Spider-Man has been a staple in pop culture since the first issue he swung into comics in Amazing Fantasy #15 in August 1962 and in 2021 was named the most popular superhero in the entire world. Not bad for a dorky teen from Queens. Or Brooklyn. Let’s THWIP the page and find out a little bit more about both Peter Parker and Miles Morales. Note: these are my two favorite characters in all of Marvel, so I will be incredibly biased where I can be.
Character Bios
Peter Parker is an incredibly bright high school student from Queens, New York. He has been orphaned and lives with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May Parker. While still in high school, Peter gets bit by a radioactive spider and develops both super strength and super agility (because that’s how science works, right?). He develops his own web shooters and does what any reasonable teen would do in his situation: tries to become a television star. However, when he refuses to stop a thief, who then murders his Uncle Ben (Great Power=Great Responsibility), Peter decides to devote his life to using his abilities to fight crime. To help make ends meet, Peter takes a freelance photography job with the Daily Bugle newspaper to specifically take pictures of Spider-Man. While maintaining his secret identity, Peter finds himself defending the city against one of the best rogues’ galleries this side of Gotham City: Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Scorpion, Tombstone, Lizard, Kraven the Hunter, Venom, Carnage, Rhino, among others. He has also been a part of almost every major event in the comics including Secret Wars and Civil War.
Miles Morales, by comparison, is a relatively new addition to the Marvel Universe. Miles is introduced as a younger kid, who gets his powers in a really cool and interesting way. In Miles’s universe, Peter Parker also exists, and is also Spider-Man. Peter’s blood is being used by Dr. Conrad Markus to recreate the formula that originally gave Peter his powers. However, this formula is stolen by the Prowler (Miles’s Uncle Aaron Davis), and one of the spiders that had been given the formula crawled into his bag as he left. This spider then bit Miles when he was visiting his Uncle’s apartment a few days later. Miles is reluctant to use these powers, however, until he witnesses the death of Spider-Man and realizes he could’ve helped. He enlists the help of his Uncle Aaron until they get in an argument, Aaron’s weapons malfunction and explode, killing Aaron and providing the catalyst for Miles’s transformation into a hero.
Publication History/MCU History
Spider-Man was created in 1962 by Stan Lee, who said he recognized the need for a teenage superhero that readers could identify with. He enlisted the help of Jack Kirby to bring this character to life, and his first appearance was in Amazing Fantasy #15. Since his creation, Peter Parker has been a staple character for Marvel Comics and has been written by a myriad of authors. In other media, Spider-Man has had success in both animated television series as well as in movies. He has famously been portrayed by Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland.
Miles Morales was created in 2011 by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pachelli. He made his debut in Ultimates Fallout #4. In his short existence, Miles has become an extremely popular character in the Marvel Universe and has been voiced by Donald Glover in the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series and by Shameik Moore in the Spider-Verse movies.
Recommended Runs
-Amazing Spider-Man #539-543 (Straczynski/Garney/Reinhold): J. Michael Straczynski is an incredible writer, and the duty of dealing with the aftermath of Civil War fell on his writing, and boy oh boy did he deliver. After revealing his identity to the public, Peter Parker dons his iconic black suit after an assassin shoots Aunt May. It’s a grim story (for Spider-Man), but it’s fantastic. And it also leads into my next recommendation…
-Amazing Spider-Man #544-564 (Slott/Straczynski): This is a controversial pick, but this is both the “One More Day” and “Brand New Day” storylines. These titles effectively reset Spider-Man as we knew him. His marriage to Mary Jane never happened, and Aunt May was never killed by a Kingpin-hired assassin. Thanks, Mephisto.
-Secret Wars (2015) (Hickman/Ribic): The conclusion of this 9-issue series brought Miles Morales into the mainstream Marvel Universe of Earth-616. And it’s Hickman at the helm.
-All of the Movies: Watch the Raimi trilogy. Watch the Andrew Garfield movies. Watch the Tom Holland movies. And for the love of all that’s Holy, watch the Spiderverse movies!
-(Almost) All of the TV Shows: Spider-Man also has a surprising amount of high-quality TV shows, too. The Disney+ series Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman was an incredible surprise earlier this year. I also recommend the 1994 Spider-Man series, as well as the 2012 Ultimate Spider-Man series. If you have younger children (like me), Spidey and his Amazing Friends and Marvel Superhero Adventures are great entry points for younger children, and are also pretty good stories for older fans as well.
Does the Model Miss the Mark?
Let’s start with Peter Parker, as there are multiple versions of him currently in Crisis Protocol. The original, 4-threat Peter Parker is…not very good. I think he is a victim of very early character design, and could really use an update. Additionally, he suffers from there being two amazing (no pun intended) other versions of Peter Parker in the game. For a threat less, you can have Spectacular Spider-Man. I honestly think this is a better version of a young Peter Parker than the 4-threat version. He’s incredibly reliable, but not overwhelming. For 5-threat, you can have Amazing Spider-Man. This version of Spider-Man is a more experienced version of Peter. He has a leadership for Web Warriors that can either hand out Slow or place an enemy model within Range 1 of itself for a Power Cost of 1. Additionally, he can re-roll any of his defense or dodge dice because he has completely mastered his Spider-Sense. This model was fantastic before the new Web Warriors were revealed, but with the new additions to the affiliation, I think his leadership will see the table even more. Why hasn’t his leadership seen the table much? Well…
3-threat Miles Morales is, by popular opinion, one of the best 3-threats in the game. His leadership is incredible. It gives Web Warriors an additional re-roll on their defense dice (which most of them already have with Spider Senses), and if they are holding or contesting an objective, they can re-roll Failures in all of those re-rolls. He also has a Range 3 place with his Web Swing ability, which then adds two dice to his basic Swinging Strike attack. Additionally, his Venom Blast attack forces an opponent to drop all objective tokens they are holding. Amazing, amazing character. And I think that this is a great version of a younger version of Miles before he has really tapped into the full potential of his powers. The biggest weakness of Ultimate Spider-Man might be that he shares an alias with his 3-threat version. However, this 4-threat version of Miles is fantastic, and presents an amazing representation of an older, more experienced Miles. This would be the version of Miles present in Secret Wars.
Regardless of which version of either of these characters you choose to run in your games of Marvel Crisis Protocol, I don’t think you can feel bad about which version you choose. These are two characters that AMG has really used their comic history as inspiration.
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