Peni Parker

From 40,000 feet, Peni Parker bears a striking resemblance to Peter Parker, the Spider-Man most of us know and love. She’s a teenager trying to juggle her life as a student with her life as a spider-themed hero. She moved in with her Aunt May and Uncle Ben after the death of her father. And, yes, there was even a spider bite. But that’s where the similarities end. Unlike most of the spider-folks we’ve seen, Peni Parker doesn’t herself have superhuman abilities. Instead, she has a gigantic armored suit—the SP//dr suit, with which she shares her alias—itself powered in part by a radioactive spider. It’s not really clear where the suit or the arachnid inside of it came from, though the implication is that they were the result of some sort of experiment by her scientist/hero father, Aunt May, and Uncle Ben. Peni inherited her position as the suit’s pilot after the death of her father. For unexplained reasons, the SP//dr suit could only bond with someone who shared a genetic link with her father, making Peni the only potential replacement. Unfortunately for Peni, for it to work she had to “bind” with SP//dr—in other words, allow the spider to bite her—a process that was described as “unpleasant” and which looked incredibly painful. (nerdist)