Agent Spider is a minor character in Invincible, debuting in Season 2.
He is an spider-themed superhero that hails from another universe in which Invincible meets after Angstrom Levy sends him through the multiverse.
Appearance
Agent Spider has a black bodysuit covered in webs, with dijon yellow colored clothing padding on his arms and legs, and spider like web designs for his torso and chest, his chest has a big letter of silver colored A, standing for “Agent", he has red lenses, and is covered in a antique white colored full mask. He also wears a grey utility belt and vest where his logo is placed along with grey tactical boots and pair of gloves matching colors of his mask with exception of three fingers each colored black.
Personality
Agent Spider is depicted as an eccentric but compassionate person brimming with experience, willing to assist even a total stranger during their moments of need. Despite his enigmatic presence, he displays full of annoyance with his sense of humor and often annoys his opponents and his allies at the same time.
History
During a battle with one of his nemesis, Prof. Ock, a mysterious portal opened before the two. From it emerged Invincible, a Viltrumite superhero from another dimension, who accidentally crashed into Prof. Ock. Agent Spider congratulates the fellow hero, who is initially distrusting of him because of his nemesis's old age and his menacing look (ex. red lenses) Agent Spider tries to convince Invincible by mentioning his previous Multiversal experiences, but he is cut short by Prof. Ock attacking Invincible from behind. It is implied that Agent Spider and Invincible then teamed-up to defeat Prof. Ock.
After one of Angstrom's portals opens in Agent Spider's reality, he webs Invincible's back in order to follow him to his fight with the villain, but does not quite make it through the portal.
Powers and Abilities
- Spider Physiology: By unknown means, Agent Spider acquired the proportional physical abilities of a spider, granting him the ability to do whatever a spider can.
- Web Generation: Agent Spider can generate spider webs, which possess incredible tensile strength and adhesive properties. He uses them for many purposes, including swinging between structures and restraining his enemies.
- Wall-Crawling: Agent Spider can adhere to and crawl along solid surfaces, such as walls and ceilings, much like a spider. Unlike his inspiration, who can cling using all five fingers, Agent Spider appears to rely only on his thumb, index, and ring fingers on each hand to maintain his grip.
- Superhuman Durability: Despite being caught in Professor Ock’s powerful grip and slammed against a wall with enough force to shatter the concrete, Agent Spider remarkably withstood the attack, sustaining minimal injury and showing no signs of a broken back.
- Superhuman Agility: Agent Spider was able to evade many of Professor Ock’s attacks, moving acrobatically with ease and leaping across the battlefield without difficulty.
- Superhuman Reflexes: Agent Spider was able to react to many of Professor Ock’s attacks, evading them effectively, and also responded quickly when Mark appeared unexpectedly, stumbling upon Professor Ock.
Abilities
- Skilled Acrobat: Agent Spider is shown to be proficient at aerial acrobatics when he dodged Prof Ock's tentacle attacks and able to somewhat defy gravity by flipping in mid-air before shooting two webs to disarm Prof Ock.
- Skilled Marksman: Agent Spider seems to have a good aim at where he shoots his webs at, seemingly able to hit Prof Ock's face well as well as hitting the webs at the right surface to swing from.
- Skilled Comedian: He seems quite well-versed in the art of wisecracking and often makes quips to annoy his enemies, even to Invincible who quoted that he won't "shut up." about it, helps psychologically taunting and distracting his opponents.
Sightings
| Season 2 | ||||||||||||
| 1. "A Lesson For Your Next Life": | Absent | 5. "This Must Come as a Shock": | Absent | |||||||||
| 2. "In About Six Hours, I Lose My Virginity to a Fish": | Absent | 6. "It's Not That Simple": | Absent | |||||||||
| 3. "This Missive, This Machination!": | Absent | 7. "I'm Not Going Anywhere": | Absent | |||||||||
| 4. "It's Been a While": | Absent | 8. "I Thought You Were Stronger": | Debut | |||||||||
Gallery
Trivia
- In a tweet from Josh Keaton on Twitter/X, he asked to his followers if Agent Spider's real name should be Parker Petersen or Vinnie Valet.
- Agent Spider is a stand-in for the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man, conceived for the following reasons:
- In order to somewhat accurately adapt Issue #33 of the original comics, which featured a brief cameo from Spider-Man, as well as Doc Ock.
- Spider-Man in particular was given this treatment in homage to Issue #14 of Marvel Team-Up Vol. 3, which features Invincible teaming up with Spider-Man and meeting The Avengers during the events of Issue #33.
- Due to Spider-Man's media rights being partially split between Sony and Marvel (and by extension, Disney), which would require extensive negotiations which could prove either prohibitively expensive or potentially delay production.
- Additionally, because Sony owns the primary TV rights to Spider-Man, they've mandated that distributed usage of the character for television (either by Marvel/Disney or third-party licensees) requires that the work in question does not exceed "feature length", i.e. 44 minutes. As episodes of Invincible all run approximately 45 minutes, this prevents any sort of agreement being made.
- In order to somewhat accurately adapt Issue #33 of the original comics, which featured a brief cameo from Spider-Man, as well as Doc Ock.
- Despite his role as a stand-in for the actual Spider-Man, Agent Spider was mostly received well among fans, to the point that many consider he was "adopted" by the fandom and considered a proper Spider-Person.
- The Marvel's Spider-Man modding community has created several mods that add Agent Spider's suit into the game, with the most popular one being made just one day after I Thought You Were Stronger aired.
- A recurring joke in the Spider-Man fandom is to edit Agent Spider over the web slinger and pretend that he was actually the original and that Spider-Man was the stand-in.
- Agent Spider additionally lampshades a handful of mythology gags present in the Spider-Man franchise, including:
- Being savvy of, and making note of the concept of interdimensional portals and multiverse theory. This is a nod to the Spider-Verse storyline, a recurring setup that saw Spider-Man meeting and teaming up with alternate versions of himself from other dimensions, said dimensions being tied to other storylines with their own comic series.
- His voice actor being Josh Keaton, whom is particularly well-known as one of the animated Spider-Man's voices, most notably that of the Spectacular Spider-Man from the 2008 animated series of the same name, as well as Ultimate Spider-Man, one of the four Spider-Men playable in the 2010 video game, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Peter Parker in the 2011 video game Spider-Man: Edge of Time, and Spider-Man and many other games such as Marvel Vs Capcom 3 (2011), Marvel Super Hero Squad the Video Game (2009), And Marvel Super Hero Squad the Infinity Gauntlet (2010).
- In the Spanish dub, Javier Olguín, voice of the Amazing Spider-Man, voices Agent Spider.
- His name, while partially chosen to make the character legally distinct, is also a reference to an incarnation of Spider-Man from the Marvel Adventures series by Paul Tobin, who went by the alias "Agent Nine".
- Prior to the release of Season 2, Josh Keaton was confirmed to play a role, which led to many viewers who were familiar with the comics to assume he'd be voicing Spider-Man. This wound up technically being the case, albeit a legally distinct case.[1]
- He is a playable character in Invincible: Guarding The Globe.
- His Hero Dossier uncovers the events of the Invincible Series after season 2 episode 8. Cecil is interested to have Agent Spider on his team "If he ever finds his way to their dimension".