has he always refused to take off the mask?
So, if you’ve watched the live-action films, you’ll know that there’s a very select few who are taken into his inner circle, and unless it’s his fellow heroes, girlfriend or bestie, nobody else can know his secret identity.
That is, unless you re-watch the animated version in 1996, you’ll know there was one exception.
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In season three, episode two, titled, ‘Make a Wish’, Parker was out zipping around in his hero get up and happened to be in a room with a little girl.
What happened next was so dark that social media users were shook to their core at how the producers would let that storyline fly, and for good reason.
Basically, a clip was shared to Instagram which saw Spider-Man with the girl who appears to be in pyjamas and sitting on her bed.
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In the scene, Spidey says to her that he should be ‘thanking her’ for making him believe ‘in myself again’ after she enthusiastically tells him that his appearance in her room made it the ‘greatest night of my life’.
As he’s about to leave through the window, he begins to tell her, ‘if there’s anything you ever want’, before she interrupts him with ‘one thing’ she’s desperate to have.
She gets up and asks whether he will take of his mask for her, to which he immediately refuses, claiming that he ‘can’t’.
But she’s persistent and he eventually realises that he might be able to show her after all.
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That’s when this seemingly wholesome moment happens.
Giving into her please, Parker takes off his mask, revealing that he is the journalist which makes the little girl ecstatic, and she hugs him.
The little girl then claims that she’ll keep his secret ‘for the rest of my life’ and as Spider-Man hops out of the window and is about to leave the location, he utters a very telling sentence.
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He said that she’s ‘more of a superhero than I’ll ever be’ before slipping away on a web.
The next shot? Foul.
It’s a shot of the building the litter girl lives in, titled: “Wish Come True Foundation For Terminally Ill Children.”
So, essentially… he could tell her his identity as she had mere weeks left to live and wouldn’t be able to reveal it to anyone else. Watch it yourself:
People in the comments on the clip were stunned, to say the least and didn’t expect such a dark ending to what could have been a cute moment.
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One person wrote, making a play on the Pretty Little Liars theme song: “Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.”
Another penned: “’I'll keep your secret for the rest of my life!..’ That was a dark ass line.”
Someone else joked: “He was like ‘oh wait! I can!’ After seeing the sign outside lmao.”
Now, that’s dark.
Britt Jones