Spider-Man 4: Hulk’s Tragic Comics Link to Peter Parker’s Parents Could Change Everything
Spider-Man 4 could crack open Peter Parker’s past with a shock twist, as a rumored Bruce Banner role points to a Brand New Day–style reveal that links Hulk to the deaths of Peter’s parents.
File this under plausible Marvel chaos: Spider-Man 4, a.k.a. Spider-Man: Brand New Day, might dig into Peter Parker's family history in a way that ropes in Bruce Banner. Yes, the Hulk. If the rumor mill is even half-right, Marvel could be eyeing a comics thread that links Banner to the tragedy around Peter's parents. It is a surprising angle, but it actually has a precedent.
The Ultimate Comics angle Marvel might swipe
In Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley's Ultimate Spider-Man, Richard Parker gets reimagined as a biologist, not a spy. That matters, because in that continuity, Richard and Mary Parker die during Bruce Banner's first transformation into the Hulk. That is a sharp pivot from earlier versions where the Parkers were government agents who died in a plane crash.
- Ultimate Origins (a prequel by Bendis and artist Butch Guice) lays it out: Richard works on a scientific team with Hank Pym, Franklin Storm, and Bruce Banner trying to recreate the super-soldier program known as Project Rebirth.
- Banner experiments with Nick Fury's blood. Things go predictably bad. He Hulks out and tears the facility apart.
- Hank Pym warns everyone to bail. Richard and Mary, who happen to be visiting with their newborn Peter, stay inside. The destruction kills them.
- Fury later finds baby Peter, holds him, and basically tells the kid he will not remember what happened. Years later, Fury gives Peter a very different story about his parents' deaths, which does not line up with that moment.
That is the broad strokes of the Ultimate version, and it gives you a clean, if grim, line between Banner and Peter's origin. Inside baseball note: yes, that is Franklin Storm on the project, which is the Ultimate universe's way of looping the Fantastic Four family tree into the mess.
Why this rumor popped up now
Recently, longtime scooper Alex Perez (Cosmic Circus) teased that Bruce Banner would know, in his words, 'someone related to Peter.' Take it with the usual rumor-season salt, but it is exactly the kind of breadcrumb that points back to the Ultimate storyline.
'someone related to Peter'
That hint was floating around as of May 29, 2025. Again: rumor, not gospel, but it lines up neatly with the comics version where Banner intersects with the Parkers' lives in a major way.
How this could click in the MCU
There is more in the comics that would make this feel natural on screen:
Richard Parker's research into biological cures feeds directly into Peter's world. In the books, it helps lead to Peter's web fluid and connects to Mister Negative's Devil's Breath project, which ends up weaponized. If Marvel wants the Parkers to be scientists in the MCU, tying them to Banner's work is an easy bridge.
And if you have heard the other rumor — that Spider-Man throws down with an angry Hulk in Brand New Day — this backstory stops that fight from feeling random. Peter learning that a Hulk rampage or a Banner experiment somehow caused Richard and Mary Parker's deaths would give their clash real stakes and finally answer the MCU question: who were Peter's parents, actually?
Reality check
To be clear, Marvel does not have to copy Ultimate Spider-Man beat for beat. They rarely do. But the idea of the Parkers as scientists with a dangerous link to Bruce Banner is right there if Kevin Feige wants it.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is currently set for July 31, 2026.