Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Season 1.
A bunch of different versions of Spider-Man have appeared on the big and small screens since Stan Lee and Steve Ditko first unleashed him on the world in 1962. Heck, the MCU boasts multiple incarnations of Peter Parker all on its own.
There’s the mainstream, Earth-616 version, played by Tom Holland, across various live-action MCU installments. There are also two animated “variant” versions of Peter Parker, both voiced by Hudson Thames, that appear in What If…? and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, respectively. We could also include Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s webslingers, however, they’re really just legacy franchise imports rather than MCU natives.
Equally, the What If…? Spider-Man hails from an offshoot, zombie apocalypse timeline, so he’s more of a gimmick than a fully-fledged character (Marvel Zombies may change that). But the Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man‘s Peter Parker is – like Holland’s Spidey – a three-dimensional protagonist who mirrors Lee and Ditko’s original creation in every way that counts except one: he’s not broke.
Non-MCU Versions of Spider-Man Aren’t Perfect, Either
For the record, this isn’t an MCU-bashing exercise. It’s not as though the other, non-MCU Spider-Men reflect their comic book counterpart flawlessly, either. If we swing past Nicholas Hammond’s TV movie Peter Parker (and we should; those low-budget flicks are rough) and start with Maguire, he’s clearly too old to portray a high schooler (which probably explains why Sam Raimi’s trilogy zips through this stretch of Pete’s life with Spider-speed). Maguire’s Peter also deals out quips more sparingly than his pen-and-ink inspiration, and is generally less of a motormouth in tight situations.
The same goes for Garfield’s wall-crawler in Marc Webb’s two The Amazing Spider-Man outings: he’s not above corny mid-fight patter, however, he’s not piling it on, either. In fairness, that’s because Garfield and Webb were more heavily influenced by the Ultimate Marvel comics line (which reimagined Marvel’s iconic characters for new readers). Still, it’s a notable divergence from the “classic” depiction of Peter Parker and his alter-ego as an endless font of goofy remarks.
But straight-laced or not, neither of these versions of Peter Parker is flush with cash – especially Maguire’s Pete, who lives paycheck-to-paycheck and ducks his landlord. The same applies if we broaden things out to include big screen animated franchises (we’ll skip TV-only, non-MCU Spidey cartoons, since there are over 20 of them). The Spider-Verse movies’ Peter B. Parker – the guy who mentors Miles Morales, not the celebrity superhero who dies early on – seemingly lives a relatively modest, middle-class lifestyle (from what we see of his apartment, at least).
The MCU’s Peter Has Tech Bro Money
By contrast, the MCU’s two main Spider-Men are arguably the most financially stable of any multimedia webheads, live-action or otherwise. In fairness, Holland’s Peter Parker starts out with fairly limited resources when we meet him in Captain America: Civil War. His DIY costume is pretty low-rent, and it’s clear Aunt May is far from loaded. But that lasts for like… a scene.
Then he meets Tony Stark and gets a state-of-the-art spandex – the first in an increasingly tricked-out series of outfits with price tags the average person couldn’t cover. True, Marvel Studios ultimately resets Peter’s status quo at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home, cutting him off from Stark Industries’ coffers. Yet that’s only after he’s spent multiple films as the beneficiary of a billionaire tech bro (itself a dubious adaptation choice in 2025, but I digress).
What about Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man? Well, so far the animated Peter Parker is following a similar trajectory to his live-action variant. The only real difference is that Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man swaps out Stark for another rich scientist, Norman Osborn. Everything else stays the same; Pete’s got the backing of a major corporate benefactor, who designs and pays for his superhero togs, provides surveillance and recon, and just generally takes the monetary hassle out of crime-fighting.
In the comics, Peter sometimes frets over something as basic as the price of making more web fluid. But in the MCU (whether it’s Earth-616 or elsewhere), our hero is fully funded – and that’s a problem.
Why Peter Parker’s Poverty Matters
Why does Peter Parker’s bank balance matter so much? Because relatability has always been Spider-Man’s selling point. It’s why Lee and Ditko made Peter Parker a teenager – the same age as the typical Marvel reader in 1962 – at a time when teens were sidekicks, not headliners. It’s also why they gave him money problems: because most of us have trouble making ends meet at some point, especially when we’re students.
It helps us connect with Peter despite his fantastic abilities, in a way that’s not possible with mega-wealthy adventurers like Tony Stark. And in connecting with Pete, we care more about him; we’re rooting for him to win. Not just when he’s tangling with the likes of the Green Goblin or Doc Ock, but also when he’s trying to land a date or scrape together enough dough to make life easier for his aunt.
His problems become our problems, and vice-versa. We become him, and he becomes us (something only reinforced by Spider-Man’s full-face mask). It’s what makes Peter Parker so special – and Marvel Studios should remember that the next time it considers dropping the cash-strapped aspect of his character.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is currently streaming on Disney+, with new episodes dropping Wednesdays.