Spider-Man has led a long and oftentimes ridiculous history. With all the various timelines and insane comic book hijinks that have found their way into his life, it’s a miracle the wall-crawler has all his faculties intact. Along the way, from fighting men dressed as rhinos to getting cloned half a million times, Peter Parker somehow found enough time to get busy and produce a whole line of kids. Granted, some of Spider-Man’s kids are from alternate realities and timelines, or are even the genetic copy of him, but hey, if your DNA is involved in the creation of another living being, that kind of makes you their parent.
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Heck, even if you’re just someone’s inspiration to don the superhero tights that makes them your responsibility and you their guardian, and parent, in a manner of speaking. Just ask Batman, what with essentially making Dick Grayson his ward and son. Thanks to both mad scientists and his romance with MJ, Spider-Man has sired kids of all kinds; from those who fight the good fight to insane carbon copies with a penchant for trying to kill him. We’re going to take a look at 15 times Peter Parker not only knocked someone up, usually Mary Jane, but had spider-powered kids.
15 ITSY-BITSY
The genetic offspring of both Spider-Man and Deadpool, she might very well be one of the first supervillains to have two spandex-clad dads. It wasn’t exactly "Take Your Daughter To Work Day" when she arrived on the scene however. Rather, after first appearing in the current series Spider-Man/Deadpool, Itsy-Bitsy made it her personal mission to create as much carnage as possible and all in the name of her two daddies.
Try as they might, even the combined efforts of Spidey and the Merc With The Mouth proved insufficient to take her down. They found themselves outclassed multiple times, with Itsy-Bitsy revealing in pushing Spider-Man emotionally, turning him desperate and in turn, exceptionally deadly. Eventually, the two heroes took her down, though nearly at the expense of Spider-Man’s soul, as he nearly killed her. Suffice to say, no one is winning either the parent or daughter of the year award.
14 ANNA MAY PARKER
Or as she likes to be called, Annie. The daughter to Peter and Mary Jane, this Spider-Man family exists in a remnant of Earth-18119 in Battleworld, following the events of the relatively recent Secret Wars. With powers like her father, Annie had similar spider-tastic abilities; Mary Jane used the technology of the villain Regent to benevolently siphon off bits of Peter’s power so they could fight crime as a family.
Annie, or otherwise known as Spiderling when fighting bad guys, is quite the mischievous little devil, getting into trouble, but always convinced she’s doing the right thing. With a Spider-Sense that’s many times more powerful than her father’s, able to predict future events, it’ll be interesting to see just how Anna grows as a superhero.
13 ASHLEY BARTON
In the world of Old Man Logan, one fateful night the bad guys got their act together and in horrifying fashion, united in killing most of the superhero population. Years later, only a few heroes are left and they’ve all but given up their former lives. Wolverine ends up on a quest with Hawkeye and along the way they run into Tonya Parker, one of Peter Parker’s daughters, and more notably, Ashley Barton, one of Spider-Man’s granddaughters.
Going by the moniker of Spider-Woman, Ashley is like her grandfather in that she too has spider-powers, or at least super-strength and agility. Unlike her heroic grandfather however, she’s anything but. A killer through and through, she has no compunction with murdering anyone who gets in her way, as seen when she knocked the Kingpin’s head off to take his territory as her own.
12 VENOM
Back on the Beyonder’s personal Battleworld during Secret Wars, Spider-Man accidentally got hold of an alien symbiote and would later take it to Earth. The two formed a bond, one might even say romantic, at least from the symbiote’s point of view. It loved Peter, almost unconditionally, and really, REALLY, wanted to bond with him. Upon learning it was alive, Peter rejected the symbiote, nearly killing it.
Scorned, the symbiote, with its last vestiges of strength happened upon Eddie Brock. The two bonded and as a result, the villain known as Venom was birthed into the world. From there, with the symbiote thinking it had been slighted by its one true love and Eddie feeling that Spidey had ruined his life, Venom made it his/their personal mission to bring the same level of ruin down on Spider-Man.
11 CARNAGE
If Venom was a child by proxy, then Carnage, the “child” of Venom, is the “grandson” of Spider-Man. It’s a pretty nasty family tree when alien symbiotes are involved, but family is always messy even without alien goo that bonds to a person. After breaking out of jail, Venom accidentally left a piece of his symbiote behind. Unfortunately, the person to discover it was the crazed serial killer Cletus Kassady.
Upon making contact with the interstellar goo, he almost immediately changed into the mass-murdering supervillain known as Carnage. Fueled only with an insatiable desire to kill and cause chaos, it was everything Spider-Man could do to take on Carnage. Eventually, once the storyline "Maximum Carnage" rolled around, Spider-Man was forced to enlist help from Venom, some of the Avengers, Cloak and Dagger, and others.
10 MAY "MAYDAY" PARKER
Speaking of symbiotes. May “Mayday” Parker, a different and darker May Parker then one we’ll see later, stems from the universe of Earth X. She’s still the daughter of Peter Parker, after he knocked up Mary Jane, who soon thereafter died of cancer. Yet while much of May’s early history is something of a mystery, she grew up in a dystopian world, where thanks to the Inhuman’s Terrigen Mist, nearly everyone has super powers.
Coming into her abilities as teenager, perhaps the most distinguishing feature about May is the alien symbiote she bonded with. It was the same Venom symbiote from years prior. It tried to take control of May in a revenge ploy, but didn’t go quite its way. May easily subdued the symbiote with her Spider-Sense and took complete control of it, taking the identity of Venom as she and the alien became a functional, working unit.
9 SPIDER-GIRL
Without a question the most famous of all Spider-Man’s kids, May Parker, Spider-Girl, is the daughter of Peter Parker and Mary Jane and heralds from a timeline very similar to the mainstream Marvel Universe. A perfect reflection of the couple, she had her mother’s charisma and her father’s intelligence.
However in this world Spider-Man was forced to give up his superhero identity once he lost his leg in battle with the Green Goblin. After she became a teenager years later, May Parker’s spider-powers manifested and she decided to fill the void her father left. Taking on the moniker of Spider-Girl, she was, and continues to remain, a mighty force to be reckoned with. Boasting a costume similar to Ben Reilly’s Spider-Man outfit, while her father was still stronger, the rest of May’s abilities outclassed his.
8 MILES MORALES
While not directly related to Peter Parker, the fan-favorite Miles Morales is definitely a result of much tinkering with both spiders and Peter’s DNA. Coming right out of the Ultimate Universe, Miles received his powers when he was bitten by a scientifically-altered spider. Turns out, the supervillain Norman Osborn became obsessed with the first Spider-Man from the moment he realized his company was responsible for producing the spider, and ipso facto, Spider-Man.
Whipping up some mad science, Osborn and his company created more spiders. One of those arachnids bit Miles and turned him into a child of the spider. These days, Miles is still holding onto the name Spider-Man as he tries and do right by both himself and the superhero he’s named after while now existing in the proper Marvel Universe of Earth-616.
7 SPIDERCIDE
If ever there were a black sheep to the Spider-Man family, it wouldn’t be Kaine despite all the emotional and physical baggage he would come with. Oh no, it would be the insanity that is Spidercide. Since Miles Warren, the Jackal, can’t seem to get enough of fiddling around with Peter and his genetics, one day he thought it would be a good idea to birth Spidercide into an unsuspecting world.
In typical '90s fashion, Spidercide was super angry and ended up dying a couple of times. Thinking he was the original Peter, when anyone could see he wasn’t, he became violently obsessed with Mary Jane. The ridiculousness of his character didn’t end when Kaine threw a propane truck on him; it ended when he fell off the Daily Bugle after learning the Jackal had betrayed him.
6 FELICITY HARDY
The third Scarlet Spider, Felicity Hardy is the daughter of the Black Cat and Flash Thompson. It almost begs the question what if Peter had knocked up Black Cat? Growing up alongside Spider-Girl (May Parker), Felicity found inspiration in the early exploits of Spider-Man and Ben Reilly. Discovering articles showing Spider-Man and his clone together in battle, she used the gymnastics training she’d received from her mother to don the mantle of the Scarlet Spider.
Utilizing her own variation of web-shooters, along with a high tech whip, she went on to fight crime, despite Spider-Girl trying to talk her out of it. Yet after several close calls to death, Felicity swore off being a superhero. Of course each time she said she’d stop being the Scarlet Spider, it never stuck, so odds are we’ll see her again.
5 BEN RICHARD PARKER
It’s not often you find Peter with a son that isn’t a clone or crazed symbiote, but let’s not forget about Ben Richard Parker. Almost suffering the fate of not being born on account of Mary Jane contemplating an abortion, as there were many abnormalities with the pregnancy, little Ben Parker is a special lad. He too has spider powers, developing when he was a baby, but was rendered deaf for a bit.
After being possessed by a tiny version of the Carnage symbiote, Spider-Girl went to drastic lengths to save him, using ultrasonic weaponry. Unfortunately this also knocked out the little tike’s hearing, but he got it back because comics. The baby brother to May Parker, he was the last child Peter and Mary Jane would have together before they were killed by Daemos, one of the Inheritors. These days, he’s traveling throughout the multiverse with his sister.
4 KAINE
Another clone of Peter Parker, or “son”, if you want to be scandalous, Kaine was created out of Miles Warren and Pete’s Spidey DNA. Man, Miles and Peter sure do have a lot of “kids” together. Unlike Ben Reilly and Peter, Kaine was not your friendly neighborhood web-slinger. Rather, he was stronger, faster, and just all around meaner.
It likely had something to do with the fact that he was suffering a bad case of cellular degeneration. Despite being on the verge of dying through the entirety of the "Clone Saga", Kaine would survive and go on to become a Spider-Man in his own right. Despite claiming to be nothing like his genetic dad or his “brother” Ben, Kaine can’t help himself from protecting those in need.
3 ANNA PARKER
In the event known as House of M, the Scarlet Witch lost her grip on reality and fundamentally changed the universe. As a result, once the dust settled, she’d nearly wiped out the entire mutant population, robbing them of their mutations. In the comic What If? House of M, instead of going after the mutants, she wipes out the powers from every superhero or supervillain.
This doesn’t stop the Red Skull from taking possession of the Cosmic Cube and going on a rampage. Thankfully, a powerless Peter Parker, along with fellow powerless heroes, and a group of everyday citizens, save the day. Years later, Peter has had a daughter with Mary Jane and their daughter had a daughter named Anna Parker. As the issue concludes, Peter and Tony Stark dwell on how heroes will probably return when they’re needed, just as Anna begins to exhibit spider-like agility.
2 BEN REILLY
The genetic copy of Peter Parker, Ben Reilly was the result of the mad scientist Professor Miles Warren taking Peter’s DNA, rather illicitly and not in any way Peter would have approved of, harvesting it, and using it to create a new living, entity; Peter’s clone. All of Peter’s memories and feelings came included and Ben was convinced that he was the proper Spider-Man.
In the '90s, during the bizarre "Clone Saga", it was revealed Peter was the clone and Ben was the original. This played out for a few years until readers had had enough and the status quo was changed back. Even so, just like how Itsy-Bitsy was Peter’s “daughter”, you could argue Ben is his “son” after a fashion. What delightful family reunions Spider-Man must have.
1 MARY JANE
Ok she's not Peter's child, but it takes two to make a baby -- sometimes even in comics. Peter’s wife and one of the most well-known characters in the Spider-Man universe, the two of them have a long and beloved history. When it comes to the Spider-Man mythos, especially if you’re including alternate timelines, Peter has knocked up Mary Jane plenty of times. One of the more infamous times occurred during Spider-Man: Reign.
In this dystopian future, Peter has long ago given up being Spider-Man, leaving the Sinister Six, under the leadership of Venom, to run around. As the series progresses, we learn more about why Peter hung up the spandex; Mary Jane had died. How did she die? She died because sleeping with Spider-Man, a dude with irradiated blood (among other things) was not a good idea. She got poisoned by the constant “exposure” to him and eventually perished.
Have we neglected one of Spider-Man's kids? Let us know in the comments!