‘With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility’: How an Age-Old Maxim Became Spider-Man’s Defining Creed

While penning the majority opinion for a 2015 Supreme Court case on toy web shooter royalties, Justice Elena Kagan took the chance to weave in a few Spider-Man references. 

“[In] this world, with great power there must also come—great responsibility,” she noted, emphasizing the court’s cautious approach to overturning precedent.

This adage, commonly phrased as with great power comes great responsibility, is best known as the wisdom of Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben. However, Uncle Ben wasn’t its originator—nor was he the first fictional mentor to pass it down to a budding superhero.

Who First Said 'With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility'?

The idea that power carries with it the burden of responsibility has been expressed for millennia. You can trace echoes of it in Christianity’s Parable of the Faithful Servant, where Jesus tells his disciples that a servant given authority over the household should not exploit the master's absence to indulge or mistreat others.

“For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required,” says one version in the New King James Bible. A similar sentiment can be found in one of the prophet Muhammad’s hadiths, translated as “All of you are shepherds and every one of you is responsible for his herd.”

Though Voltaire is sometimes credited with the phrase with great power comes great responsibility, Quote Investigator couldn’t find it in any of his works. The earliest reference they uncovered dates to 15 years after Voltaire’s death, in a 1793 decree by members of France’s National Convention (the body that replaced the monarchy during the French Revolution).

“[Les Représentans du peuple] doivent envisager qu’une grande responsabilité est la suite inséparable d’un grand pouvoir,” they wrote, which translates roughly as “[The people’s representatives] must recognize that great responsibility is inseparable from great power.”

Quote Investigator also discovered numerous 19th-century instances of the expression, suggesting that it was quite a popular phrase when reflecting on power. For instance, in 1817, British parliamentarian and future prime minister William Lamb used it during a debate, where he reminded journalists of their duty to apply a maxim they often urged upon governments: ‘that the possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility.’ He cautioned the press not to let their personal “interests” or “passions” cloud their duty to “justice” and “truth.”

World Leaders Embrace the Principle

Lamb was not the only future prime minister to invoke the phrase in the House of Commons. In 1906, during a debate about addressing systemic racial injustice in South Africa and the broader British Empire, Winston Churchill used it to argue that Britain’s responsibility to intervene was “directly proportional” to its power in any given region. “Where there is great power there is great responsibility, where there is less power there is less responsibility, and where there is no power, I think, there can be no responsibility,” he

Both Presidents Roosevelt referenced the adage as well—Theodore in a 1908 letter and Franklin in a 1945 unfinished radio address.

“I believe in a strong executive; I believe in power; but I believe that responsibility should accompany power, and that it is not good for a strong executive to be a permanent one,” TR wrote while explaining why he wouldn’t seek a third term. (Ironically, he did run again in 1912, though his decision stemmed from a sense of duty to realign the nation with progressive ideals.)

For FDR, the responsibility tied to power was about achieving peace: “Today we have learned in the agony of war that great power involves great responsibility. … We seek peace—lasting peace. More than just ending war, we want to eliminate the very roots of conflict—yes, to end this cruel, inhumane, and completely impractical means of resolving disputes between nations.”

He passed away before he could deliver the speech, but it was widely published in newspapers just days after his death. Three years later, with great power comes great responsibility emerged again—this time in the context of actual superpowers.

Spider-Man: Enter the Web-Slinger

In the final moments of the first episode of Columbia Pictures’ 15-part film serial Superman, Jonathan Kent shares a life-defining conversation with his adopted son, Clark.

“You’re different from other people,” he tells him. “Your extraordinary abilities make you a kind of ‘super-man.’ Because of these great powers—your speed and strength, your X-ray vision and super-sensitive hearing—you bear a great responsibility.”

That responsibility, Jonathan explains, is not just to “use them always in the interest of truth, tolerance, and justice,” but also to “go where they can be best put to use.” It’s not exactly a subtle push out of the nest—he outright tells Clark, “you must leave this farm.” So Clark sets off for Metropolis (though only after Mr. and Mrs. Kent have passed away), and the rest, if not history, is at least legend.

A brief mention in a 1940s film serial isn’t enough to cement with power comes great responsibility as Superman’s defining philosophy—especially when Spider-Man’s legacy has reinforced the phrase for decades.

The phrase first appeared in the debut Spider-Man comic, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, published in 1962’s Amazing Fantasy #15. Peter Parker initially uses his powers to gain fame as a TV sensation, becoming so self-absorbed that he refuses to stop a thief running right past him. Days later, that same thief murders Uncle Ben, forcing Peter to confront the consequences of his choices.

“And a lean, silent figure slowly fades into the gathering darkness, aware at last that in this world, with great power there must also come—great responsibility!” declares the final panel.

So while Uncle Ben popularized the sentiment, he wasn’t the first to utter it. That moment came later—according to GoCollect’s Luke Smith—in a 1972 music-comic fusion album called The Amazing Spider-Man: A Rockomic!.

“What was it Uncle Ben used to tell me?” Peter wonders. “I remember, he used to say, ‘Petey, never forget—the stronger the man, the heavier the load. With great power comes great responsibility.’”

The phrase surfaced again in the 1980s: first in 1986’s The Amazing Spider-Man #274, when Peter hallucinates Uncle Ben during a battle, and then in 1987’s Spider-Man vs. Wolverine #1, as Peter recalls his uncle’s wise words.

Sam Raimi’s 2002 Spider-Man film further solidified Uncle Ben’s link to the phrase, as he tells Peter the lesson while explaining why strength shouldn’t be used carelessly.

Simply put, with great power comes great responsibility has been central to Spider-Man’s journey from the start. It has become so strongly tied to Uncle Ben that modern creators have sought fresh ways to convey the lesson without repeating the exact words. In 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, for instance, Aunt May delivers the line using the phrasing from Amazing Fantasy #15. Meanwhile, in 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Miles Morales’s dad reworks it as “with great ability comes great accountability.”

“That’s not even how the saying goes, Dad,” Miles protests. France’s National Convention might just agree.

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