Biography

Orphaned when her parents were killed in a plane crash, Hilary Penna went to live with her Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Although extremely bright, her shyness and studious nature often caused her to be branded a social outcast. Ironically, just such a scholastic pursuit made possible Hilary's transformation into a wall-crawling, web-slinging extrovert. During a public exhibition on radiation, an irradiated arachnid fell on her hand, bit her and died. Hilary left the demonstration in pain; soon she began to manifest strange, spider-like abilities. Rather than put her talents to just use, the teenager followed a path dictated by her late 20th-century upbringing: She created a costume and capitalized on her newfound powers to pursue TV stardom.
Leaving the TV studio after a taping, Hilary chose to mind her own business when she encountered a burglar fleeing the scene of a robbery. Though she could have stopped the man easily enough, Hilary allowed him to pass -- arrogantly believing that it was not her responsibility to chase criminals. She returned home only to discover that an intruder had murdered her uncle. Learning that police had cornered the hoodlum in a nearby warehouse, Hilary donned her ninja costume and rushed off to seek vengeance. Employing her amazing abilities to capture the burglar, she realized that it was the thug she had allowed to escape at the studio. Filled with remorse, Hilary finally understood that with great power, there must also come great responsibility -- and she vowed never to shirk her responsibilities again.

(credit for Biography is to Marvel.com, Amazing how fiction imitates real life, no?)