LARRY CARPENTER
Real Name: Larry Carpenter
Identity/Class: Human
Occupation: Public relations specialist
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: Michael A. Galvan, Wilson Lambert, Los Angeles Police Department, other unidentified clients
Enemies: Julia Carpenter, Manipulator
(Ferrel J. Thompson);
indirectly Deathweb
(Antro/Hashi
Noto, Arachne/Dr.
Sylvie Yacqua, Therak/Theo
Davros)
Known Relatives: Julia Carpenter (Spider-Woman, ex-wife), Rachel Carpenter (daughter), Elizabeth Cornwall (former mother-in-law), Walter Cornwall (former father-in-law)
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: A house in Newport Beach,
California, USA;
formerly a home in Denver, Colorado, USA
First Appearance: Iron Man I#214 (January, 1987)
Powers/Abilities: Larry was a college graduate, who became a public relations specialist. He was a womanizer and loved money and feeling important, but was also a devoted father that did everything he could to protect his daughter.
Height: Unrevealed (6'; by approximation)
Weight: Unrevealed (180 lbs.; by approximation)
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Brown
History:
(Avengers West Coast#84 (fb)) - Larry and Julia where both college
students when they began dating. They fell in love and she dropped out
so he could work his way through college.
(Spider-Woman II#2 (fb) - BTS) - Julia and Larry got married after she dropped out of college and had a child.
(Avengers West Coast#84 (fb)) - Larry went into public relations after graduation. He was busy all the time and began cheating on Julia with other women.
(Avengers West Coast#78 (fb) - BTS) - Julia and Larry got divorced.
(Avengers West Coast#84 (fb)) - The couple divorced when their daughter was five years old. The court gave Julia custody of Rachel.
(Spider-Woman II#2 (fb) - BTS) - Julia had a hard time raising Rachel with the alimony she received from Larry. When Valerie Cooper asked Julia to move to Washington, Julia planned to take Rachel with her because she was sure Larry wouldn't care much because it would leave him with more weekends open for meeting women and golf.
(Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man I#125 (fb) - BTS) - Larry stayed in contact with his daughter and regularly called her even though his wife Julia had custody of her. He became worried because his ex-wife was never around when he called Rachel.
(Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man I#125 (fb)) - Larry called Julia, who was secretly now the heroine Spider-Woman, late one night and told her that he believed that Julia didn't live up to the responsibility of raising their daughter because she was never around when he called Rachel.
(Avengers West Coast#84 (fb)) - Larry sued for custody and won because Julia couldn't defend her constant absences and tell the court about her career as Spider-Woman and her work for the Commission. (see comments)
(Iron Man I#214) - Rachel was staying with her father and received a call from her mother. Larry took the phone from his daughter when she began to cry while talking to her mother. He was angry and disappointed in Julia because she often disappeared for days with no explanation and had now been gone for weeks when she (believed she) was supposed to be the one having custody of their daughter. He was aware that he was not a great father, but in his opinion Julia was even worse as a mother because she only upset their upset on the rare occasions that she called. He made it clear that he had started proceedings to have (sole) custody of Rachel transferred to him. Julia tried to reason with him, but then suddenly dropped the phone to save people from falling girders at a nearby building site. Larry kept screaming into the phone until a snitch named Scratch hung up the phone to make a call of his own to Chain Lightning of the Seekers to inform him of Spider-Woman's current location.
(Avengers West Coast#84 (fb)) - Larry moved to California with Rachel and Julia got the okay from her old friend Valerie Cooper of the Commission to move there as well so she could stay close to her daughter.
(Avengers West Coast#78) - Julia called Larry, who had been waiting for her to pick up Rachel, but she told him that she couldn't make it and promised to make it up to him the next weekend. Larry got angry because ever since the court gave him custody of Rachel, Julia was complaining how he was not cooperating with her about seeing Rachel and now she had no time even though he had planned a ski trip that weekend and Rachel had been looking forward all week to seeing her mother. He told Julia to consider him and Rachel for a change and insinuated that they could still be married if Julia had done so years ago. Larry then angrily hung up the phone. Julia felt bad, but was a bit comforted by the fact that Rachel at least knew that she was Spider-Woman.
(Avengers West Coast#86 (fb) - BTS) - Larry learned about a heart condition and decided to make as much money as possible in a short amount of time so that Rachel would be taken care of in case something happened to him.
(Avengers West Coast#84 (fb) - BTS) - Larry signed on to do P.R. for the Liberty Party and he believed the job would make him a lot of money.
(Avengers West Coast#84) - Larry was on the phone with Vic when Julia finally showed up to pick up Rachel for the day. She had tried to call him earlier to tell him that she would be late due to car pileup on the freeway, but she couldn't reach him. Larry informed her that he had no time to take a call from her because due to his new job with the Liberty Party and the double murder situation in connection to one of the candidates.
(Avengers West Coast#85) - During Deathweb's attack on the Liberty Party's convention, which was opposed by the Avengers West, Larry chewed out Spider-Woman for the failure of her team to do their job after the lights went out in the main hall. He was trying his best to keep the whole situation from turning into a P.R. disaster for the Galvan-Lambert ticket for presidential election, but Spider-Woman defended herself and her team by telling Larry that they were just trying to keep his employers alive. Larry begged Galvan and Lambert to leave, but Galvan was not willing to just ran away. Larry then asked Spider-Woman to make Galvan and Lambert leave, but she mumbled that it was Galvan's decision. Larry was glad when the lights finally came on again. Spider-Woman joined the battle against Deathweb behind the scenes, but they escaped after taking her daughter Rachel hostage. Moments later Larry entered the room, unaware of what had happened to his daughter, with his employers' security detail and confronted Iron Man about his team's failure to protect the convention and doing whatever they were doing in this room while everyone in the main hall was stumbling over each other in the dark. Iron Man told him about the attack by Deathweb and Galvan was informed by his security personnel about it and used the information to make it look to the press like the Avengers West were endorsing him.
(Avengers West Coast#86) - Larry stayed with the Avengers West at their Compound in Palos Verdes to make sure that they did their job and make it safe to come see the Liberty Party's presidential candidate that night at the Hollywood Bowl. He was concerned that two of them were getting getting checkups at the hospital, but Scarlet Witch and Living Lightning promised him that even without Hawkeye and U.S.Agent they would be able to do the job. The team kept it secret from Larry that his daughter had been taken hostage and Iron Man avoided even facing him. Deathweb dropped by the Compound and left behind behind a telemodule before leaving again. Iron Man and the others believed it to be a bomb and tried to defuse it. Larry begged them to wait until he got out, but was shocked when he saw a video of the Manipulator with his daughter telling the Avengers West that Spider-Woman and Spider-Man were dead though the child would stay safe unless the Avengers West attended the rally that night. Larry begged the Avengers West to stay away from the Hollywood Bowl as the Manipulator demanded and promised that he would just get more cops to protect Galvan and Lambert.
Later that night Larry sat on needles while Galvan gave his big speech at the Hollywood Bowl protected by the LAPD. He had a hard time believing Galvan's claim to make the country safe again while his daughter was a hostage of the Manipulator. He got really mad when Spider-Woman appeared because it could endanger his daughter's life, but his anger waned when Spider-Man appeared as well with Rachel, whom Spider-Man and Spider-Woman had saved from an unguarded trailer park in Gardena. Larry quickly turned on the heroic duo again for endangering his daughter by just barging into the trailer, but Spider-Woman had enough and finally revealed to Larry that it was her daughter as well because she was Julia Carpenter. Larry was shocked and immediately threatened to tell the court that she was endangering their daughter with her job as a member of the Avengers West and that he would make sure that Julia didn't see their daughter again without his presence. Rachel tried to calm him down, but Larry told his daughter to stay quiet and took her away. Larry arrived with Rachel at his car and promised to take her to a safe place when they were confronted by the Manipulator, who tried to kidnap Rachel again. Larry attacked the Manipulator, who at first warned him not to risk his public relations career and life, but when Larry wouldn't listen because he was trying to protect his daughter, the Manipulator gave him a heart attack. Spider-Woman, who had been following her ex-husband and daughter to make sure that they got home safe, and Spider-Man came to the rescue of Rachel and Larry. Spider-Woman told Spider-Man to get Rachel to safety and call an ambulance for Larry, but it was too late for him and he died in Julia's arms admitting with his final words that he had known about his heart condition and was trying to make as much money as possible to take care of Rachel. He realized in the end he that he and Julia were both not as bad as each other thought.
(Spider-Woman II#1 - BTS) - Julia's parents sent her and Rachel a condolence letter after Larry's death even though they never liked him that much.
Comments: Created by Danny Fingeroth & Tom Morgan.
Small continuity snafu in Avengers West Coast#84 when Julia tells Rachel about her past and how she became Spider-Woman. According to the flashback Larry had already sued for custody before Julia became a fugitive (following the events in 1986's Avengers Annual I#15), but in Iron Man I#214 she was already a fugitive when Larry told her about suing for custody. Spider-Woman II#2 repeated the sole custody before turning on the Commission bit. Maybe they had shared custody for some time and then he sued for sole custody after she became a fugitive?
This profile was completed on 06/20/2026, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 25th anniversary event.
Profile by Markus Raymond.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Larry Carpenter has no known connections to:
images: (without ads)
Iron Man I#214, p7, pan2 (main)
Avengers West Coast#86, p11, pan4 (head shot)
Avengers West Coast#86, p18, pan1 (death)
Appearances:
Iron Man I#214 (January, 1987) - Danny Fingeroth (writer), Tom Morgan
(artist), Mark Gruenwald (editor)
Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man I#125 (April, 1987) - Danny
Fingeroth (writer), Jim Mooney (pencils), Vince Colletta & Art
Nichols (inks), Jim Salicrup (editor)
Avengers West Coast#78 (January, 1992) - Roy & Dann Thomas
(writers), David Ross (pencils), Tim Dzon (inks), Nel Yomtov (editor)
Avengers West Coast#84-86 (July-September, 1992) - Roy & Dann Thomas
(writers), David Ross (pencils), Tim Dzon (inks), Nel Yomtov (editor)
Spider-Woman II#1-2 (November-December, 1993) - Roy & Dann Thomas
(writers), John Czop (pencils), Fred Fredricks (inks), Nel Yomtov
(editor)
First Posted: 09/15/2026
Last updated: 06/20/2026
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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