Spider-Girl
Multiple heroines have carried the Spider-Girl mantle.
Spider-Girl is the code name of several superheroines in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The most prominent version and first to receive an ongoing series is Mayday Parker from the MC2 universe. Other notable versions include Anya Corazon, Gwen Warren, and Maka Akana from the Earth-616 universe, along with various alternate reality incarnations.
Quick Facts
- Debut
- What If #7 (November 1977)
- Publisher
- Marvel Comics
- Cat
- super
Facts from the source article.
Publication history
The first person to use the name Spider-Girl was Mayday Parker, who appeared in a single issue of What If. Readers liked the idea enough that Marvel launched a whole alternate future line called MC2, which included The Amazing Spider-Girl and The Spectacular Spider-Girl alongside two other series. In late 2008, Marvel’s editor-in-chief Joe Quesada announced that Spider-Girl would move into the anthology Amazing Spider-Man Family, taking over a slot previously held by a prequel feature. That anthology ran Spider-Girl stories from its fifth to eighth issues, then ended with a final tale called Spider-Girl: The End, where a different Spider-Girl named April Parker died. A new Spider-Girl series started in late 2010, but it had no connection to the MC2 universe. It starred Anya Corazon and took place on Earth 616. That book lasted only eight issues, and Marvel never explained why it stopped. The character who would later become the second Earth-616 Spider-Girl first appeared in Avenging Spider-Man #16, then returned a decade later in an X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic as Gwen Warren, taking on the Spider-Girl mantle as an X-Men member. In late 2024, the villain Funhouse, a protégé of Bullseye, briefly called herself Spider-Girl to mock Spider-Boy during a tournament. She kept the name afterward, becoming the third Earth-616 Spider-Girl, and eventually got her own solo series.
Spider-Girls
The mantle of Spider-Girl has been worn by several different individuals across various realities. In the MC2 universe, designated Earth-982, the original Spider-Girl is May "Mayday" Parker, the daughter of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson, who is sometimes called Spider-Girl Red. Her clone, April Parker, later took the name Mayhem but initially went by Spider-Girl, known as Spider-Girl Blue for her blue costume. Within the mainstream Marvel Universe, the first to use the name was Aña Sofia Corazon, a Latina hero who originally operated as Araña and still occasionally uses the title. A separate Spider-Girl was created by the Jackal using stolen Mister Sinister technology, combining DNA from Gwen Stacy, Spider-Queen, and Cyclops. This mutant hybrid first appeared as a thirty-foot human-spider creature with human eyes that could fire eye-beams, battling the Superior Spider-Man and the X-Men. After being subdued, she was reduced to the form of a twelve-year-old girl and gained sentience, later enrolling and dropping out of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning under the name Gwen Warren. She became a waitress at the Krakoan-American restaurant Gifted Kitchen, where she met Nature Girl and Armageddon Man, who helped her control her powers, allowing her to transform into her giant spider form at will. Another incarnation appears in the second volume of Spider-Boy as a supervillain minion of Bullseye. She helped him ambush Spider-Boy and Daredevil on the Daily Bugle, using barbed webbing to escape with a trophy. A flashback reveals her past as a Hawaiian girl named Makawalu "Maka" Akana, whom Bullseye recruited as his protégé after seeing her dive off a cliff.
Other versions
In "What If Someone Else Besides Spider-Man Had Been Bitten By The Radioactive Spider?", Betty Brant is one of three candidates bitten by the radioactive spider; with Peter's assistance, she fights crime as "The Amazing Spider-Girl" until failing to stop a crook who murders Uncle Ben, causing her to quit. This incarnation also appears in the events "Spider-Verse" and "End of the Spider-Verse". An Ultimate Marvel version is a gender-swapped clone of the Ultimate Universe's Peter Parker with all his memories, initially known as Spider-Girl or Spider-Woman, later joining the Avengers and taking the mantle of Black Widow before returning to their original name. In Ultimate Spider-Man #200, a glimpse of the future shows Kitty Pryde eventually becoming Spider-Girl. In the pages of Old Man Logan, Ashley Barton, daughter of Tonya Parker and Hawkeye, becomes "Spider-Bitch", allies with a new Punisher and Daredevil to take back Hammer Falls, beheads Kingpin, and takes over as the new Kingpin. She appears in "Spider-Verse" and Spider-Geddon storylines, referred to as "Spider-Girl" and "Spider-Woman" due to the family-friendly narrative, and is recruited by the Superior Spider-Man to fight the Inheritors before returning to the Wastelands.
In other media
The 2023 film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse features multiple versions of Spider-Girl. These include Mayday Parker, the baby daughter of Peter B. Parker and Mary Jane Parker from Earth-616B; an adult Mayday Parker with different-colored eyes who belongs to the Spider-Society; April Parker, a blue-suited clone of Mayday; two versions of Anya Corazon—one with short hair and blue armor, another in a black-and-white costume; Betty Brant in a webbed suit; and Felicity Hardy, the short-haired daughter of Peter and Felicia Hardy. An alternate universe Spider-Girl named Petra Parker appears in Ultimate Spider-Man, voiced by Olivia Holt. Anya Corazon appears as Spider-Girl in Spider-Man (2017), voiced by Melanie Minichino, and in Marvel Super Hero Adventures, voiced by Gigi Saul Guerrero. A different version of May Parker appears in the novel Time's Arrow 3: The Future. Spider-Girl is an alternate costume for Spider-Woman in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, makes a non-speaking cameo in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, and is playable in Marvel Super Hero Squad Online. The Mayday Parker and Anya Corazon versions appear in Spider-Man Unlimited, with Mayday voiced by Laura Bailey. Spider-Girl is also playable in Marvel: Avengers Alliance, and the Ultimate Spider-Woman, called Spider-Girl, is a playable character in Lego Marvel's Avengers via DLC.
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