This is a question I posed on Twitter just a while ago, and even after a good one to two minutes of research, couldn’t find a satisfactory answer. Certainly there’s something to be said for never, ever addressing age in comics, as you start to get into questions like, “How old is Franklin Richards, huh?” But that’s actually not where I want to start. My question is, “How old was Aunt May… Originally?”

Think about it this way:

- Ben Parker was in high school with May Reilly. Unless one of them skipped a grade or two, or was left back, we can assume they were approximately the same age; or, at least, in the same four year range as each other.

- Richard Parker, Ben’s brother, is described as being “many years younger” than Ben.

- Peter Parker is only a few months old when Richard and Mary, his parents, are killed in a plane crash.

- Peter is a teenager in high school when he becomes Spider-Man.

The big variable here is, how many years younger is “many years younger?” While there’s, of course, no way of determining exactly how many, let’s take a look here:

- Chances are, Richard and Mary had Peter in their early twenties, given the time period. People just didn’t really have babies in their thirties when Spider-Man was launched.

- Add 16 years to that (a middle point for how old Peter is when he became Spider-Man), and his parents, if they survived, would most likely be mid-to-late-thirties.

- Ben Parker is many years older than Richard, and looks to be easily in his sixties or seventies. This makes Ben about 30-40 years older than Richard.

- But, that’s impossible, right? We’ve already explained that people just didn’t have babies in their thirties back then due to health factors. Even if Peter Parker’s grandmother had Ben at 16, that would mean she was at least 46 when she had Richard… So probably not.

- It’s far more likely that many years meant 5-10 years, so Ben was had at a very young age (16), and then Richard at about 10 years after that (26).

- Meaning, if Richard was about 25 when Peter was born, Ben was only about 35.

- …And in the first issue of Spider-Man, Ben was 51. Approximately.

- Assuming Aunt May had the exact same birthday as Uncle Ben, she was also approx. 51 when Peter became Spider-Man.

- Additionally, only about 5-10 years have passed in Spider-Man continuity, meaning Aunt May is, maximum, 61.

There is only one conclusion: Aunt May has that disease from Jack.

Side note: During my cursory research, I was reminded of this issue of Marvel Team-Up, one of my favorite comics of all time, where Aunt May becomes Goldie, the herald of Galactus. The only thing that can sate his hunger? Fruit pies. It was during Assistant Editor’s Month, natch: