Spider-Bitch (Ashley Parker Barton) is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, the character first appeared in Wolverine #67 (September 2008). She is the estranged daughter of Peter Parker / Spider-Man's youngest daughter Tonya and Clint Barton / Hawkeye, and the stepdaughter of Tonya's husband Ultron 8, from the alternate-future of Earth-807128/21923, in which the supervillains overthrew the superheroes three decades earlier. Having no superpowers after being saved from execution by her estranged father and Old Man Logan in 2008's Old Man Logan storyline, Spider-Bitch kills the current Kingpin of Crime, succeeding him as the Kingpin of the Wastelands, revealing her true villainous nature before unsuccessfully attempting to kill her father and Logan.
While usually portrayed as a supervillain, Spider-Bitch has also been occasionally depicted assisting her fellow Spider-People in multiversal conflicts. In the 2014–15 "Spider-Verse" storyline, set after Old Man Logan, Spider-Bitch is among the first recruited to a resistance movement against the Inheritors' consumption of Spider-People across the Spider-Verse by the Superior Spider-Man, Otto Octavius, to devise a plan to kill them all; in the aftermath of the conflict, Spider-Bitch continues to explore the multiverse, assisting various teams of Spider-People while funnelling resources back to her home dimension until the 2018 Spider-Geddon storyline and Spider-Force miniseries, following which she returns to her reality, seven years having passed, and reclaims her throne from Taskmaster in 2019's Old Man Quill storyline, continuing her plans to take over the world.
Receiving a generally positive critical reception, the character was adapted to the 2021 radio drama podcast series Marvel's Wastelanders as Ash Morse / King Zemo, voiced by Sasha Lane, and made her cinematic debut in the 2023 feature film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, referred to as Ashley / Spider-Kingpin, a member of Miguel O'Hara's Spider-Society.
Publication history Created by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, Spider-Bitch first appeared in Wolverine Vol. 3 #67 (September 2008) before making full appearances the following two issues in October and November. 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 to censorship in text box descriptions, referring to herself as "the Spider-B****" in dialogue.
She is a supporting character in the event series Spider-Verse (Nov. 2014–Feb. 2015), Spider-Geddon (Oct.–Dec. 2018), and Old Man Quill (Feb.–Dec. 2019), and a minor character in Old Man Hawkeye (Feb.–Dec. 2018). Fictional character biography Old Man Logan
In the future of Old Man Logan, thirty years after the supervillains overthrew the superheroes, the title character and the now-blind Clint 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 by Ultron Eight, the current husband of Clint's third ex-wife Tonya (the youngest daughter of Peter Parker / Spider-Man) and stepfather to their 22-year-old daughter Ashley, 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 to Salt Lake City, Utah to take down an unnamed African-American man who is the current Kingpin of Crime before being captured and set to be publicly executed the following morning; Ashley is shown to be in a prison cell to be dressed in a costume similar to that of the deceased Spider-Women and her aunt Mayday Parker / Spider-Girl.Wolverine Vol. 3 #67 (September 2008) Marvel Comics. 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 through Cedar City, Clint tells Logan that while surprised, he is "so friggin' proud" of his daughter; meanwhile, in the Rice–Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City (now Fisk Lake City), the Kingpin feeds the other members of Ashley's team, successors to Daredevil and the Punisher, to utahraptors while bragging over having killed Magneto during his rise to power, as the pair beg to know what they had done to Ashley. Elsewhere, in her cell inside a customized Walmart-turned-prison, Ashley, known as "Spider-Bitch", sits silently as some of her guards mock the concept of superheroes, before Clint and Logan crash their Spider-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 the control 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 as supervillains, intending to seize control of the Kingpin's Quarter (formerly Las Vegas) by killing him, the same way the Kingpin himself had taken over as dictator by killing Magneto. As she prepares to beat her father to death,Wolverine Vol. 3 #68 (October 2008) Marvel Comics. 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 as Spider-Bitch, the Kingpin of the Wastelands.Wolverine Vol. 3 #69 (November 2008) Marvel Comics. 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;Wolverine Vol. 3 #70 (December 2008) Marvel Comics. these events are also witnessed by a time-displaced Eva Bell.All-New X-Men Annual Vol. 1 #1 (December 2014) Marvel Comics.
Edge of Spider-Verse and Spider-Verse
Alternately referred to as both "Spider-Woman" and "Spider-Girl" due to censorship in text box descriptions (although referring to herself as "the Spider-B****" in dialogue), and indicated to now be going by her father's surname as Ashley Barton, Spider-Bitch returns in Spider-Verse as one of the first recruited to the Spider-Army of Otto Octavius, the Superior Spider-Man, after he saves her from being consumed by Karn,The Superior Spider-Man #32 (September 2014) Marvel Comics. joining him in recruiting other Spider-People from across the multiverse to their cause, meeting various variants of her grandfather and his family, amongst others.Edge of Spider-Verse #1 (September 2014) Marvel Comics.Spider-Verse #1 (November 2014) Marvel Comics. 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 of Inheritors 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 in 2099. 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 commit genocide 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."The Superior Spider-Man #33 (September 2014) Marvel Comics. Over the next few months, after fending off several more Inheritor attacks, killing several of them,The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3 #10–14 (November 2014–February 2015) Marvel Comics. 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.Spider-Verse Team-Up #3 (January 2015) Marvel Comics.The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3 #15 (2014) Marvel Comics.
Deadpool: Too Soon? In the Infinite Comic Deadpool: Too Soon?, while investigating an assassin who has been killing several "silly" superheroes across the multiverse, Deadpool seeks to protect Spider-Ham, tracking him down to Central Park, where he interrupts an ongoing baseball game between the Amazing Arachnids (a team of Spider-People from across the Spider-Verse) and the Seething Snikters (a team of variants of Wolverine, his clones 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.Deadpool: Too Soon? Infinite Comic #6. (September 2016) Marvel Comics.
Old Man Hawkeye