The Manhunter/Spider-Girl Parallels





You've read my pained reactions to the news that DC just cancelled Manhunter, which featured the adventures of lawyer/superhero Kate Spencer. Well, I also found out that during the same week, Marvel announced the cancellation of its Spider-Girl series, which depicted the possible-future adventures of May Parker, Peter (Spider-Man) Parker's future daughter.



Both heroines' titles had previously been cancelled by their respective comic companies, and both titles were resurrected by aggressive letter-writing campaigns of their respective fanbases. Well, that was enough to make me think of the Lincoln/Kennedy Parallels and how I could make a similar list for Spider-Girl and Manhunter.



The trouble is that I've never bought a single of Spider-Girl except the original What-If story that inspired. And while I've purchased and read several issues of Manhunter, I missed a few at the beginning.



But that hasn't stopped me. Here are my list of Manhunter/Spider-Girl Parallels:



1. Both heroines' titles were cancelled and revived after vigorous fan reaction.



2. Both have ancestors who were superheroes from a prior generation. (In Kate's case it's her grandparents Sandra (Phantom Lady) Knight and Arnold (Iron Munro) Munro. In May's case, it's you-know-who.)



3. Both derived their outfits from the uniforms of heroes who were active in the 90's (real-time) but who haven't been seen in several years (once again real-time). (May derived her costume from the Spider-Man costume of Ben Reilly (the Spider-Clone), while Kate's costume is cannibalized from a Darkstar uniform and Jean-Paul Valley's gauntlets.)



4. Both had grandparents who had previously worked for the federal government. (Kate had Iron and Sandra above, while Peter's parents Richard and Mary Parker were federal agents.)



5. Both have fathers with super-strength. (In May's case it's you-know-who once again. In Kate's, it's criminal Walter Pratt.)



6. Both have younger relatives in their bloodline who are starting to manifest super-powers.


7. Both have brown hair.


8. Their real last names both end in "er".


OK, as you can see, I've run out of similarities faster than I thought. This is where the audience participation portion of this post comes in, dear readers.


Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to see if you can come up with a similarity or coincidence between Spider-Girl and Manhunter that is not listed above, and then post it in the comments section.


Go to it!