All in all, it’s a pretty good time to be a Spider-Man fan. On the big screen, Spider-Man has made some hit appearances in movies like Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, and his own solo debut, Spider-Man: Homecoming, is one of the MCU’s finest films. And with spinoff movies like Venom on the horizon, it seems like everything is turning up Spider-Man. Of course, Peter Parker shouldn’t get all the credit. For many years now, there has been a new Spidey on the block in Miles Morales. The character has been insanely successful and insanely influential, and he’s breaking into the movies himself. In fact, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is coming out later this year.
Even though both of these characters are awesome, fans can’t help but argue among themselves, so the question is simple: Who makes the better Spider-Man? Is it the new kid on the block who is winning new fans over left and right, or is it the classic Spidey that basically started it all? As always, the answer to this question is: “it depends.” How do you even begin to measure something like this? Some fans want to examine the various supervillains these heroes have taken on, while others think that the answer will only come if we take a closer look at everything from their different powers to the different friends and allies they surround themselves with. Not sure where you stand in this debate? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Just keep scrolling to check out 10 Reasons Why Miles Morales is a Better Spider-Man Than Peter (And 10 why He Isn’t)!
20 MILES: BETTER ORIGIN
The Peter Parker Spider-Man has an origin story that is downright iconic. There’s no denying that. However, if we’re being honest, then Miles Morales has a much better origin story. And it’s one that modern audiences will find a much easier time relating to.
Miles, meanwhile, had to deal with his powers being stolen by an uncle (whom we saw briefly in Spider-Man: Homecoming) before Miles’ early exploits with Venom led to the loss of his mother. In this way, he feels a much keener guilt over the passing away of a family member than Peter Parker does, making him not only more motivated, but more sympathetic in the eyes of the readers.
19 PETER: CREATIVE USE OF POWERS
Have you ever thought about how limited Peter Parker’s powers really are? No, seriously -- he has spider-sense and super-strength, and he made himself some webs and that’s it, which is why we’re seriously impressed at his clever use of powers over the years.
A lesser hero (or simply a dumber one) would have hurt themselves trying to swing across the city. But Spidey swings, dodges bullets, and has even fashioned ways for his webs to help him fly. Seemingly every issue has him doing something new with his powers, which goes to show why he’s one of the smartest characters in Marvel.
18 MILES: COOLER COSTUME
If you were trying to figure out what the most iconic comic book costume was, it may very well be Peter Parker’s Spider-Man costume. Those red and blue tights have inspired literally decades of comics fans, young and old. But we hate to break it to you: Miles Morales has the cooler costume.
The red and blue may be iconic, but it’s also difficult to translate into the real world, such as live action films. Meanwhile, Miles’ black and red costume looks sleek and modern. It’s a perfect compromise between comic book sensibilities and real world aesthetics, and you can’t help but grin whenever you see it.
17 PETER: BETTER LOVE INTERESTS
Sometimes, comparing Peter Parker and Miles Morales feels like comparing apples and oranges. That’s because there are some cool things that one hero has that the other doesn’t, meaning there’s no real comparison. With that being said, Peter Parker has had much better love interests than Miles.
As befitting a teenage character, Miles has had some awkward flirting but has not had much in the way of actual romance. By comparison, Peter Parker has had an epic romance with Mary Jane Watson, as well as dalliances with Felicia Hardy and Carlie Cooper. It seems like Miles could learn from Peter in the romance department!
16 MILES: MORE INFLUENTIAL
One reason that we think Miles Morales might be the better Spider-Man is because of how influential he is. And we’re not just talking about more and more fans discovering the character each year. A major bit of evidence is that his character highly influenced the insanely successful Spider-Man: Homecoming.
An example of this is Peter’s friend in the movie, Ned Leeds. Longtime Spidey fans were surprised that he looked nothing like the Ned of the comics. That’s because his design and characterization was based on Miles’ friend, Ganke Lee. On top of that, we even see Miles’ uncle, Aaron Davis, played by Donald Glover. This gave many fans hope we’d see Miles Morales in the MCU!
15 PETER: FANTASTIC...FIVE?
As we’ll talk about later, Peter Parker isn’t often thought of as a team player. Sure, he’s down for some team-ups as needed, but he always goes back to working alone. Still, his membership in certain teams shows just how impressive he is. And that includes the time he was in the Fantastic Four!
That’s right: he was a fully-fledged member, donning a cool new white suit and fighting crime alongside Marvel’s first family. While it was never destined to last forever, it’s a huge compliment to Spider-Man that Reed Richards, Earth’s biggest brain, invited him to join the team.
14 MILES: STEALTHY SPIDER
We love Peter Parker’s abilities but if we’re being honest, they don’t always make a lot of sense. Detecting future danger and being super-strong is really neat, but it never exactly screamed “spider” to us. It felt a bit like the writers were just making stuff up.
And if you’re going to make up some weird powers, we say “go big or go home.” And that’s why we like Miles Morales’ cool stealth ability. His ability to blend into his surroundings creates some really fun stories, and adds a fun dose of Batman to the Spidey stories that we love.
13 PETER: AVENGERS MEMBER
As we said before, it’s always impressive when A-list teams invite Spider-Man to be a member. It shows that despite his simple powers and preference to protect a single city, these teams recognize he has the potential to save the entire planet. That’s why it was so impressive when Spider-Man joined the Avengers.
That’s right, “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” wanted Spider-Man to be one of them. And while things would soon get ugly with the advent of the first Civil War event, being part of the Avengers is proof to everyone that Spider-Man is one of the greatest heroes on the entire planet.
12 MILES: GALACTUS FIGHTER
When fans argue about which characters are the best, there are plenty of different metrics. One of the biggest, though, is who the character has managed to fight. And if a hero is able to take on a villain well above their weight, it establishes just how serious they are.
So, how can you tell that Miles Morales is the best? He managed to take on Galactus. No, seriously -- when Galactus threatened the universe, Miles Morales teamed up with resident big brain Reed Richards in order to get information and allies. While it was definitely a team effort, Miles should get credit for tackling a bigger foe than Peter Parker ever did.
11 PETER: CIA PARENTS
Most casual fans don’t know a lot about Peter Parker’s parents. They died relatively young in a plane crash, leaving Aunt May and Uncle Ben to raise the young Parker. And that’s the whole story, right? Nope, it turns out that's not the case.
It turns out that part of what makes Peter Parker so cool is that his parents were CIA agents! They were actually recruited by Nick Fury into the CIA, and their plane crash was actually a successful attempt at their lives by the Red Skull. We shouldn’t be surprised Peter is who he is when he had parents like this!
10 MILES: S.H.I.E.L.D. AGENT
Just as you can judge a hero by who they fight, you can also judge them by who they fight alongside. When a character joins a team with a proud history and powerful members, it goes to show just how amazing that hero is. And this is why we love that Miles Morales is a member of S.H.I.E.L.D.
He was hand-picked as a hero with great potential and trained by the greatest secret agents on the planet and this is all the more impressive because he already has more training and experience at his young age than Peter had way back when.
9 PETER: CHEATING HIS DEMISE
One great way to measure the quality of a hero is to see what they have overcome. Sounds nice and simple, right? Well, we can’t really appreciate how far a hero has come until we see it for ourselves. In the case of Peter Parker, he’s actually managed to cheat the end on multiple occasions.
No, we’re not just talking about all those times a supervillain almost got lucky. One time, Kraven filled Spider-Man with tranquilizer darts and left him to pass away, going so far as to bury him. Peter emerged alive, but he later "passed away" after fighting Morlun, only to be reborn with weird new spider-powers. It turns out you just can’t keep him down!
8 MILES: BETTER SUPPORTING CAST
Sure, given enough time, you may be able to rattle off a few additional names when it comes to Peter Parker's supporting cats. But when pressed, most people will simply say “Aunt May and Mary Jane.” And while we’re calling them a “supporting cast,” they often don’t play a major role in the story.
With Miles, he gets to have his spider-cake and eat it, too. He has a major supporting friend in the form of Ganke Lee, who provides insight into both the personal and the superhero life of Miles. And Miles has an extended supporting cast as part of all those team-ups: Avengers, Ultimates -- if Miles needs help, some A-listers are just a dial away!
7 PETER: DEALING WITH THE DEVIL
We’re going to keep saying this over and over again, but the best way to judge a hero is to look at the villains they have gone up against. And in the case of Peter Parker, he’s actually survived the greatest villain in all of history in the devil himself or, as they call him in Marvel Comics, Mephisto.
Longtime fans don’t like to remember this because it is a highly controversial story. Spider-Man basically gets Mephisto to save Aunt May’s life, but Mephisto’s price is that he will rewrite reality so that Peter and Mary Jane never loved each other. Is it the clumsiest reset button ever? Sure. But Peter still survived encountering the ultimate evil.
6 MILES: PLAYING WELL WITH OTHERS
One of the weirder qualities of Peter Parker is how much he likes to keep to himself. Sure, he’s been on many teams (and that many more team-ups), but at the end of the day, he prefers to work alone. This isn’t the case for Miles Morales, which is why the young man has better allies than Peter does.
Who are we talking about? Miles is both friends and allies with characters like Ms. Marvel, Nova, Amadeus Cho, and so on. He seemed to figure out something early on that eluded Peter Parker for many years: that it’s good to have a support system in place, especially as a superhero!
5 PETER: THE MAN, THE MYTH
Part of what is cool about our comic book superheroes is that they become their own kind of postmodern mythology. They are the legends that children grow up with, and they serve as inspirations long after those children have grown up. However, Peter Parker is downright mythical in his own universe.
While the comic played coy and never confirmed this, it is strongly hinted that Peter Parker is part of centuries of “spider totems” that are chosen as champions. That means the spider that bit him was not powered by radiation: it had powers it wanted to give Peter, and only later passed away due to radiation. You may or may not believe it, but Peter quite likely has centuries of lineage fueling his powers!
4 MILES: BETTER VILLAINS
Do you want to know the secret to nostalgia? Your brain only remembers the good parts of whatever you’re thinking about. Your buddy that loves '80s music? Trust us when we say that he managed to brain wipe some pretty awful stuff -- it’s a lot like that with Peter Parker’s rogues gallery.
Sure, there are some cool villains like Venom, Green Goblin, and Doctor Octopus, but there are also some real lame ones like the Shocker. Compared to this, Miles Morales has fewer villains, but that means fewer duds as well. We’ll take cool villains like the resurrected Aaron Davis over Peter Parker’s C-list baddies any day!
3 PETER: ALIEN FIGHTER
Both Miles Morales and Peter Parker have had to take on some pretty wild foes from time to time. However, we have to give Peter Parker the edge in one important respect: he managed to shrug off a hostile alien takeover of his body, and then he spent a lifetime fighting off the alien.
What are we talking about? The alien symbiote suit, of course. Spidey thought the alien suit would be a handy tool to fight crime, but it quickly tried to take over his body. He drove it away, and then it bonded with Eddie Brock to form Venom. At that point, Spidey just kept fighting... a one-man army keeping an alien invader at bay!
2 MILES: SPIDER-BITE
As we said earlier, it often felt weird that Spider-Man wasn’t more like, well, a spider. Which is one of the reasons we appreciate Miles Morales so much. In addition to having a cooler backstory and a more realistic costume, Miles has more realistic spider-powers as well, including his “bite.”
With a simple touch, Miles Morales is able to incapacitate villains. Now, Spidey being Spidey, he still has to engage in some wild fisticuffs on more than one occasion, but it’s pretty cool to see that he can take down major bad guys with a spider-bite instead of just fists powered by “radioactive blood.”
1 PETER: STOPPING THE UNSTOPPABLE
When it comes to comic book villains, many of them would describe themselves as “unstoppable.” However, there’s one character for whom this is literally true -- The Juggernaut. Powered by a mystic amulet, it’s literally impossible to stop this villain, but that didn’t stop Peter Parker from trying.
When Juggernaut tries to kidnap Madame Web, Peter Parker is determined to stop him. At first, things seem impossible, but after losing in the first round, Spidey lures Juggernaut to an area where he can ultimately trap him in wet cement. You may not be able to stop Juggernaut, but Peter Parker slowed him down and saved the day, managing to earn the villain’s grudging respect.