_{please feel free to join the editing of this article, especially in the Spread and Notable Examples sections!}

About

With Great Power also know as "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility"is a quote said by Benjamin Parker, a character more commonly known as “Uncle Ben” in the Marvel comic series “Spider-Man”:/memes/spider-man. Online, the quote is often mentioned in direct references to the superhero, as well as in image macros based on its “snowclone”:/memes/snowclone “With Great Power Comes Great X.”

The phrase can be used in its whole form, but often the word "responsibility" is swapped out for something that rhymes or completes an alternate joke. It is especially suited for use in image-macro form because of its dual-part construction.

Origin

The origin of this quote dates back centuries, and the earliest use of the phrase on the Internet is unknown. One of its first notable appearances in contemporary pop culture can be attributed to a heartfelt scene from the 2002 superhero film Spider-Man wherein Uncle Ben says the line to Peter Parker shortly before getting killed by a carjacker (shown below). This clip was posted to March 10th, 2010.

The first known applications of the phrase to images was with Demotivational Posters. The image on the left is probably circa 2004; The image on the right was created May 16th, 2008.

Precursor

The quote “With great power comes great responsibility,” which highlights the principle of _Noblesse oblige (obligation of Nobility), is variously attributed to the Oevres de Voltaire, Volume 48 (1829)^[1], Thomas C. Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates (1827)^[2], and a variety of other sources and derivations. The first instance of the quote in Spider-Man can be found in Amazing Fantasy #15, August 1962, otherwise known as the first Spider-Man story.

Spread

Two years after the video clip of Uncle Ben speaking to Peter was posted to YouTube, in August 2011, users began to create image macros, sometimes called "Uncle Ben's Words of Wisdom" using variations on the phrase over a screen capture from the film.

The phrase and its snowclones spread to images of Spiderman around the same time, including lots of crossover with '60s Spider-Man.

In addition, the phrase and its variations are commonly used as bait-and-switch forum post titles. There are 129 posts across Reddit^[3] with the exact phrase "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" and thousands of others with variations or substituted words.

On July 24th, 2010, With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story^[4] was released, using the famous phrase to tell the story of Spider-man's creator.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

^[1] Goodreads – Voltaire

^[2] Wikiquote – Responsibility

^[3] Reddit – Search: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

^[4] IMDB – _With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story