Hobie Brown was a young inventor who worked as a window cleaner to pay the bills. While he was a window washer he was caught in a battle between the Stilt-Man and Daredevil and was rescued by the latter. He was inspired by the Stilt-Man's Suit enough to make his own secret identity.
In order to make his job easier, he invented special equipment such as wrist and ankle bracelets to hold cartridges of cleaning fluid, steel claws and special boots for climbing. When he lost his cleaning job, he decided to give crime a go. He didn't want to hurt people, but he felt trapped by life. He modified the bracelets to shoot pellets filled with sleeping gas, made a hood, cape, and costume, and set out on his short-lived career of crime.
The Prowler was discouraged from a life of crime, and reformed. His credits include impersonating Spider-Man to save Peter Parker's secret identity, attacking Spidey because he was appointed as responsible for the death of Captain George Stacy, and having his costume stolen by two different guys, who were stopped by Spidey. He married his girlfriend Mindy and started doing construction work. When his charge in the big brother program, Manuel Lopez, was killed in a gang incident, Brown attacked the White Tiger, whom the police believed responsible for the death.
He worked for Silver Sable, and he also teamed up with several other rehabilitated villains (Rocket Racer, Will O' The Wisp and Sandman) and with a not so rehabilitated Puma, to form the Outlaws. They, among other things, helped Spidey clear his name once, and helped Spidey against the Avengers.
When mercenary work got slow with the Wild Pack, Prowler and Rocket Racer sought sponsors for the Great Game and hoped to split the profits from staging a fight with one another. They were interrupted by the rogue player El Toro Negro, however, and Hobie was left paralyzed from the waist down for a time. While he was inactive, his Prowler gear was stolen again by an enterprising criminal. The Prowler, now able to walk again, attended the Stilt-Man's funeral. He was soon apprehended for violating the Superhuman Registration Act, and was among the escapees who fought in the final battle of the Superhuman Civil War.
Recently, Spider-Man was able to convince Hobie to impersonate Spider-Man so the world doesn't realize that Spidey and Peter are one and the same. While infiltrated in New U Technologies per Parker's request to learn more about the company, the Prowler stumbled upon an experiment that was supposed to give Max Dillon's powers back to him, however, it was Max's former girlfriend, Francine Frye, who ended up becoming Electro instead. The Prowler was discovered and then chased down by Francine, who almost killed him in the process. The Jackal put a heavily burned Hobie Brown inside a healing pod to restore his body while a clone of him acted as a spy for the Jackal within Parker Industries. The original Hobie Brown was eventually found fully recovered in one of the sub-basements of the Jackal's second headquarters following the deterioration of his clone.[15] This episode and his continuing uncertainity for the future prompted Hobie to leave Spider-Man's side.
Current Version:
The Prowler (Parker Industries)
Former Version:
The Prowler (Original)
