| Ashley Barton Spider-Bitch | |
|---|---|
 Ashley Barton as Spider-Bitch bySteve McNiven,Dexter Vines, and Morry Hollowell. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance |
|
| Created by |
|
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Ashley Parker Barton |
| Species | Human |
| Place of origin | The Wastelands, Earth-807128/21923 |
| Team affiliations | Spider-Army/Amazing Arachnids/Spider-Force |
| Partnerships |
|
| Notable aliases |
|
| Abilities |
|
Spider-Bitch (Ashley Parker Barton) is acharacter appearing inAmerican comic books published byMarvel Comics. Created byMark Millar andSteve McNiven, the character first appeared inWolverine #67 (September 2008). She is the estranged daughter ofPeter Parker / Spider-Man's youngest daughter Tonya andClint Barton / Hawkeye, and the stepdaughter of Tonya's husbandUltron 8, from thealternate-future ofEarth-807128/21923, in which the supervillains overthrew thesuperheroes three decades earlier.[1] Having nosuperpowers, after being saved from execution by her estranged father andOld Man Logan in 2008'sOld Man Logan storyline, Spider-Bitch kills the currentKingpin of Crime, succeeding him as theKingpin of the Wastelands, revealing her true villainous nature, before unsuccessfully attempting to kill her father and Logan.[2]
While usually portrayed as asupervillain, Spider-Bitch has also been occasionally depicted assisting her fellow Spider-People in multiversal conflicts. In the 2014–15 "Spider-Verse" storyline, set afterOld Man Logan, Spider-Bitch is among the first recruited to aresistance movement againstthe Inheritors' consumption ofSpider-People across theSpider-Verse bythe Superior Spider-Man,Otto Octavius, to devise a plan tokill them all; in the aftermath of the conflict, Spider-Bitch continues to explore themultiverse, assisting various teams of Spider-People while funnelling resources back to her home dimension until the 2018Spider-Geddon storyline andSpider-Forceminiseries, following which she returns to her reality, seven years having passed, and reclaims her throne fromTaskmaster in 2019'sOld Man Quill storyline, continuing her plans totake over the world.
Receiving a generally positive critical reception, the character was adapted to the 2021radio dramapodcast seriesMarvel's Wastelanders asAsh Morse /King Zemo, voiced bySasha Lane, and made her cinematic debut in the 2023 feature filmSpider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, referred to asAshley / Spider-Kingpin, a member ofMiguel O'Hara's Spider-Society.[3][4]
Created byMark Millar andSteve McNiven, Spider-Bitch first appeared inWolverine Vol. 3 #67 (September 2008) before making full appearances the following two issues in October and November.[5] Owing to the child-oriented storylines of the character's initial appearances post-Old Man Logan, she is alternately referred to as "Spider-Woman" or "Spider-Girl" due tocensorship in text box descriptions, referring to herself as "the Spider-B****" in dialogue.
She is asupporting character in the event seriesSpider-Verse (Nov. 2014–Feb. 2015),Spider-Geddon (Oct.–Dec. 2018), andOld Man Quill (Feb.–Dec. 2019), and a minor character inOld Man Hawkeye (Feb.–Dec. 2018).[6]
In the future ofOld Man Logan, thirty years after the supervillains overthrew the superheroes, thetitle character and the now-blindClint Barton / Hawkeye are passing through Hammer Falls,Nevada after Clint hired Logan as protection while delivering a shipment cross-country, when the pair are greeted byUltron Eight, the current husband of Clint's third ex-wife Tonya (the youngest daughter ofPeter Parker / Spider-Man) and stepfather to their 22-year-old daughterAshley, both of whom Clint had left when she was three months old with limited contact since. Assuming Clint is there because of a letter Tonya had sent him, Ultron is surprised to learn that he hasn't received it and directs him to Tonya, who informs Clint that Ashley and her friends, apparently inspired by stories of Clint and her grandfather, had formed a super-team and gone north toSalt Lake City,Utah to take down an unnamed African-American man who is the currentKingpin of Crime before being captured and set to bepublicly executed the following morning; Ashley is shown to be in a prison cell to be dressed in a costume similar to that of the deceasedSpider-Women and her auntMayday Parker / Spider-Girl.[7] Surprised, having "never really had Ashley pegged as the superhero type", telling Tonya that he had gotten the impression that she was an "evil badass type [who] never really seemed especially altruistic" from the few encounters he had had with her, Clint nonetheless agrees to rescue her and doubles Logan's salary to convince him to help him rescue her. While en route, passing throughCedar City, Clint tells Logan that while surprised, he is "so friggin'proud" of his daughter; meanwhile, in theRice–Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City (now Fisk Lake City), the Kingpin feeds the other members of Ashley's team, successors toDaredevil andthe Punisher, toutahraptors while bragging over having killedMagneto during his rise to power, as the pair beg to know what they had done to Ashley. Elsewhere, in her cell inside a customizedWalmart-turned-prison, Ashley, known as "Spider-Bitch", sits silently as some of her guards mock the concept of superheroes, before Clint and Logan crash theirSpider-Mobile through the wall of the prison. Stating "That'll be Dad." upon hearing the crash, Ashley watches as her father massacre the guards before telling him precisely where on the wall thecontrol panel for her cell is so he can open it, shooting it with an arrow. As the Kingpin enters the room to see what the commotion is, the newly freed Ashley immediately decapitates him by swinging the end of a shotgun into his neck, before knocking a surprised Clint to the ground: Ashley explains that she and her team came to the area not as superheroes, but assupervillains, intending to seize control of the Kingpin's Quarter (formerlyLas Vegas) by killing him, the same way the Kingpin himself had taken over asdictator by killing Magneto. As she prepares to beat her father to death,[8] Ashley tells him that she's "doing it because I want to", before Logan, having witnessed Ashley's actions, crashes through the skylight in the Spider-Mobile and rescues Clint. Overlooking the escaping duo, Ashley orders a segment of her new army to go after them, before taking her rightful place on her throne asSpider-Bitch, the Kingpin of the Wastelands.[9] While drinking at a bar with the following day, Clint regrets not being involved in his daughter's life, recalling the day she was born and how she was the first thing she ever saw;[10] these events are also witnessed by a time-displacedEva Bell.[11]
Alternately referred to as both "Spider-Woman" and "Spider-Girl" due tocensorship in text box descriptions (although referring to herself as "the Spider-B****" in dialogue),[12] and indicated to now be going by her father's surname asAshley Barton, Spider-Bitch returns inSpider-Verse as one of the first recruited to theSpider-Army ofOtto Octavius,the Superior Spider-Man, after he saves her from being consumed byKarn,[13] joining him in recruiting otherSpider-People from across themultiverse to their cause, meeting various variants of her grandfather and his family, amongst others.[14][15] After subduing and capturing Karn, Spider-Bitch is among those who push to immediately kill him, only for him to reveal he is but one of a family ofInheritors driven to consume Spider-Totems and escapes his bonds, preparing to consume two of their number before two of his siblings turn up to do so instead; the trio ultimately begin fighting one another, allowing the Spider-Army to escape to their base in2099. After sending the rest of the Spider-Army to research Karn and his siblings, Otto takes Spider-Bitch and Black-Ops Spider-Man aside to discuss their shared perspective as "killers" who have seen "Brutality. Devastation. Darkness." and whether they are willing to "the face of true evil" and potentially commitgenocide against the Inheritors. After a pause, the trio agree, with Spider-Bitch, acknowledging Otto as "boss", stating that "If we're going to survive this, we'll do whatever we have to. Whether the others like it or not."[16] Over the next few months, after fending off several more Inheritor attacks, killing several of them,[17] and learning Karn can be turned to their cause, being an unwilling Inheritor who took no joy in his overpowering biological urges to consume Spider-Totems, banished from returning home for eons, Spider-Bitch agrees with a segment of the Spider-Army to lend Karn some off their life-force before successfully recruiting him to fight and imprison his family.[18][19]
In the Infinite ComicDeadpool: Too Soon?, while investigating an assassin who has been killing several "silly" superheroes across themultiverse,Deadpool seeks to protectSpider-Ham, tracking him down toCentral Park, where he interrupts an ongoingbaseball game between the Amazing Arachnids (a team ofSpider-People from across theSpider-Verse) and the Seething Snikters (a team of variants ofWolverine, hisclones and his children). Noticing Deadpool, a participating Spider-Bitch questions what he is doing there and why he interrupted the game, before joining the other Spider-People and Wolverines in chasing him out of the park.[20]
In theprequel seriesOld Man Hawkeye (Jan.–Dec. 2018), set five years beforeOld Man Logan, after learning that hisglaucoma will render him completely blind in a matter of weeks due to, Clint visits a 17-year-old Ashley in Hammer Falls,Nevada so that he can see her with his own eyes for the last time; after Clint notes she has a poster of a young him as Hawkeye on the wall (alongside posters of her grandfather Spider-Man and the Kingpin), Ashley references him atypically showing up every five years to see her. Hearing from Tonya that Ashley had recently gotten in trouble for fighting, Clint is initially proud to hear that she had beaten up a bully who had in turn been "beating up one of the fat kids" and stealing his money, only to learn that she had beaten them both up due the "fat kid" having been paying her for protection, and she was insulted by the "disrespect" he had shown by keeping money from her. Dismissing her father's attempts at small talk, Ashley asks Clint why he is really there. After she is dismissive of his vague response, Clint leaves Ashley be, leaving to fulfil hisvendetta with theThunderbolts before he is fully blind.[21] A few days later,Marshal Bullseye, tracking Clint's subsequent killings, visits Hammer Falls and questions Ashley about Clint (whom he rightfully suspects to be behind the killings) outside her mother's garage. After learning that Clint does not actually live there, only coming around "once every few years when he feels guilty about knocking up my mother", Marshal Bullseye notices Ashley's lack of fear with regards to his appearance, even after pulling out asai in front of her; Ashley references having killed the last man to stick a knife in her face. Impressed, and receiving word of a new "attack by assailant wielding bow", Marshal Bullseye tells Ashley ("little lady") that he will give Clint her regards when he sees him.[22] Later, while visitingArcade's Murderworld,Nevada to killAtlas, Clint briefly meets with an elderlyRuth "Blindfold" Aldine, who sees the "bloody road" he is on, "choosing to live for revenge", in particular Ashley's future as Spider-Bitch five years in the future, her attempt to kill him, and his own death days after, although only vaguely alluding to it and shaping images of her, Clint and Logan out of smoke.[23]
In the 2018 comics eventSpider-Geddon and the spin-off mini-seriesSpider-Force,[24] Spider-Bitch recruits Spider-Kid, a 13-year-old Petey Parker, whom she nicknames "Gramps", to his great annoyance, to gain his assistance in preventing Otto (now theSuperior Octopus) from unwittingly and unknowingly allowing the Inheritors to clone themselves new bodies,[25] following their earlier escape from their radioactive prison planet, allowing them to launch their attack on theSpider-Verse anew.[26] After failing to stop Otto, who is horrified by what he has done and returns to the mantle ofthe Superior Spider-Man while attempting to redeem himself; Spider-Bitch,Jessica Drew,Kaine Parker, Astro-Spider, and Spider-Kid meanwhile form a "Spider-Force" to travel to the Inheritors' former prison on an intended suicide mission (wearinghazmat suits) to destroy the abandoned crystal containing the soul of the Inheritors' fatherSolus, the most powerful Inheritor of them all to prevent his resurrection as well, coming into conflict with that universe'sJohn Jameson.[25] Jameson, revealed to be a telepath, reads the Spider-Force's mind to be able to trust them: while doing so, a glimpse of Ashley Barton's childhood is seen: killing enforcers of the original Kingpin with adirtbike and stealing cartons of milk for her community. After proceeding to a space station orbiting the planet, Ashley shares a moment of vulnerability with Petey after being briefly "touched" by the InheritorVerna: Ashley recalls sitting on her reality's Peter's knee as a baby shortly before his death, before growing up in a wasteland of lies, abandonment and abuse.[27] After almost being killed by Verna, the duo escape in an escape pod before unwittingly unknowingly themselves delivering the Solus crystal to the Inheritors via Jessica.[28] After Solus is resurrected,Gwen Stacy / Spider-Gwen leads the new Spider-Army, including a returned Ashley as Spider-Bitch against the Inheritors, alongside aCaptain Universe-enpoweredMiles Morales, and with the Inheritors weakened thanks to a plan by Otto andBen Reilly, the Spider-Army is able to achieve victory, binding the Inheritors (but forMorlun) in place before transferring their consciousnesses into the cloned bodies of babies and removing their hunger for Spider-Totems, truly recycling their souls. TheSpider-Verse finally at peace, Spider-Bitch returns to her reality to resume her role as Kingpin of the Wastelands, contemplating her purpose in the world.[29]
InOld Man Quill, after returning to the Wastelands to find seven years to have passed (sinceOld Man Logan),[30] andEmperor Doom to have taken over her lands while she was fighting the Inheritors and travelling themultiverse,[31] Spider-Bitch is captured by his forces and made to regularly fight in gladiatorial combat in Rice–Eccles Stadium over the following months, with Doom appointingTaskmaster in her stead. After coming across a strandedelderly Peter Quill alongside her in the arena (who is hallucinating the deceasedGuardians of the Galaxy talking to him andRocket Raccoon flirting with her), Spider-Bitch is surprised to learn she will not be facing her usual opponents in combat, but a mind-controlledFin Fang Foom.[32] After witnessing Spider-Bitch push a prisoner dressed likeCaptain America into a guard to steal the latter's spear, killing them both, before proceeding to attack Foom's ankles, Quill has Spider-Bitch give him a "Fastball Special", throwing him into one of the drones surrounding the arena to commandeer it, and use it to free Foom, who begins to incinerate the watching audience. Making her way to Taskmaster, Spider-Bitch mocks his age and competence before punching him multiple times in the face. After directing Quill on where to find theUltimate Nullifier, a relic in theBaxter Building's ruins in New York which he is looking for, Spider-Bitch resumes her role as Kingpin of the Wastelands, overseeing the gladiatorial fights as her assistant arranges for her to watch Taskmaster take on her newly capturedVenom-infusedTyrannosaurus rex.[33] Sometime later, after her men discover an army ofDoombots to be coming in her direction, Spider-Bitch prepares a speech for her people to inspire them to fight and die on her behalf to protect "what's mine". After one of her assistants informs that they will surely all be killed the moment the Doombots arrive in the city based on the speed they are moving at, Spider-Bitch asks him to "show a little spine"; after seeing the Doombots blow past above the city, Spider-Bitch is surprised that she was not their intended target.[34] Later still, while sitting on her throne and holding a skull in her hands, Spider-Bitch is insulted when her television channels are replaced by a broadcast from Doom andMadame Masque of Quill's intended execution, which is interrupted byGalactus, who Quill then kills.[35][36]
InSpider-Verse vs. Venomverse, Spider-Bitch returns to the multiverse to gleefully assist the Spider-Society in warring with the symbiotes.[37]
Despite her get-up, and being considered a Spider-Totem bythe Inheritors and the Web of Life and Destiny, Spider-Bitch seemingly has none of the powers of her grandfather, Spider-Man (super-strength, agility, the ability to stick to surfaces, and a spider-sense that warns them of danger), although she displays strength, speed, and agility which allow her to go toe-to-toe with superhumans. She acquired these skills through vigorous training and exercise.[38][a] Expressingno interest in romantic relationships of any kind, Spider-Bitch instead seeksworld domination and independence from oversight byDoctor Doom throughoutOld Man Quill, oblivious to his lack of interest in her actions.[40]
Fifteen years after the events ofOld Man Logan, Spider-Bitch (depicted aswhite due to a printing error) finally tracks down Logan (his escape the only "black mark on [her] reputation" as the Kingpin of the Wastelands) with the assistance ofBruce Banner Junior andWarren Worthington III, each respectively helping her after learning Logan to have been responsible for the deaths of their biological family and teammates respectively. After having Warren knock Logan out, Spider-Bitch strings him up with web shooters she acquired from her grandfather's corpse so the trio can taunt them, before releasing aVenom-infusedTyrannosaurus rex to eat him alive, keeping them at bay with web-whips. After Logan briefly tears himself free using his claws, Spider-Bitch webs them together again, only for Logan to take advantage of her lack of aSpider-Sense and use the momentum of her webs to pull her up into the air into theTyrannosaurus's maw, killing her.[43]
InDeadpool Kills the Marvel Universe Again, as a brainwashedDeadpool decapitatesMiles Morales while flying onGreen Goblin's glider, dressed as Spider-Man, he sees himself as a "Composite Spider-Man and Deadpool" ending "The Saga of the Spider-Verse Clone Conspiracy" by killing multiple Spider-People, including Spider-Bitch, and "putting an end to this arachnid mayhem!"[44]
Ashley Barton / Spider-Bitch received a figure inHasbro'sMarvel Legends line.[50]
{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)| Comic series |
| ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Characters |
| ||||||||||||||
| Teams | |||||||||||||||
| Enemies | |||||||||||||||
| Alternative versions | |||||||||||||||
| In other media | |||||||||||||||
Spider-Man characters | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spider-Man family |
| ||||||||||||
| Supporting characters |
| ||||||||||||
| Antagonists | |||||||||||||
| Alternative versions |
| ||||||||||||
| In other media |
| ||||||||||||
| Other topics | |||||||||||||
| Hawkeyes | |
|---|---|
| Affiliations | |
| Supporting characters | |
| Enemies | |
| Publications | |
| In other media | |
| Related articles | |
| Films | |
|---|---|
| Other media |
|
| Characters | |
| Music | |
| Comics | |
| Related | |
