About

Meows Morales, also known as Spider-Cat, is an alternate universe version of Miles Morales from Spider-Man resembling an anthropomorphic cat. The character made a single appearance in Spider-Man Annual Vol 3, in which he is also killed. In June 2023, the character saw a boost in virality on sites including Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram, inspiring memes and fan art depicting him.

Origin

On June 26th, 2019, Spider-Man Annual Volume 3 issue 1 was released.^[1] The issue features a story titled "Secret Roars," a parody of the "Secret Wars" comics starring the anthropomorphic pig version of Spider-Man, Spider-Ham. At one point in the issue, Spider-Ham is talking to Howard the Duck at a table when a cat version of Miles Morales, Meows Morales, swings into the window (shown below). This is the only time Meows Morales appears in the comic. According to the character's Fandom^[2] page, Meows Morales is killed in this issue when "the supervising celestial [destroys] their battlerealm and all its inhabitants, including Meows Morales."

Spread

In June 2023, Twitter^[3] users began sharing images of Meows Morales' panels from the comic. On June 11th, Instagram^[4] user sillycattos_ shared a meme showing a kitten climbing up a wall captioned "meows morales," garnering over 825,000 likes in 11 days (shown below).

On June 14th, Twitter^[5] user @GL1TT3RPVKE posted the panels, writing, "No way," garnering over 153,000 likes in a week. Over the following days, numerous pieces of fan art and memes depicting Meows Morales were posted online. On June 15th, Twitter^[9] user @pomegrant3 posted a redraw of the sillycattos_ meme, garnering over 100,000 likes in a week (shown below).

On June 16th, 2023, Twitter^[6] user @Cosmolonian posted artwork that gained over 72,000 likes in six days (shown below, left). On the same day, Instagram^[7] user isa_illustrate posted artwork that gained over 18,000 likes in the same span of time (shown below, right).

On June 18th, Twitter^[8] user @ratttown posted a His Ass Is Not meme using Meows Morales, garnering over 63,000 likes in four days (shown below, left). On June 20th, Tumblr^[10] user chloesimaginationthings posted a comic about Meows Morales, garnering over 13,000 notes in two days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References