After Gwen Stacy, Disney+’s Spider-Man Show Needs To Introduce These 10 Characters

Disney+’s animated series Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man wove many familiar faces into the first season, and these ten Marvel characters would be great choices for future seasons. The series, which feels like a Spider-Man version of What If…?, debuted in 2025, telling the origin story and early superhero experiences of a teenage Peter Parker.

Ahead of the premiere, Disney renewed the series for seasons 2 and 3. The showrunner announced plans for the show to release every single year, providing consistent content. Along the same lines, the creative team has provided updates about the future seasons of the Spider-Man sleeper hit as they go.

We know that Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man season 2 will introduce Venom and the Spider-Gwen version of Gwen Stacy. Plus, Kingpin will join at some point in the future. This news is thrilling, since many of the core Spider-Man allies aren’t part of this alternate-universe storyline. Along with those three characters, this is my wishlist of new Marvel characters that could be fantastic in the series.

10

Nightcrawler

We might be a few years away from the X-Men joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the best part of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is that it doesn’t exist in the sacred timeline.

The most exciting choice for Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is Nightcrawler, a temporary enemy turned long-time friend of the webslinger from the comics. Since their first team-up in 1976, the two characters have developed a strong admiration for each other, and they’ve fought together many times. Nightcrawler even temporarily took on the mantle of Spidey in 2023 in Uncanny Spider-Man.

It would be so much fun to see what they did with Nightcrawler in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Thanks to the alternate-universe setting, the writers can theoretically introduce any X-Men characters and storylines without worrying about future movies and TV shows.

9

Black Cat

Black Cat is an iconic Spider-Man character, and she would be a great addition to Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, especially since she was a part of the Amazing Spider-Man comics. Because she took on the role of a villain, an ally, and a love interest, there are so many different directions they could take Black Cat in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.

Currently, Peter Parker has a love interest, Pearl Pangan, and another prominent ship, Nico Minoru. Inevitably, he will also be shipped with Gwen Stacy,

As such, I would rather Black Cat not be another romantic interest. I would be particularly interested to see her as a villain with her bad luck powers. They could do an episode or two in which Peter Parker tries to figure out why everything is going wrong for him.

8

Vulture

Since he appeared in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Vulture has become a fan-favorite villain. Before that, he was a bald, goofy-looking bad guy with very little motivation to be evil other than greed. The MCU version of the character humanizes him and makes him feel more terrifying.

Because Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’s alternate universe has many similarities to the MCU, it would make perfect sense to include the movie version of Vulture as a villain in the cartoon. Hudson Thames’ version of Peter Parker could either not have gone to prison or broken out. Either option would be fitting for the MCU version of the character.

7

Jessica Jones

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man brought back Charlie Cox as Daredevil, who has become synonymous with the character ever since he played him in the old Netflix show, which is now part of Disney+’s Defenders Saga. Similarly, Krysten Ritter is the embodiment of Jessica Jones after she played the titular role in the Emmy, Hugo, and Peabody-winning TV show.

They originally considered making a young version of Jessica Jones into Peter Parker’s best friend in the show. This would have made sense because back in the 2000s, Peter Parker and Jessica Jones’ shared comics backstory featured them in high school together.

However, the choice not to go with this storyline gives them a prime opportunity to introduce adult Jessica as an ally of Daredevil, who will most likely return after Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man season 1’s ending.

6

Iceman

Although it’s certainly its own thing, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man looked back to the previous animated Spider-Man TV shows for inspiration, most notably, The Spectacular Spider-Man. As they move forward, they could take inspiration from the 1981 show Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, which featured Spider-Man working alongside Iceman and Firestar.

They came back together in Iceman #3 in 2018. It would be too much of a copy to bring both Iceman and Firestar, but they could definitely bring Iceman into the story. Specifically, it would be interesting to see how this version of Peter Parker would handle Bobby Drake moving in with him and Aunt May.

5

Squirrel Girl

Throughout Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Peter Parker is the quintessential funny and optimistic version of the character. His friends are a little more grounded and realistic, occasionally verging on cynical. However, I think it would be interesting to see him interact with a more light-hearted friend as well. The perfect choice is Squirrel Girl.

The hyperactive hero is an undying optimist with a great sense of humor and plenty of pep. Because she’s New York-based, Squirrel Girl has interacted with Spider-Man many times, and they’ve all been entertaining. I would love to see her team up with Spider-Man in a future season of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.

4

Electro

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man season 1 briefly teased the villain Electro, but he hasn’t appeared as an antagonist yet. While I wouldn’t want to see him as a season-long villain, he would make for a great villain of the week or possibly a 2 to 3-episode arc.

Since Max Dillon works as an Oscorp engineer, they could easily go the route of introducing him as a character before featuring him as a villain, which is how they generally approach the Spider-Man villains in the Disney+ series.

What’s more, there are so many different variants of Electro that the creative team has a ton of leeway on what the character looks like, the powers, and the personality. I’d love to see the character in the classic outfit, rather than the costume from The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

3

Ned Leeds

Ned Leeds is Peter Parker’s best friend, and so far, he has been the “guy in the chair” for Peter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It doesn’t seem like they’re building up to a villain twist, even though he becomes the Hobgoblin in some of the comics.

Frankly, I couldn’t see the MCU version turning evil as much as I’d love to see it. Obviously, the comics feature him being brainwashed and ingesting the Hobgoblin serum. However, it would feel like a true betrayal for them to make the MCU’s Ned Leeds into the villain, since he’s such a sweet cinnamon roll.

However, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man has the perfect opportunity to give him a villain storyline. He isn’t Peter Parker’s friend or the “guy in the chair” since the teen goes to Rockford T. Bales High School instead of Midtown High. We don’t know what his personality would look like in the Disney+ cartoon, so they could make the villainous turn more probable in the show.

2

Cindy Moon

In Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, the spider that bites Peter doesn’t die, opening the door to other web-slingers existing in this alternate universe. They’ve already confirmed Gwen Stacy will be Spider-Gwen, which raises the question: what other spider-people could exist in the animated show?

Even though Miles Morales has been my all-time favorite Spider-person since his comic debut, I worry that his introduction alongside Peter and Gwen would make it too similar to the ongoing Spidey and His Amazing Friends show. To avoid that, they could introduce another fan-favorite, Silk.

Cindy Moon and Peter Parker were bitten by the same spider in the comics, so it would fit perfectly for her superhero alter-ego, Silk, to appear in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Plus, Cindy Moon and Gwen Stacy fighting together would be epic.

1

White Rabbit

One of the less appreciated Spider-Man villains is Lorina Dodson, aka White Rabbit. Lorina is a bored, rich woman who kills her husband and uses her inheritance to become an Alice-in-Wonderland-inspired supervillain equipped with high-tech gadgets. She has an eccentric personality and a flair for the dramatic.

Since Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man has already chosen some of the more obscure villains, it would be great for them to add White Rabbit. Her zaniness would fit right into the show, plus she has ties to Tombstone in the comics.

Since Lonnie isn’t a villain yet, they could always flip the dynamic. Usually, Tombstone bosses White Rabbit around, but the Disney+ show could feature White Rabbit as an authority figure over Lonnie.

Release Date

January 29, 2025

Network

Disney+

Writers

Charlie Neuner

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  Hudson Thames

  Peter Parker / Spider-Man (voice)

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