Prowler (Marvel Comics)

• 1. Introduction

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  The Prowler is a Marvel Comics alias, and no single person owns it. Over the decades, several fictional characters have pulled on the same costume, a green and purple battle suit with a cape and clawed gauntlets.

  Some of them wore it to steal. Some wore it to protect people. The suit has outlasted nearly every one of its wearers, and it has crossed into other universes, animated films, live-action cinema and video games.

  Where did the name come from, and who dreamed up the look? How did a petty thief become one of Spider-Man's most dependable allies? And why does a suit with no superpowers keep changing hands?

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• 2. A Teenager's Sketch

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  John Romita Jr. was only 13 years old when he drew a villain and named him the Prowler. That sketch reached his father, the Marvel artist Romita, and it set the character in motion.

  Stan Lee liked the name but not the costume. Romita answered by pairing the name with a design he had already prepared for a different character, the Stalker. The Stalker was meant for The Spectacular Spider-Man #3, an issue that was never published.

  The finished character arrived in The Amazing Spider-Man #78, dated November 1969. Lee wrote it, and John Buscema and Jim Mooney drew it. Within that story the Prowler was an adversary for Spider-Man, not a friend.

  The young designer's idea proved durable. The original Prowler eventually received a solo comic, and in 1994 he led a limited series titled simply Prowler.

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• 3. Hobie Brown's Second Chance

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  Hobie Brown was a bright, angry African-American teenager from the Bronx, and he had just been fired from his job as a window washer. He decided to put his engineering skill to work for himself.

  His plan was simple. He would steal items while dressed as a supervillain, then return them as plain Hobie. He built the costume and chose the payroll office of the Daily Bugle as his first target, expecting quick publicity.

  Peter Parker caught him in the act. During the struggle, the noise drew the attention of the editor J. Jonah Jameson. Parker could not beat the Prowler without exposing his own secret identity, so he let himself be thrown through a window and saved himself outside.

  Shaken, Hobie fled to the roof, where Spider-Man was waiting. Spider-Man pulled off the mask and saw a misunderstood kid, much like Peter had once been. He did not call the police. He told Hobie to rethink his life.

  Hobie listened. Soon afterward he did Spider-Man a favor, posing as the hero while Spider-Man wore a webbing mask. The point was to convince Peter's friends that Peter was not Spider-Man, after Peter had confessed the truth while delirious with the flu.

  Hobie still carried a grudge. He became convinced that Spider-Man had played some part in the death of police captain George Stacy, and he tried without success to bring the hero to justice. In time he married Mindy McPherson and settled into work as a construction worker.

  A tragedy pulled him back toward costumed life. Hobie had been looking after a boy named Manuel Lopez, known as Manny, through the Big Brother Program. When Manny was murdered, Hobie believed White Tiger, whose name was Hector Ayala, was responsible, and he went after him.

  He also tried to join the Defenders. Valkyrie tossed him into the harbor, and he decided to retire the identity for a while.

  The suit kept drawing him in. In California, he attacked the Black Fox, whose name was Raul Chalmers, to get hold of a chalice. He wanted it to keep Mindy out of prison.

  Mindy had taken a bookkeeping job at Transcorp New York. The company was caught in shady stock deals, and she was set up to take the blame. Hobie found the books she was accused of stealing and hid the data on an information chip attached to the chalice. He and Spider-Man then teamed up against the Black Fox and cleared Mindy's name.

  After that came Silver Sable and her Outlaws, a group that included the reformed villains Sandman, Rocket Racer and Puma. Justin Hammer stole Hobie's safety designs, and Hobie proved their flaws during a fight with Hammer's hirelings. He helped the Outlaws several times before formally joining them to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Canadian official.

  A different kind of injury came during the Great Game, when Hobie was paralyzed. He gradually regained movement, and later accounts suggested the damage was mental rather than physical, tied to his frustration at the time. While he recovered, he supplied Spider-Man with a jetpack. Spider-Man used it while posing as the Hornet during the Identity Crisis storyline.

  The years that followed were busy. During the Civil War crossover, S.H.I.E.L.D. captured him in a tie-in to Ms. Marvel's series, and he escaped. When Peter Parker built Parker Industries into a global business, Hobie was hired to stand in as Spider-Man whenever the public expected to see Peter and the hero together.

  Following a fight with Zodiac's Pisces Sect, Peter told Hobie to change into the Prowler costume, and the two set out to recover the Webware before Zodiac could undo his encryption.

  A later case began when Hobie sent money to help a sick friend and it never arrived. He traced it to a crowdfunding group called Fairgray Pay, and he broke into the F.E.A.S.T. center, which the group almost entirely funded. May Parker had re-established the center.

  Spider-Man, Prowler and Peter's neighbor Marnie, known as the Rumor, then broke into the company's head office. Captain America helped them escape. Iron Man bought out the company, and Hobie was offered the job of running Fairgray Pay. He accepted quickly.

  During the King in Black storyline, Hobie took up the alias of the Hornet while the symbiotes invaded.

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• 4. Borrowed Costumes

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  Bella Donna, whose real name was Narda Ravanna, saw a use for Hobie's stolen equipment. A cat burglar who had once fought Spider-Man became the second man to wear the suit.

  This second Prowler first appeared in Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #47, dated October 1980, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. During one of his crimes, he accidentally killed a guard. Witnesses glimpsed his silhouette and believed Spider-Man was involved.

  Spider-Man captured both Bella Donna and the thief, cleared his own name and the original Prowler's name, and returned the equipment. Since the second Prowler had committed a felony murder, Spider-Man had insisted that Hobie stay home during the hunt so he would not get into trouble.

  The second Prowler resurfaced at the Bar With No Name, where villains and former villains gathered for the wake of Stilt-Man, whose name was Wilbur Day. He called himself the Second Prowler and briefly fought the original at the funeral.

  Spider-Man and Puma escorted the original Prowler out just in time. Soon afterward the Punisher poisoned the guests' drinks and blew the place up. Later, someone noted that they all had their stomachs pumped and were treated for third-degree burns.

  Rick Lawson wore the suit third. He first appeared in The Sensational Spider-Man #16, dated May 1997, created by writer Todd DeZago and artist Mike Wieringo. Lawson was a medical intern, and his chance came when Hobie arrived at his hospital with a back injury.

  Doctors cut away part of the costume to hide Hobie's superhero identity. Hobie's friends did not want to risk moving him, though, so a portion of the costume was left unattended. Lawson found it and worked out who Hobie was. He then took Hobie's address from his medical files.

  Lawson stole a replica of the costume. With new technology, he robbed patients in the ICU and went after people he felt had wronged him. One was a construction foreman who had fired him when he needed the job to finish medical school.

  Then the Vulture, who wanted revenge on the original Prowler, nearly killed Lawson. Spider-Man stepped in and defeated the Vulture. Lawson went to the hospital, and the costume went back to Hobie, who was still recovering from his paralysis.

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• 5. Uncle Aaron

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  Aaron Davis first appeared in Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #1, dated November 2011, created by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli. In the Ultimate Marvel universe, he is the Prowler, and he is Miles Morales's uncle.

  Aaron's brother Jefferson Davis reformed by marrying Rio Morales. Aaron never did. He became a career cat burglar instead.

  In his first appearance, Aaron breaks into Oscorp's abandoned lab to steal a small red box and other rare items from a safe. A genetically altered Oscorp spider crawls into his duffel bag without his knowledge. When Miles later visits his uncle's apartment, the spider bites him.

  Jefferson, unhappy about Aaron's criminal life, forbids his brother to spend time with Miles. Aaron travels to Mexico City, where he fights off a crime boss called Scorpion, and a deal with him goes bad. Authorities detain him there.

  Back in New York, Aaron interrogates the Tinkerer and kills him, and he realizes in the process that his nephew is Spider-Man. He takes the Tinkerer's technology for himself, including an electric suit, a winged suit and electric gauntlets. With the winged suit he tries and fails to kill Scorpion.

  The next day, Aaron confronts Miles about being Spider-Man. At first, he persuades Miles to help against Scorpion. Then Miles sees that his uncle is exploiting him. When Miles cuts off the relationship, Aaron threatens to tell Jefferson and Rio the secret.

  The quarrel becomes a fight, and Aaron's gauntlets explode. He dies, but not before accusing his nephew of being just like him. Spider-Man later learns that Donald Roxxon hired Aaron to break into Oscorp.

  That was not the end of Aaron Davis. After the Secret Wars storyline, a separate version of him is alive and operating on Earth-616, in a recolored version of the Iron Spider armor. He assembles his own Sinister Six, made up of Bombshell, Electro, Hobgoblin, Sandman and Spot.

  The group carries out his heist and takes off aboard a decommissioned Helicarrier. When the Champions interrupt a meeting with a buyer named Lucia von Bardas, Spider-Man tries to talk his uncle out of crime. The chaos appears to kill Aaron, but he is later revealed to be alive, seemingly having followed his nephew's advice.

  During the Gang War storyline, Hobie Brown hands Aaron one of his own Prowler costumes. The job is to find out what Hobgoblin has planned for Brooklyn. Hobie warns that if Aaron slips up, he will take the identity back.

  Elsewhere in the multiverse, Aaron fights beside Spider-Man against the villain Ultimatum and the Green Goblin's Goblinoids. At Prospect Park, he overloads his suit to set off a reverse ionic pulse explosion. The blast sends Ultimatum and the Green Goblin back to Earth-1610 and returns the Goblinoids to human form.

  He turns up alive again later. Miles and his clone Shift learn that Aaron is trapped in a dystopian alternate future, held by an alternate version of another Miles clone, Selim. Resistance fighters, led by grown-up versions of Billie Morales and Ganke Lee, help free him.

  Ganke sacrifices himself to stop Selim from destroying New York. Aaron, Miles and Shift stay a while to help rebuild, then return home.

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• 6. The Clone Conspiracy

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  The fourth Prowler was a copy. Writer Dan Slott and artist R.B. Silva created this clone of Hobie Brown, who first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 4 #17, dated August 2016.

  He starred in a limited series, also titled Prowler, published from October 2016 to May 2017. It tied into the storyline Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy. A collected edition, Prowler: The Clone Conspiracy, gathers Prowler volume 2, issues 1-6, and was published in July 2017.

  The story begins with the real Hobie. Peter Parker wanted to know more about New U Technologies, so he sent Prowler to infiltrate it. Prowler ran into Electro, whose name was Francine Frye, and Electro chased him and accidentally killed him.

  Rita Clarkson then took Spider-Man to a place holding people who had gone through the New U Technologies treatment. The Prowler who had died turned out to be a clone. Julia Carpenter later talked to the real Prowler, who had just emerged from cryo-sleep, and told him what his clone had done.

  Afterward Hobie talked with Peter about his future. He went home, last seen conflicted about his own identity.

  The clone had a stranger path. The Jackal had cloned Hobie with all his memories seemingly intact. Once the clone learned the Jackal's mission, he became loyal and spied on Parker Industries. It was later revealed that the Jackal built these clones with false memories that ran all the way to their deaths.

  The clone's body began to fail because he had gone too long without specialized pills. Electro cornered him at Alcatraz. Using his weapons, the gift shop and some strategic thinking, the clone defeated the simple-minded Electro. Julia Carpenter found him outside and took him by boat toward New U Technologies to retrieve his pills.

  Inside Haven, the part of New U Technologies holding villains, the Jackal ordered the inmates to kill Spider-Man. The clone fought them off alongside Spider-Man. Then an alarm sounded and every clone began to break down from degeneration.

  The clone left Haven to find whoever had set off the system. He accused Julia, and she had no choice but to fight back. She knocked him down while his body continued to deteriorate.

  Later he and the clone of Jean DeWolff helped Spider-Man escape the villains. During the final battle they fought outside, joined by Gwen Stacy of Earth-65 and Kaine Parker. Gwen left him in an alley when he grew too weak to continue, and Electro found him there.

  Julia arrived and drove Electro off. When Electro gained the upper hand over her, the clone sacrificed himself to stop him. He died in Julia's arms.

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• 7. Gadgets Over Powers

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  Not one Prowler has superhuman powers. What they have is hardware, and in Hobie Brown's case, an instinct for pneumatics that he developed without any formal education in the science.

  The suit starts with modified coveralls interwoven with denim and stretch fabric. Gas cartridge bracelets and anklets propel projectiles at high velocity. The arsenal includes steel darts called flechettes, gas pellets, small explosives, magnesium flares and cleaning fluid. The Prowler has also been known to use hypnotic aids and ordinary hand-held weapons.

  Steel-tipped gauntlets let the wearer scale walls, and boots insulated with shock absorbent foam rubber soften landings. The cape holds a network of pneumatic filaments. Filled with air, they stiffen it into a shape that lets him glide short distances.

  Hobie's engineering reached beyond his own suit. He designed the cybernetically controlled wing harness that Peter Parker wore as the Hornet. Hobie himself could not use it, because of its weight. He is also a skilled hand-to-hand fighter with a green belt in taekwondo.

  In 2022, Screen Rant placed the Prowler on its list of the 10 best Marvel characters who made their debut in Spider-Man comics.

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• 8. Beyond the Page

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  Across Marvel's many universes, Hobie Brown turns up in unexpected roles. In Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, a version from Earth-18119 belongs to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resistance against Regent. In House of M, a version from Earth-58163 fights with Luke Cage's resistance.

  A zombified Hobie from Earth-2149 appears in Marvel Zombies. In Spider-Gwen, a version from Earth-65 belongs to the Yancy Street Gang.

  In Secret Wars, a version from Earth-14029 joins Ho Yinsen's Defenders. He becomes Spider-Man after his universe's Peter Parker dies, and he lives in the Battleworld domain of Yinsen City.

  The Earth-138 Hobie also operates as Spider-Man, and he is called Spider-Punk because of his punk rock design. At first he was named Hobart Brown to set him apart from his main-continuity counterpart. After Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was released, he was renamed Hobie.

  On television, Tim Russ voiced Hobie in a self-titled episode of Spider-Man: The Animated Series. This Hobie stole from the crime lord Iceberg, then saved Richard Fisk's life in prison. The Kingpin rewarded him with a Prowler battlesuit that needed recharging, and only the Kingpin could do it. Hobie and Spider-Man teamed up to free him from the suit.

  The Spectacular Spider-Man gave Hobie a very different life. Charles Duckworth voiced him as a classmate of Peter Parker at Midtown High, a football player with a running gag of being interrupted before he could speak. His only speaking role came in the episode Opening Night, when he took the part of Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

  In the 2017 series Spider-Man, Nathaniel J. Potvin voiced a Hobie who got his equipment from his brother Abraham Brown. Silvermane sent him after Spider-Man in exchange for Abraham's life.

  Aaron Davis took the spotlight in film. Donald Glover plays him in Spider-Man: Homecoming, released in 2017, and was cast partly because he had indirectly helped create Miles Morales. This Aaron is a low-level criminal with a sense of morality. Spider-Man webs his hand to his car after questioning him about Adrian Toomes's plans.

  In the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, released in 2018, Mahershala Ali voices Aaron as one of the Kingpin's enforcers who encourages his nephew's passions. When he learns Miles is the new Spider-Man, he refuses to kill him, and the Kingpin kills Aaron in retaliation.

  Across the Spider-Verse, released in 2023, brought back both actors. Ali voices an Earth-42 version, and Glover makes a live-action cameo as an Aaron who was displaced from his native reality and captured by the Spider-Society. Jharrel Jerome voices Earth-42's Miles G. Morales as an original incarnation of the Prowler.

  That Miles is due to return in Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse in 2027.

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