May contain fangirling.

She's talking around him. Walking on eggshells. They both blame themselves, and it took decades for them to admit that to each other. Peter let the robber go, May chased him off because they got into an argument.

This shared guilt manifests in them both desperately wanting to take care of each other.

First, Peter throws himself into being both the Spider-Man, AND, more importantly, the breadwinner. The boy is broke. You know it, I know it, it's one of the single most iconic and relatable things about him. He gets weird about it. He's ALWAYS worried about it. I hear he might even have a money-worrying disease.

Money or the lack thereof has always been important to the mythos, even before Ben's death, but before Ben dies it manifested in things like Peter wanting a car or motorcycle the family couldn't afford and doing a wrestling gig. After Ben dies, his priorities shift.

He treats Aunt May like she’s made of glass (to be fair, she kinda is. Early Spider-Man has that woman fainting or having a heart attack every other week. Her constitution is held up by tissues, the US Healthcare system and Anna Watson’s unbreakable back muscles.) Now, on top of being a near full time super hero, he's also saddled himself with the responsibility of taking care of the only parental figure he's got left in life while also trying to juggle both school and spending time with a friend group whose bank accounts aren't worried about when Jonah's feeling particular chipper about paying his employees.

Now he's trying to cover May's medical bills. Now he's trying to cover the rent. Now he's more worried about leaving May alone to live with Anna when his burgeoning friendship with Harry Osborn and the Coffee Bean Gang has netted him a free, all expenses paid apartment.

Meanwhile.

May's doing the exact goddamn thing. Richard and Mary dying the way they did kicked off the Parker family habit of keeping secrets, and Ben dying kicked her s-mothering into overdrive. She starts doting on him in a way that makes him feel like a child (modern depictions will try to convince you he was an itty bitty baby boy when he got his powers. They're lying. He was out of high school like 30 issues after Amazing Spider-Man #1.) She's pawning her jewelry. She's trying to set him up with Mary Jane because she knows what's best for him (he needs someone fun and energetic because he's so quiet, and it's certainly not going to be that awful Betty Brant who will keep him on his toes).

Her entire idea of their relationship is that he's functionally helpless and she needs to take care of him, especially with one foot in the grave, and that she needs to put on an act that everything is fine. Richard and Mary are dead, Ben is dead, she's barely functioning on her and Ben's savings, the things she can sell and the money Peter's bringing in from his photography work. Everything is fine and life will be just a bit brighter with a nice schmear on the bagel.

(Shout out to JM DeMattheis for showing up in the 90's to inject some fucking LIFE into Aunt May. Look at that quirked eyebrow. What a legend. Never read his Doctor Fate run, it will give you hives.)

2. Because, contrary to popular belief, Peter’s VERY good at hiding his identity and gaslighting his friends and family when you combine it with the good old Parker luck and its passive debuff to everyone's collective sanity.

Is this not the face of a woman doing okay in her relationship with New York's Friendly Neighborhood dirtbag?

I blame the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon (he's fine with Shield immediately revealing his identity to a group of teen heroes? Absolutely the fuck not.) and the continuing woobification of comic books for how much this idea that Peter's inherently bad at keeping his identity secret comes up, because it's backbreaking work Peter has to do pull the wool over all of their eyes.

Why is he late? His job. Why is he never around? His job. What could his excuse be this time? Aunt May had her bi-weekly heart attack. Why is he beat to hell and back? He got hurt in the middle of getting pictures of Spider-Man. Why won't he ask for help? Why do none of his friends find this suspicious?

Part of it's because he didn't have friends in High School except for Betty and Liz Allen. He was an angry loner too stuck up his own ass about how smart he was to take the NUMEROUS opportunities presented to him to actually engage with his peers except to fight with Flash, (don't let modern depictions fool you either. Flash Thompson and Peter Parker weren't Bully and Bullied, they were enemies. They gave as good as they got. That's also, not coincidentally, why Gwen and Harry's first impressions of him in college were that he was rude little jackass).

So by the time he's in college and finally has a social life, literally everyone is used to him being a flake.

Which isn't to say that's the only way he's keeping his secret.

Here's the first of a few attempts to tell people exactly who he is.

Peter has a habit of telling his friends the truth they need to hear you see. Sometimes when he's delirious, sometimes when he's not, like here at Gwen's birthday party.

Or here when he's finally resolved himself to stop ruining his girlfriend Debbie's life after numerous therapy sessions about how she knows he's Spider-Man.

But that'll never be the end of it! He can't just out himself to the people he loves! No! He just made Gwen cry! Think about what this would do to May! So he does things like going to Hobie Brown.

Or walking back his reveals the second someone doesn't take them seriously.

After all, if it's fixed her and she doesn't suspect a thing, why bother telling her the truth? Yeesh.

But you get my point. Peter gets both very good at keeping his identity secret and is very wary of actually telling anyone over the years, to the point that just about the only people who knew leading up to the Civil War reveal were Mary Jane (don't you love a friendly neighborhood retcon?), the Fantastic 4, off again dead or dying Harry/Norman Osborn, and Black Cat. Otherwise it would just be people with superpowers or extenuating circumstances ENTIRELY out of his control, like being ambushed by the Serial Sniffers like Wolverine and Daredevil, getting outed by his gooey ex Venom when it came into contact with Eddie Brock, and the occasional psychic like the Cyclops and Jean Grey's time/dimension adrift fail-son Nate Grey.

But this is a post about Peter and Aunt May, so let's get back to that before I run wild and free on another tangent.

3. Aunt May has had so many opportunities to know his secret. She finds his costume in his room!

She's literally seen a whole doll made of web fluid in his bed! She faints immediately of course, it was the sixties, but what does he do? Does he say, "Oh Aunt May, I'm so sorry I've been lying to you for awhile, I'm actually Spider-Man"? No! Of course he doesn't! He lies about why the hell there was a webbing doll in his fucking bed!

But why does she believe him?

Because it all comes back to this.

If Aunt May knows three things, it's that Aunt May knows her nephew.

Aunt May knows reality.

And Aunt May knows that she HATES Spider-Man.

Wait what?

Yeah! Aunt May hates Spider-Man, go figure. That rotten motherfucker is the cause of so much grief in her life. Why is Peter getting hurt? He's taking pictures of Spider-Man. Who's always causing trouble in the Daily Bugle? Spider-Man. She's set to marry Otto Octavius, and who shows up to ruin it? Spider-Man. George Stacy died, orphaning Gwen?! Spider-Man! GWEN DIED? SPIDER-MAN, SPIDER-MAN, SPIDER-FUCKING-MAN!

She hates him so much that she pulls a gun on him. She fires it! There's a BKOW effect and everything!

Let that sink in. Not only is this the only time Aunt May has ever used a gun in the main continuity, but it's pointed at him. In her purse you'll find petty cash, some important documents, her change purse, a cooking utensil or two, and Aunt May's Glock For Spider-Man.

To me, Aunt May not knowing and not wanting to know is an important part of the character because her not being able to square these two things she knows are true in the same round hole makes her even more compelling. Peter Parker is her frail nephew who she loves more than anything in the world and Spider-Man is singlehandedly the largest, most destructive cause of stress for the Parkers. If her finding out isn't a shock, if it isn't negative, then something is wrong with the reveal.

Because you can't tell me that this woman finally coming to terms with the fact that Peter Parker is Spider-Man is going to be a peaceful affair. That she'd know and just be waiting for him to tell her.

This is a woman who hates and loves with a passion. Peter is her son and she's going to do what any good mother would do if they found out their kid is actively putting himself in harms way and lying about it to their face. Fic culture and games like Insomniac's Spider-Man, LOVE to smooth over all of her edges. She's the perfect, prim, caring Aunt May with infinite patience and a penchant for dramatic reveals. Can she be sad? Sure. Happy? Always. Worried about her nephew? No problem. Sometimes she can even be disappointed.

But angry? Not the perfect mother? No we can't have that, what about our feel good narrative? God forbid if she occasionally bites Peter the way he bites everyone around him! That would sully the message!

I don't know. I've spent the past five hours typing this up and finding my various images. Section 2 had to be cut way down because I can't hop across 12 more runs looking for the way he let Harry get trucked off to a mental hospital or how he burned Norman's goblin suits to keep him from relapsing from his amnesia and revealing his identity.

The most obvious starting point has to be this classic

Johnny Storm is going full house husband for Peter Parker, I mean c’mon! add in the fact that he’s in his undies and the way that he’s leaning over peter… yeah this is a classic. This might be the most famous spideytorch panel out there, but I don’t think it’s the most important one.

Another classic (but more antagonistic?) one takes place, of course, at the usual place.

To me this is peak identity shenanigans and the stuff that fanfics are made of. The betrayal, the heartbreak, the complications that go into the conflicting way these two view identity, oh boy I could talk about that shit for hours, but as an individual moment, it doesn’t really crack most important for me, it needs a bit more affection (they’re very bad at affection sometimes).

Another panel that came to mind very quickly for me is this set.

Johnny literally only had to say his name and Peter knew exactly what he meant and what he needed. This is top tier levels of communication, both between them and from the creators to us. I think this is another one that I could talk about for hours. That being said, it doesn’t feel important enough to me.

A friend in the spideytorch discord server posed this panel as the most important spideytorch moment in the comics.

I’m just gonna put their quote in cause it’s great. “I think this is one of my favorite panels cause Johnny was just speaking generally and Peter was like ‘oh my god! Actual wise words form johnny’ but also, I love that this was a more important moment for Peter than Johnny.” I must say, this entry is extremely important to spideytorch and gave my choice a run for its money. I don’t have a huge reason for not making this one the most important, other than personal taste. For their relationship, this is a key moment and sets them on the path to actually being friends (at least on Peter’s end), but idk it just wasn’t doing it for me.

Another panel I was reminded of thanks to this submission was this moment.

It’s not quite as impactful as the past one by a long shot but I do think it’s important. After being rivals for so long, to see Johnny give a genuine heartfelt compliment to Peter is fantastic (haha). This feels like the other half of the previous set of panels. There we had Johnny encouraging a stranger and here he’s encouraging his friend.

Some other friends in the discord server suggested the moment that Johnny invites Peter over to watch his sex tape (yes this is canon).

(Not pictured, Peter swinging away and saying he needs to take a cold shower). Now I’m not saying that the most important spideytorch moment needs to be serious, but I think this moment might be too unserious to claim that title. This moment was huge for the fanbase because holy shit did, he actually say that, but for their relationship, I just don’t think it was as important as it was to us.

Now I do want to knock out a few honorable mentions that I would hate to miss.

First, this look given to Spidey by Johnny, I mean yeah, he’s in love.

And to balance the lovesick flirty scales I must expose Peter as well.

Next, this heartbreaking moment that basically admits to the audience that Peter’s world becomes chaos when he loses Johnny. That shit hits.

Of course, the moment that gave us the ship name.

A panel that lives in my head rent-free because honestly marvel what were you attempting to convey here other than the fact that Peter really wants to have hate sex with Johnny Storm?

To take us outside of our duo, this quote from Ben Grimm (EDIT: it’s was Peter’s clone Ben Reilly, which honestly only adds more drama), because honestly same.

And of course, I have to include the panel which showed us the first time (on page) that Peter told Johnny he loved him AND gave us canon proof that these two have “date night,” many a fic writer was fed well.

And how could we forget! THE USUAL PLACE! Literally any panel mentioning this is top tier because its so good, like the core of the fandom honestly.

Lastly, before moving on to my own more serious contenders I have to share this parallel that @sciderman shared because I love it.

Now to my serious contenders for the title of most important spideytorch panel (please remember this is all my opinion and I mean no shade). This will be a top 5, but just know some of these rankings are pretty flexible (even flexible with some panels from the beginning), and this question should not be taken as seriously as I am taking it, I am fully aware of that.

Number 5!

So, I know that I discounted the sex tape scene earlier because I didn’t think it was serious enough and it didn’t do enough for their actual relationship, but I had to include this one I’m sorry. A lot of this is personal taste but the implications here are *chefs kiss* The first time I saw this panel was actually on Pinterest with the caption “wait a second, did spider-man and the human torch have sex?” which says it all for me.

Beyond that, this moment also shows how they reach out to each other when they have problems. Strange children show up in Peter’s life and the first person he calls about it is Johnny. Again, this is not the most serious, but I love it. This moment shows the banter of their relationship, how they care about and rely on each other, and also potentially reveals that they’ve had sex. There’s a lot to take in.

Number 4!

I will be honest with you all, this moment is here almost entirely because Ben’s quote lives in my head rent-free. Everyone around them sees how they feel about each other besides them. When they were rivals others could tell they actually liked each other and when they became friends others could tell that it was deeper than that. I think I especially love this panel because it conforms that we’re not crazy for thinking there’s something there but also because Ben specifically cites the way Johnny looks at peter. That is very specific and says a lot. I can’t imagine Ben would say this if the looks Johnny gave Peter were purely platonic, and just ahhhh, there’s so much said here just in one line from Ben. There was of course the Ben moment earlier, which I also love, but something about this one, the more specific phrasing of it I think just shoots it up my rankings a lot.

Number 3!

If you’ve been following me for a while I don’t think this is a surprise at all, I have already done a very in depth post about this panel so I’ll keep my thoughts brief. Red Skull knows that hurting Johnny will hurt Peter, Peter’s Spidey senses go off FOR JOHNNY, and we are given so much angst potential, I love it.

Number 2!

This one is probably a more popular choice than my number one, and I totally get it. The excitement and joy bursting out of Peter when he finally realizes that Johnny is here, he’s real, and he’s alive really gets me. Plus, the added context to the uniform comment being that Johnny literally left Peter his family and his spot on the team in his will. The amount of pure love in this moment and its larger context is abundant, platonic or romantic, it’s there. I feel like everything I could say about this panel has probably been said before, but it is definitely worthy of being the most important spideytorch moment, even if I have one that beats it for me.

Number 1!

For those of you who don’t know, this panel comes from Peter visiting Gwen’s grave and talking to her. That fact alone breaks me in half but then the things he says to her shatter me. Every spider-man fan knows how much Gwen’s death broke Peter, it destroyed him to lose her. Just the fact that Peter admits Johnny brings part of him back is amazing (haha) because that is a hug feat. But then he shatters me even more with his final sentences. After Gwen’s death, we often get a peter who spends too much time as Spidey in order to avoid having to cope with Gwen’s death as Peter, but also as a way to cope with the loss (he’s a complicate man). Spideypool also gets a lot from that arc because of Wade’s reaction to Spider-Man not holding back as much and becoming less of a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and that’s true. The fact that Peter feels like he’s becoming who Spidey is supposed to be again when he’s around johnny is huge! But then! He corrects himself. He’s not Spidey again, he’s Peter. The real person, the man behind the mask, comes back. And then you get the final correction. He’s not just peter again, he’s *Gwen’s* peter again. He is the him that existed with Gwen when he’s with Johnny. That speaks volumes and breaks whatever parts of me are left. How am I expected to read this and not think that Johnny and Peter are soulmates?

Now, I will acknowledge that this is much more of a peter moment than a joint spideytorch moment, much like the moment suggested by discord friend earlier. If that disqualifies it for you as the most important spideytorch panel, I get it. However, for me that doesn’t matter mainly for one key reason. So many classic spideytorch moments show a lot of Johnny having feelings for Peter or making a move on Peter. There have been a lot of times when I’m trying to get a friend into spideytorch, and I feel like I have to clarify that its not as one sided as it seems. Johnny is much more out there with who he is and doesn’t hide his feelings very well (except maybe from himself). So, when we get any spideytorch moment that hones in on peter’s feelings and love for Johnny, that feels so huge to me. This moment alone proves that it isn’t one sided, Peter has deep feelings for Johnny, even if he’s not sure what they are yet, he knows that what they have is special, he wouldn’t be telling Gwen about it otherwise. While it may not be as famous of a spideytorch moment, its an important one, and for me it’s probably the most important one.

Anyway, this has been a way too long post about this topic but if you made it to the end thank you so much! I would love to hear other people’s thoughts on this topic so feel free to share those. Also, just a reminder that these are my opinions, and I am not in charge at all so don’t take it too seriously (unless you want to).