Aunt May Parker
Few supporting characters in comics history have proven as enduring — or as genuinely beloved — as Aunt May Parker, who first stepped onto the page in The Amazing Spider-Man #3 back in 1963, conjured into existence by the legendary team of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko at the very heart of Marvel's Silver Age explosion. Over more than six decades of publication, she has appeared in 545 catalogued issues across titles including The Amazing Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man, and Peter Parker: Spider-Man, sharing those pages with some of Marvel's most iconic figures — J. Jonah Jameson, Mary Jane Watson, Gwen Stacy, Norman Osborn, and Flash Thompson among them. With 24 key-issue appearances to her name, she's no mere background fixture; collectors and readers alike have long recognized that her presence carries genuine weight in the stories that matter most. She is, in every sense, one of the great constants of Marvel Comics — a character whose quiet humanity has anchored some of the most emotionally resonant storytelling the medium has ever produced.

Trivia
- In 2003's Trouble, Marvel briefly retconned Aunt May into being Peter Parker's biological mother, a move so widely mocked it stands as one of the publisher's most notorious continuity blunders.marvel.fandom.com
- Marvel later transformed her into a superhero in her own right as Golden Oldie, elevating the silver-haired supporting player all the way to cosmic herald of Galactus.marvel.fandom.com
- In mainstream Marvel continuity, Aunt May was actually married off to Doctor Octopus as part of a villain's calculated inheritance scheme, reducing what could have been a simple romance to a cold act of greed.marvel.fandom.com
- Brian Michael Bendis has written more of Aunt May Parker's comics than any other writer in our catalog — 101 issues.
Covers through the years — 1963–2022
★ 1963
★ 1971
★ 1976
1977
1983
1986
1990
2009
2017
2022 