5 Female Spiderverse Characters We Need to See in Live Action

Madame Web was 2024’s most famous flop. The live-action Silk series was scrapped at Amazon. Are female Spider-verse characters cursed? It’s easy for film executives to look at those two projects, shrug their shoulders, and deem female Spiders “unmarketable.” But what if the Hollywood power players are not picking the right heroes to highlight? The Spider-verse is ever-expanding and chock-full of brilliant female heroes to give the movie star treatment.

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From the realities where Peter Parker has a daughter who follows in his footsteps, to alt-universe variants of his lovers powering up, Spider-Man has a lot of ladies aiding in his cause. He might need one (or more) of them in the next Marvel Cinematic Universe Spider-Man film, Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Here are the top five female characters that not only have engaging Spider-Man storylines, but also clear connections to the Spider-verse that now exists onscreen.

5. Spider-Girl (Mayday Parker)

Until 2023’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the general movie-going population didn’t know who Mayday Parker was. May “Mayday” Parker is the daughter of Peter and Mary Jane Parker, who made her comics debut in 1998 in What If #105. She inherits her father’s powers and, as a teenager, takes up his crime-fighting mantel. In Across the Spider-Verse, she’s Peter B. Parker’s infant daughter who already has her own set of web-spinners.

Mayday may be a lesser-known character, but she’s enjoyed steady popularity since her debut nearly thirty years ago. Being featured in Across the Spider-Verse only acquainted more viewers with her. Tobey Maguire’s Spidey tells Andrew Garfield’s that he and his Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) “made it work”, which would very well mean they’re still together. There’s a world where Maguire and Dunst reprise their roles as parents ushering the next generation of heroes. Mayday reframes the puberty and superpowers conundrum for female audiences. Furthermore, a story revolving around May, a second-generation superhero, would diverge from the classic Spider tale of being bitten by a radioactive spider. She was born with these abilities, and a movie about Mayday would allow a filmmaker to examine “with great power, comes great responsibility” from two new perspectives: Mayday as the heir to a legacy larger than herself, and Peter, not as a hero this time, but as a parent.

4. Sun-Spider (Charlotte Webber)

Charlotte Webber is a newer addition to the Spider-verse. Created by Dayn Broder, Charlotte/Sun-Spider debuted in 2020 in response to Marvel’s Spider-Verse series, an effort to showcase fan-created “Spidersonas.” Charlotte, or Charlie, has EDS (a genetic disorder that affects one’s connective tissues) and uses a wheelchair in her civilian life. When she’s bitten by a radioactive spider on Earth-20023, she gains superpowers and retains her condition. Sun-Spider’s E.D.S. doesn’t stop her from kicking butt, however. Charlie fights off bad guys with crutches that also serve as web-shooters, and in her brief appearance in Across the Spider-Verse, it appeared that Charlie used a wheelchair that could transform into a Spider-like mech and carry her across the ceiling.

To tell Charlie’s story in live-action would usher in a new era for superheroes. Sure, there are parallels to be drawn between Sun-Spider and Daredevil, who also use their “disabilities” to their advantage as heroes. But the fact that Charlie’s E.D.S. doesn’t magically go away when she receives her radioactive spider bite implies that you don’t need to be “perfect” or at least in what society defines as perfect physical condition to be a hero. That’s a powerful message to folks of all levels of mobility. Furthermore, Sun-Spider’s mech would be a production designer’s dream, presenting endless possibilities on how to reimagine the traditional Spider-Man power set and paraphernalia for Charlie.

3. Silk (Cindy Moon)

Okay, yes, the Amazon Silk series was scrapped, but that doesn’t mean Cindy Moon/Silk isn’t worthy to be on screen in live action! After the radioactive spider bit Peter Parker, it also bit a teenage Cindy Moon. Unlike Peter, she wasn’t able to keep her powers a secret, which resulted in Cindy being locked away for many years, where she developed control over her abilities. Peter eventually freed Cindy from captivity, and she took on the moniker of Silk after making herself an initial makeshift costume out of her organic webbing. The pair discovered that being bitten by the same Spider meant that their spider-senses and attraction to one another were heightened in close proximity.

Like Mayday Parker, Silk presents a fresh, female-oriented take on the classic Spider-Man origin story. It speaks to how men and women are treated differently societally, as well as presenting an engaging story of resilience after trauma. She’s a successful figure in the comic, which satisfies the IP-hungry Hollywood executives, and often superhero stories spend years, if not decades, in ‘development hell’ before their stories are cracked. Cindy, introduced in 2014, also serves as the first major love interest for Peter since Black Cat came on the scene in 1979. As timeless as Peter, Gwen, and Mary Jane’s love triangle is, Cindy is a breath of fresh air, who’s just as powerful as Peter.

2. Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew)

Jessica Drew was the first female character to be anointed Spider-Woman in 1977, and Stan Lee admitted she was created merely to trademark the moniker. While she could have been a throwaway character, Jessica’s become a fan-favorite and enduring member of the Spiderverse. She didn’t receive her powers through a spider bite, but rather gained her abilities when her own father experimented on her as a child in an attempt to cure the illness she was suffering from. The result was that the genome of a spider was added to her own. Notably, Jessica is also a mother who became pregnant through artificial insemination, continues her crimefighting activities, and gives birth to a son, Gerald.

Spider-Woman briefly had her own animated series in the late 70s, she’s been in countless video games, and made her animated feature debut in Across the Spider-Verse, where she was voiced by Issa Rae. Rae’s version of Drew contains two significant departures from how Spider-Woman has been traditionally seen in media: she’s Black, and she mentions being married to her baby’s father. As women continue to redefine their roles at home and in the workforce, there is potentially nothing as badass as a pregnant superhero. Spider-Woman is overdue for her solo onscreen foray with nearly fifty years of comic book history to mine from. Also, given her popularity in Across the Spiderverse, and is perhaps one of the few characters that could be played in live action by the same star who voiced her: Issa Rae.

1. Spider-Gwen/Spider-Woman (Gwen Stacy)

When it comes to no-brainers, it’s Spider-Gwen. Is she the oldest female Spider character? No. But after two smash-hit animated movies and countless cosplays, Spider-Gwen is more than ready for her close-up. On her Earth-65, Gwen was the one bitten by the radioactive spider, not Peter. He turned himself into the Lizard, ultimately bringing about his own death, in an attempt to be “special” like Gwen. It’s a satisfying yet heartbreaking reversal of one of Spider-Man’s oldest tales that leaves Gwen dead and Peter vowing to use his powers to help others. Dubbed Spider-Woman in the comics, but called Spider-Gwen by almost everyone else, she’s a bit cooler than her male counterpart, too, playing drums in an all-female rock band.

Though Hailee Steinfeld does an incredible job voicing Gwen in the animated Spider-Man movies and there’s reportedly a solo spinoff in the works, given the character’s popularity, Gwen is well-positioned to carry a live-action movie of her own, too. Since hers is a tale we all know, albeit from a different perspective, there’s less world-building for a writer and director to try to tackle while also telling an engaging, entertaining story. Spider-Gwen now has a decade of comic storylines to pull from, and now that the modern media consumer is accustomed to the idea of different variants of a character along with multiverses, a live-action film centered around Gwen wouldn’t cannibalize her narrative potential in other mediums.

All of these spider-women possess rich potential for live-action storytelling. While they may all be spinoffs of Peter Parker’s Spider-Man, years if not decades of contributions by devoted writers and artists have given all of these women something unique but incredibly meaningful to say with their stories. Perhaps then it’s not that female superheroes don’t sell, it’s that the storytellers bringing them to life weren’t able to execute on screen what made these characters so intriguing in the first place. Out of all the female Spider-characters, Spider-Gwen seems best-suited to make the leap (pun intended) from animation and video games to live action. Hollywood is notoriously risk-averse at the moment, but if given a chance, does Spider-Gwen have a previously undiscovered superpower? The power to right the female Spider characters on screen? She has the familiarity, the breadth of IP, and the success in other mediums to propel her forward.

Spider-Man and Spider-Verse movies can be streamed on Disney+.