Peni Parker is a fictional character from Marvel Comics, a superhero and alternative version of Spider-Man. The character is depicted as a 14-year-old high school student who was adopted by Aunt May and Uncle Ben following the death of her father/caretaker. She pilots a psychically-powered mech suit built by her father known as the SP//dr, which is partially controlled by a radioactive spider that also shares a psychic link with Peni. The character was featured in , with her voice provided by actress Kimiko Glenn.
Publication history
Peni Parker and SP//dr were created by writer Gerard Way and artist Jake Wyatt, and first appeared in the Spider-Verse comic book Edge of Spider-Verse #5 in October 2014. According to Way, SP//dr "is three vital components: a pilot, a machine, and a radioactive sentient spider acting as one half of the brain that makes it all work." SP//dr’s story was continued in the Spider-Geddon comic book, Edge of Spider-Geddon #2 by Alberto Albuquerque.
Fictional character biography
Peni's father acted as the original pilot of SP//dr, in which he protected New York from crime and other dangers. After his mysterious death, Peni is approached by her aunt and uncle to be the new pilot of the SP//dr. In order to do so however, she would need to be bitten by the sentient radioactive spider which controlled part of the suit. Soon after being bitten, Peni becomes the new protector of the city and is shown five years later battling her universe’s version of Mysterio - revealed to be an obsessed fanboy who asks her if she ever got his “mix-disc”. Peni eventually teams up with Daredevil – who had known her father – to battle some criminals. Then, while taking a subway to go home after a long day’s night, she's approached by Spider-Ham and Old Man Spider to join the Spider-Army to fight the Inheritors. After the events of Spider-Verse, Peni is approached in school by a girl named Addy Brock. She asks her if she was really the SP//dr pilot, but Peni ignores her; which prompts Addy to state that Peni is not as special as she thinks. Peni then tries to talk to Ben and May about being special, but she gets ignored. While improving the SP//dr's Web Shooters, she notices Addy walking in the base and follows her; only to find another mech-suit similar to the SP//dr, only in black and powered by a sym-engine called VEN#m, with Addy as its pilot. She becomes furious at her aunt and uncle for not telling her about the new suit. When a kaiju-like creature named M.O.R.B.I.U.S. starts to drain the city's electrical energy, SP//dr goes after it, but is quickly defeated. In order to defeat M.O.R.B.I.U.S., Peni's aunt and uncle send VEN#m to defeat the creature. It is successful in stopping the monster, but the creature causes VEN#m to malfunction; causing the mech suit to acquire a mind of its own. The black suit starts to consume Addy, and when May goes to fix the problem manually, it starts to consume her as well. SP//dr confronts VEN#m, but the black mech suit proves to be more powerful and it nearly destroys SP//dr. Afterwards, Peni, remembering her improved Web Shooters, defeats VEN#m. Unfortunately, she's too late to save her Aunt May and Addy, who have vanished from the inside of the suit. Later, Peni and Ben have a heart to heart, but Spider-Ham re-appears to recruit Peni to help defeat the Inheritors once more after they returned during the events of Spider-Geddon.
In other media
Film
Peni Parker and SP//dr appeared in the computer-animated superhero film , with Kimiko Glenn voicing the former. She arrives in Miles Morales' universe along with Spider-Ham and Spider-Man Noir. This version takes on an anime aesthetic, is incredibly perky and is shown eating numerous candies and snacks in her robot. SP//dr itself is a one-piece capsule cockpit topped with a dome-shaped one-way visor, with the inside providing Peni with a view to the world around her and the outside displaying various electronic faces, and uses magnetically manipulated appendages for versatility. It can also shoot lasers from its fingers, meant to weld various objects; such as when it fixed a USB drive needed in the film. During the climax, SP//dr is severely damaged by Scorpion, but Peni manages to rescue the radioactive spider from within it. When she returns to her dimension, she is shown rebuilding SP//dr.
