Another reason to tune into Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.
Related: The New Movies And Shows On Our Watchlist This January 2025
2024 was a relatively quiet year for Marvel and the MCU. But 2025 looks to be a rebound for one of the titans of the entertainment industry with no less than three movies and even more shows. Already, people have been obsessed with Marvel Rivals and the internet virality of certain characters (aka Jeff the Land Shark). Another reason to tune into the MCU this year? 2025 marks the entry of what may be the first Filipino superhero into the franchise, or at least in animated form. Here are the deets.
HERE COMES WAVE
ICYDK, the first Marvel series of 2025 is right around the corner with Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. The animated series, which features a more comic-aligned art style, explores a young Peter Parker on his way to becoming the Spider-Man we all know today and sees him juggle life between being a regular high school student at Midtown High and fighting crime.
The show includes a who’s who of familiar characters such as Aunt May, Otto Octavius, and Matt Murdock, and interestingly, features Norman Osborn serving as Peter’s mentor, which is a departure from the mentor role Tony Stark played to Peter in the main MCU timeline. Another character featured on the show that caught our attention was Pearl Pangan, also known as Wave.
While we don’t know much about her role in the series, yet, we do know from the trailer that Pearl is one of Peter’s classmates at Midtown High and shares an interaction when Peter bumps into Pearl in the hallway. “Petey’s always been a bit clumsy,” she tells the young hero. For the uninitiated, Pearl Pangan is widely regarded as Marvel’s first Filipino superhero and made her comics debut in May 2019 in the War of the Realms: New Agents of Atlas #1 comic. Designed by Asian-American writer Greg Pak and Filipino artist Leinil Francis Yu, Pearl goes by the superhero name Wave and is a swimmer from Mactan, Cebu.
As her name suggests, the double kampilan-wielding Filipino superhero’s powers are water-based and range from water manipulation to controlling the sea, as well as creating swelling surges of waves. New York City is a far cry from Cebu, so it will be interesting to see what part Pearl plays in the series’ overall narrative. But even if she’s just Peter’s classmate, it is a start for what could be other appearances in the wider MCU.
Filipino representation in the MCU, after all, is not uncommon, but Pearl might just be one of the most significant ones considering her role as potentially the first Filipino superhero to make it on Marvel’s TV and movie front. Also, back in 2021, we speculated whether Pearl would appear in the MCU, and it seems we got our answer four years later.
We’ll get to know for sure when Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man premieres on Disney+ on January 29.
Continue Reading: 8 Characters In The MCU That Have A Pinoy Connection
