Peni Parker

• 1. Introduction

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  Peni Parker is a Japanese American high school student who shares her mind with a radioactive spider named SP//dr. Together they pilot a mech suit that carries the same name. When Gerard Way, the musician known for My Chemical Romance, imagined her, he began with a question about Spider-Man's origin: "What if a bite was a psychic link and the spider stayed part of the story?" That question produced a girl, a giant machine and a sentient spider that thinks alongside her. Where did she come from, and what does the suit cost her? How did a character from a 2014 comic series end up in animated films, card games and a toy line?

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• 2. A Call From Marvel

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  Gerard Way had finished his debut solo album, Hesitant Alien, and his band was on hiatus when Marvel editor Nick Lowe got in touch. Lowe wanted a custom Spider-Man for the upcoming Spider-Verse comic series. He admired Way's earlier comics and had once approached him about an X-Men annual series, which never materialized. What won Way over was freedom. He could build a hero without worrying about any prior continuity. He agreed, and he began working with the artist Jake Wyatt.

  The Umbrella Academy, Way's earlier comic, helps explain why his Spider-hero is a girl. He said he was more interested in creating female characters, a preference that grew out of his own past and that earlier work. Once the spider had become a psychic partner, the idea of a little girl who loses her father followed naturally.

  Daredevil earned a place in the story for a practical reason. Way figured he might only ever write one Marvel comic, so he decided to include the character in it.

  The result reached readers in Edge of Spider-Verse #5, released on the 15th of October 2014.

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• 3. Pilot, Machine, Spider

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  Way described SP//dr as "three vital components: a pilot, a machine, and a radioactive sentient spider acting as one half of the brain that makes it all work." The design drew on mecha anime, and Neon Genesis Evangelion, the 1995 television series, is the influence the comic singles out.

  In Peni's premiere issue, a crowd of anime guests fills her classroom. Shinji Ikari, Rei Ayanami, Asuka Langley Soryu and Kaworu Nagisa, the main characters of Evangelion, appear as her classmates. Simon from Gurren Lagann and Kei from Dirty Pair sit in the same room.

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• 4. Inheriting the Suit

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  On Earth-14512, SP//dr first belonged to Peni's father, who used it to guard New York from crime and other dangers. After he died, his handlers, called Aunt May and Uncle Ben, pushed Peni into the pilot's seat. They released the suit's sentient spider into a room with her so it could bite and bond with her. They warned her the process would be incredibly painful. Soon afterward, she became the city's protector.

  Five years later, Peni is a more solemn 14-year-old who listens to music to help her focus. Her opponent is her universe's version of Mysterio, an obsessed fan who collects the Gene-Pop magazines written about her.

  D, the Daredevil of her universe, had known her father. When Peni says she feels tired, he tells her she is "too young" for that. He also remembers that even through the machine, "you could feel a sadness, like something was missing from him." Together they take down a group of criminals that Mysterio gave up.

  Then Spider-Ham and Old Man Spider arrive with an invitation to join the Spider-Army against the Inheritors. Peni accepts with a vow: "We're called SP//dr and we protect the city. Like my father, a soldier, who died in service of his people, we will be this, until terminal failure."

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• 5. Aunt May's Last Words

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  Edge of Spider-Geddon #2, by Alberto Albuquerque, was released on the 29th of August 2018 and picked up SP//dr's story. Two years have passed since the Spider-Verse events in her home reality, and Peni is 16. A girl named Addy Brock asks whether Peni is the SP//dr pilot and what that life is like. Peni ignores her. Addy follows up by saying Peni is not as special as she thinks, then explains she means no insult.

  At home, Peni tries to talk to Ben and May about feeling special, and they brush her worries aside. She is annoyed and sad that she is not acknowledged as she should be.

  While improving the SP//dr web shooters, Peni spots Addy in the base and follows her. She finds a second mech suit, black and similar to her own, powered by a "sym-engine" called VEN#m. Addy is its pilot. Addy's character design had already been used in Edge of Spider-Verse for one of Ben and May's tech people, which retroactively makes that her first appearance. Peni is furious that her aunt and uncle never told her.

  A kaiju-like creature called M.O.R.B.I.U.S. begins draining the city's electrical energy. Peni goes after it as SP//dr, but her frustration clouds her judgement and she is briefly disabled. Ben and May send VEN#m to finish the job, and it succeeds.

  The SYM Engine inside VEN#m is not fully developed, and it malfunctions. The suit gains sentience and starts to consume Addy. May flies in to fix the problem by hand, and the suit consumes her too. Her last words berate Ben over the comms for never fixing the flaw that got Peni's father killed while testing VEN#m.

  SP//dr confronts the black mech and is overpowered, until Peni uses her improved web shooters to defeat it. When she opens the cockpit, May and Addy have vanished.

  Two hours after the battle, Peni and Ben have a heart-to-heart. Spider-Ham interrupts it, back to recruit Peni against the Inheritors once more during Spider-Geddon. She is reluctant, still grieving her aunt, but Ben urges her to go.

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• 6. Later Battles

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  In the Spider-Verse: Spider-Zero chapter "SP//dr Reactivated," Peni is 17. Miles Morales travels to her reality on behalf of Spider-Zero to investigate multiverse mishaps, and he helps her face Kraven the Hunter. Kraven is an old enemy of her father's. He had been jailed and assumed dead before Nathan Essex broke him out to join Weapon Six.

  Kraven now carries a red diamond implant and wants revenge on SP//dr for arresting him. He does not know the mech has a new pilot. Essex wants revenge too, on Ben, his old co-worker.

  Then Kraven declines to attack Miles because of his age, which shows he still has a moral code. Peni climbs out of SP//dr. Kraven realizes his revenge is pointless and lets himself be subdued. After Essex is arrested, he swears to Ben that he will send the rest of Weapon Six after Peni someday.

  At 18, Peni returns in End of the Spider-Verse, piloting a larger SP//dr beside Takuya Yamashiro and his mech, Leopardon.

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• 7. Redesigned for the Screen

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  Cindy Moon, the Asian American Spider-Woman known as Silk, was the first choice the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse filmmakers considered for their cast. They chose Peni instead, because her abilities contrasted with those of the film's other characters.

  Her original look did not survive. Director Bob Persichetti and the other filmmakers found her initial design "iffy." Production designer Justin Thompson, who would later co-direct Across the Spider-Verse, suggested a Sailor Moon-inspired redesign.

  Kimiko Glenn voices Peni in English and Rie Takahashi in Japanese in the 2018 film. She comes across as perky and energetic. Her SP//dr is a one-piece capsule cockpit with a dome-shaped one-way visor that gives her a HUD-style view. It has magnetically controlled appendages and tools in its fingers.

  The Kingpin's machinations pull Peni, Spider-Ham and Spider-Man Noir into Miles Morales' universe. They team up with the other Spider-People to return home. The Scorpion severely damages SP//dr, but Peni rescues the radioactive spider inside it, then goes back to her universe to rebuild the suit.

  In Across the Spider-Verse, released in 2023, Glenn returns. Peni has rebuilt SP//dr, and its design now resembles the comic version. She has also joined Miguel O'Hara's Spider-Society. Glenn is set to play her again in Beyond the Spider-Verse, due in 2027.

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• 8. Many Peni Parkers

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  In 2022, the Eisner Award-winning author Ken Niimura created Peni Parker: After School for Spider-Verse Unlimited, a series exclusive to Marvel Unlimited. The six-part story follows a younger Peni. It explores her relationship with her "Uncle Ben," how she feels about her father, and the strain of balancing school with being a hero. She also struggles to fit in with classmates because of her duties. Niimura wanted it to be an entry point "for veterans and newcomers alike," noting that the character is relatively new and not much of her story has been published.

  A webtoon variant of Peni, modeled on the Into the Spider-Verse version, appears in that same After School story and keeps a secret identity. Other versions turn up elsewhere. A future SP//dr from an unidentified Earth belongs to the Amazing Eight in Spider-Gwen and Cosmic Ghost Rider, and Cosmic Ghost Rider kills her. In the graphic novel Spider-Ham: A Pig in Time, a cameo goes to Peni Porker, who comes from an Earth related to Spider-Ham's.

  SP//dr made a silent cameo in the Ultimate Spider-Man episode "Return to the Spider-Verse" Pt. 4. There, the villain Wolf Spider takes several alternate-reality Spider-Men hostage to siphon their powers.

  In video games, Peni and SP//dr are playable in Marvel Puzzle Quest, Marvel Duel, Marvel Snap and Marvel Strike Force, and SP//dr alone is playable in Spider-Man Unlimited. Marvel Contest of Champions includes them too, and a promotional video there shows variants such as a powerless Peni from Earth-51778 and a magical girl from Earth-23.

  In Marvel Rivals, voiced by Sally Amaki in English and Japanese, she is an 18-year-old Parker descendant from 2099. In Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, Risa Mei voices her in English and Rie Takahashi again in Japanese, and she belongs to the Amazing Guardians.

  She is also a playable character in Marvel Champions: The Card Game and in Magic: The Gathering.

  On toy shelves, SP//dr became a Build-A-Figure in Hasbro's Marvel Legends line. The Into the Spider-Verse versions received figures in Hasbro's film tie-in line and in Sentinel's SV-Action series. The Good Smile Company has made Nendoroids of both Peni and SP//dr.

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