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Does whatever a Spider-Man can!note 

Spider-Man: I didn't say you could lend [the name] out. There's, like, ten of you now.
Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew): There's three, and they are ripping me off.

Spider-Man was a huge success to Marvel Comics, so obviously, later on a Distaff Counterpart would be inevitable. No, we're not talking about his daughter from The Clone Saga, Spider-Girl. We're talking about the one Distaff Counterpart conceived way before The Clone Saga. These are what we'd like to call... The Spider-Women.

Compared to other Distaff Counterparts, Spider-Women are rarely an accurate one for Spidey. Most of the time, they possess a set of unique abilities on their own, instead of web-shooters. They also form a small form of Legacy Character pool (while not exactly a big one like Venom or Robin), and occasionally, each form possesses different names, including even Spider-Girl. Although the Spider-Girl in question is NEVER any of the Alternate Universe versions of the original Spider-Man's daughter, with one of them taking the Spider-Woman name later in her career.

See also the other Marvel spider-themed heroines Spider-Girl (from the Prime Marvel universe), Spider-Girl (Earth-982 variant and Peter Parker/Spider-Man's daughter), and Silk.

See also: Spider-Women, a 2016 Bat Family Crossover featuring three Spider-Heroines, including Spider-Women Jessica Drew and Earth-65 Gwen Stacy.

Main Comics

  • Spider-Woman (1978) #1-50 (Jessica Drew)
  • Spider-Woman (1993) #1-4 (Julia Carpenter)
  • Spider-Woman (1999) #1-18 (Mattie Franklin)
  • Spider-Woman (2009) #1-7 (Jessica Drew)
  • Spider-Woman (2014) #1-10 (Jessica Drew)
  • Spider-Woman (2016) #1-17 (Jessica Drew)note 
  • Spider-Woman (2020) #1-21 (Jessica Drew)
  • Spider-Woman (2023) #1-present (Jessica Drew)

Other Comics


General Tropes

  • Action Girl: All of them, naturally. But special mention goes to Jessica, Julia, and Anya who are also natural fighters on their own. Jessica's trained by Taskmaster, a Badass Teacher himself. Julia is good in hand-to-hand combat for being a government agent. Anya is skilled gymnast and S.H.I.E.L.D. provided her further combat training.
  • Animalistic Abilities:
  • Animal-Themed Superbeing: Spiders, obviously.
  • Arch-Enemy:
    • Jessica Drew - Morgan le Fay, though some may go with Gypsy Moth/Skein or Viper/Madame Hydra.
    • Julia Carpenter - Manipulator; he murdered Julia's ex-husband, Larry, and was the Big Bad of her four-issue miniseries from the early 1990s.
    • Mattie Franklin - Flesh and Bones, though mostly through virtue of being the only recurring baddies in Mattie's predominantly Monster of the Week-based run.
  • Chest Insignia: The Spider symbol appears here on the costumes for Julia, Mattie, and Anya, with a few of Jessica's costumes also showing this. Silk uses a spider-web as her chest symbol, while Gwen technically doesn't have a symbol at all, with her spider symbol being the white parts of her suit.
  • Crossover: Often with Spider-Man, at times; it's also pivotal to Spidey's development (it created Venom).
  • Distaff Counterpart: Somewhat subverted, since none of the Spider-Women have any relation to Peter Parker whatsoever apart from acquaintance. Only Cindy Moon gained her powers from the same exact source, and she has a slightly different power-set (namely organic webs rather than webshooters) in addition to not using the Spider-Woman alias. And while Gwen also got her initial powers from a spider bite and shares the same power set, being her universe's Spider-Man equivalent, she goes on to gain additional abilities thanks to bonding with her dimension's Venom symbiote, on top of abandoning the Spider-Woman alias as well.
  • Magnus Means Mage: In Jessica's original series, her ally and mentor Magnus was a sorcerer and former apprentice of Morgan le Fey.
  • Most Common Superpower: Except for Mattie, Anya, and Gwen, the Spider-Women are quite busty.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Mainly Jessica, but even Julia could be this. Stripperiffic Charlotte also counts.
  • Mythology Gag: Jessica was at first assigned with the name "Arachne", then changes it to "Spider-Woman". The reverse happened to Julia (who wanted to be called Arachne from the start).
  • Seductive Spider: Invoked in-verse and out of verse due to the well-toned and form-fitting figures of the Spider-Heroines making them notable cases of Dude Magnet, none more so than Jessica whose powerset partially involves using pheromones for seduction.
  • Sensual Spandex: Except for Julia, after she gave her costume to Anya. Doubles with Living Clothes for Gwen after she bonds with her universe's Venom symbiote.
  • Statuesque Stunner: Both Jessica (5'10") and Julia (5'9").
  • Wall Crawl: Just like Spider-Man.

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