If you're talking about classic issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, it's hard to get more iconic than The Amazing Spider-Man #33. The comic, which is titled "The Final Chapter," isn't actually co-creator Steve Ditko's final pass at Spider-Man—he'd provide art up through issue #38—but it does feel like the end of an era, and it puts Aunt May front and center.

As the story opens, Aunt May lies in a hospital bed, dying from a transfusion of Peter Parker's radioactive blood. The only cure is an isotope known as ISO-36, which is contained in an underwater lab controlled by Spider-Man's arch-nemesis, Doctor Octopus. As the laboratory fills with water, Spider-Man is pinned underneath multiple tons of fallen steel, with no hope of escape.

The following four pages are arguably Ditko's finest work in any Spider-Man comic—at least, that's what Stan Lee thinks. "The Spider-Man that was one of my all time favorite stories that was illustrated by Steve Ditko was the Spider-Man story called "The Final Chapter," Lee said. "It was such a thrill, even to me and I was the writer of the story. When I saw that I almost shouted in triumph. Steve did a wonderful job."

And who does Peter, and by extension Lee, have to thank for the big moment? Well, Ditko, of course, but also Aunt May. As the water rises, Spider-Man thinks about his beloved aunt, and how he's failed her in the past (namely letting the anonymous robber get away, leaving him free to kill Uncle Ben). Using May's strength and resilience as motivation, Peter lifts the steel beams above his head and escapes. He delivers the isotope to the hospital in the nick of time and, with May cured, puts the specter of Uncle Ben's death behind him once and for all (or, at least, until Stan Lee needed to send Peter Parker on another guilt trip).