Origin
Hobie Brown from Earth-138 lives in a fascist corporate America, where youth culture is obsessed with music and constantly fights for their freedom. It led him to punk rock, which unlocked his inner rage and inspired him to fight back against the elites of his world. He lived by two rules: No Gods. No Masters. As a teenage squatter, he was bitten by a spider irradiated by OsCorp’s toxic waste dumping. With his new powers and inspiration from his punk rock idol, the late Gwen Stacy, he became the Anarchic Spider-Man, leading protests into the streets against President Norman Osborn and his stormtroopers, The Thunderbolts Department. He smashed the president’s head in and ripped off his mask, revealing himself to his world. This got the attention of The Superior Spider-Man, who recruited him for the first army of Spider-Man variants, eventually known as the Web Warriors.
Creation
This variant of Hobie Brown debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man (2015) #10. His design was intended to be for Spider-UK but was rejected for being “too punk” for a Spider-Variant from the Captain Britain Corps. Everyone liked the design so much though that it was re-purposed for a new character.
Despite being referred to as Spider-Punk, he did originally go by Spider-Man on his home Earth and disliked when his fellow variants call him Spider-Punk. He has since embraced it.
Major Story Arcs
Spider-Verse
Hobie joined the Spider-Army to fight the Inheritors across the multiverse. His first act was to join the rescue mission to save Miles Morales and Anya Corazon from Earth 616. After defeating the Inheritors but before heading back to his world, he made sure that any members of the Spider-Army knew not to trust inheritor Karn just because he helped them defeat the others in the end.
Tangled States
While playing a show with his band, The Spider-Slayers, Hobie’s Earth had a rift open to the 2099 version of Spider-Ham’s world. After hog-tying Spider-Ham 2099, he headed to Earth-001 (aka Loomworld) to request help from the Web Warriors, the Spider-Variants that took responsibility for the Web of Life and Destiny. He needed their help to take on Ducktor Doom 2099, who was trying to take over Hobie’s Earth. Thankfully, Spider-Ham was on-call. He was able to match their ability to cartoonishly defy physics and send them packing, but this was just the beginning.
Rifts to other universes started opening up, putting Hobie’s world in trouble. Back on Loomworld, Octavia Otto was able to close the rifts using the Web of Life and Destiny, however, this also separated and stranded the Web Warriors on the case. Hobie was still on his own Earth, but so were Lady Spider, Spider-Girl (Corazon), and a Spider-Mech. Using tech from the Spider-Mech, Lady Spider was able to make personal portal generators, but Hobie needed to plug his guitar into the mech to match the frequency.
They made it back to Loomworld just in time to join an army of Web Warriors fighting an army of Electros that escaped their electric mesh prison. Using this as a diversion, a variant of Harry Osborn tried to take control of the Web of Life and Destiny. Realizing the danger, the Electros and the Web Warriors teamed up. Supercharging the mech that Hobie was still plugged into, he rocked out on his guitar to shake the whole web instead of just a strand, knocking Osborn loose and saving the multiverse.
Sellout
Hobie is confronted by a variant of Kang the Conqueror, who is a 2099 business tycoon. He had trademarked the Spider-Punk brand in his present, where he had softened his radical beliefs into something more family friendly. He is trying to bolster his profits by kidnapping the genuine Spider-Punk to put on display. After Kang boasts that Hobie would need an atom bomb to take him out, Hobie got reinforcements from his world’s version of the Hulk.
When Hobie grills a well-clobbered Kang about why he was being targeted over all the other punk-variant heroes, Kang reveals he died young and in his prime, like so many marketable stars. This revelation comes immediately before Hobie was recruited for yet another Web Warrior disaster, worrying him.
Spider-Geddon
While using Inheritor cloning tech, Doc Ock of 616 opened the door for the Inheritors to return. Hobie was part of a Web Warrior squad that tried to stop him, but they were too late. The Inheritors have returned, and they retreated to Loomworld with Doc Ock now among their ranks. Unfortunately, they disagreed on how to move forward and split up, with Hobie following Doc Ock rather than recruit the 616 heroes who stopped them from killing the Inheritors the first time they faced off.
Doc’s plan was to destroy the cloning vats. When Miles Morales and his half of the Web Warriors attacked the Inheritors, Doc used it as a diversion to get to the cloning tech, but Hobie led a group to rescue Miles’ team. With the cloning tech out of order, both teams retreated to Leopardon to escape. Unfortunately, a body for Solus had already been produced. The Inheritors only needed to simply upload his memory.
With Solus back, Doc and the 616 Scarlet Spider went off on their own to trick the Inheritors into feeding on Scarlet Spider’s corrupted spider power, but Miles led his team, including Hobie, after them anyway. Just as the fight with the Inheritors kicks off, Ghost Spider and 616’s Peter Parker teleport in with an army of Spider-Heroes. Together, they pile on and vanquish the Inheritors. Using their own clone tech against them, they respawn the Inheritors as infants to give them a second chance at doing the right thing.
Spider-Band On Tour
After Hobie needed help taking down Kraven and his Hunters from running the neighbor into the ground for a gentrification project, Hobie and his allies decided to stick together as the Spider-Band in case they came back. When the Hunters returned, they were joined by hired gun, Taskmaster, who admitted that the Spider-Band’s community center HQ was on top of an Osborn blacksite, full of weapons and surveillance data on the neighborhood. The band uncovered the secret cache, which also had a map of the blacksites across the country. They decide to hit the road to find the others and shut them down.
The Band end up in Washington, DC, where they find a blacksite under the Osborn Memorial (where the Lincoln Memorial should be). It is far more sophisticated than the one under their community center, and it had documents on a new Osborn campaign despite his death. They are interrupted by the head of Norman Osborn, who is bonded to a symbiote and installed in a robot body. He is joined by a superhuman task force that easily takes out the Band and locks them up until they can be executed live for Osborn’s supporters.
Luckily, their execution was interrupted by Hulk and Daredevil, who had come to the rescue. With the added muscle, they were able to take on Osborn’s superpowered mercenaries, including a variant of Sentry that wore War Machine armor. Riri was able to steal the armor and control Osborn’s stormtroopers. Letting Hobie plug his guitar into the War Machine armor and turning the stormtroopers into amps, Hobie demolished Osborn with one strum.
End of the Spider-Verse
When the wasp goddess, Shathra, attempted to reshape Web of Life and Destiny into the Great Nest, she targeted the spider-heroes of the multiverse for her new army of drones. Hobie was unfortunately one of the heroes stung and turned into a drone of the Sisterhood of the Wasps. This is only temporary as Silk and Arana are able to retrieve and combine totemic artifacts that cure all the drone Spider-Heroes.
Battle of the Bands
With Osborn out of the way, the Spider-Band can finally get back to playing music. They enter a Battle of the Bands, but before they could hit the stage, the Sinister Six-Piece had their turn. Using hypnosis, they conned their audience into throwing all of their money on to the stage, including most of the members of the Spider-Band.
The hypnosis couldn’t make passed Riotheart’s armor. She slapped some wireless headphones on Hobie’s head to snap him out of it. While she took care of the other members, Hobie took on the rival band. He kept them early until his band could join him on stage to take the team out.
They finished up by rocking the venue.
Arms Race
Hobie and the Spider-Band were riding high thanks to their victory over Norman Osborn. They had been working with the Wakandans to help rehab America in the wake of Osborn’s fascist corruption. However, the post-Osborn plan is not going smooth enough for Doctor Octopus, who believed him to be the superior savior. He started targeting Hobie and his band with the tech he had been developing to overthrow Osborn.
Hobie and his band were able to beat the his Sentinel sized Spider-Slayer, but Riotheart was hurt. After getting first aid from Wakanda, Shuri helped them track the tech. She recognized it as company tech from Justin Hammer. While Riotheart rested up and with Daredevil joining their ranks, the Spider-Band investigated Hammer Industries building only to find Hammer dead and Oktavius waiting to strike.
Character Profile
- Height: 5’11”
- Weight: 150 lbs
- Eye Color: Brown
- Hair Color: Black
- Citizenship: American
- Place of Birth: Presumably New York
- Marital Status: Single
- Occupation: Lead singer and guitarist for the Spider-Band, Activist
Powers and Abilities
Spider-Hero: Hobie has the proportional strength, speed, agility, endurance, and reflexes of a spider. He is able to stick to and scale walls. He also produces webbing for swinging and entangling opponents, however, it has not been confirmed whether it is organic or mechanical. He also has a “spider-sense” to alert him of immediate danger.
Weapons: Hobie will use his spiked mask to headbutt his foes. If he is attacked at a show, he will resort to using his guitar as a blunt weapon. He also has been seen with a baseball, inscribed with “Beat on the Brat,” a Ramones lyric.
Punk Rock: Hobie is an “excellent guitarist, capable drummer, and a terrible singer,” per the Spider-Geddon Handbook. He claims the terrible singing is on purpose to be “punk.”
In Other Media
Ultimate Spider-Man
Spider-Punk makes a cameo appearance in the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series’ “Return to the Spider-Verse” storyline, voiced by Drake Bell in a cockney accent.
He is shown as one of the Multiversal Spider-Heroes who has been captured by the Wolf Spider (who takes the place of the Inheritors in this version of the story).
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Spider Punk appears in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the sequel to Into the Spider-Verse. He is voiced by Daniel Kaluuya, who was raised in Camden Town, a part of London heavily associated with the punk scene. He is good friends with fellow spider-punk, Gwen Stacy. He has a thick cockney accent and is reluctant about Miguel O’Hara’s Spider Society. Although, he pretends to be apathetic in general, he clearly has a great affinity for Gwen and a surprising amount of respect for Miles.
Video Games
- Spider-Punk appears in the Spider-Man Unlimited mobile game.
- Spider-Punk’s outfit appears as an alternate costume in the PS4 Spider-Man game.
- Spider-Pun’s outfit returns as an alternate costume in the PS5 Spider-Man 2
Merchandise
- Spider-Punk was featured in Hasbro’s Marvel Legends line as part of the Lizard Build-a-Figure wave.
- Diamond Select produced a Lizard PVC statue.
- Hot Toys produced a Spider-Punk figure.
- Spider-Punk was featured in Funko’s Pop! line of bobbleheads.