Popverse's top stories

• Jeremy Renner and his Marvel co-stars laughed at Thor’s foam hammer when they made the first Avengers film
• Simon Kinberg on writing X-Men movies, producing Glenn Powell's The Running Man remake, and co-creating Star Wars Rebels [Popversations]
• Which Dragon Ball Z characters are the most painful to voice, according to the voice cast themselves

Anyone can wear the mask.

That’s the underlying message from the 2018 film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. In 2023, I had the pleasure of meeting Josh Pchajek, one of the many who wear the mask. Pchajek understands that with great power there must also come great responsibility, and he’s used his role as Spider-Man to make the world a better place. Pchajek isn’t just some Spider-Man cosplayer; he’s a hero.

I first ran into Pchajek at Bowling Green State University’s 2023 Spider-Man academic conference. Pchajek and I were both guest speakers, and I was surprised to see how much we had in common. Aside from our first names, both of us have been affiliated with the Spider-Man Crawlspace Podcast and the Spidey-Dude Podcasting Network.

Pchajek’s presentation closed out the academic conference, and I couldn’t think of a better speaker to end with. Standing before a room full of Spider-Man fans and academics, the 21-year-old told his story about how cosplaying changed his life and helped him learn the true meaning of heroism. By the end of his presentation, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Nearly two years after the BGSU conference, I caught up with Pchajek, who is now 23, and asked him if I could share his story.

Spider-Man and the Amazing Ethan

Peter Parker’s story began when he was bitten by a radioactive spider. Pchajek’s story began with a costume and love for Spidey. “I've always been a massive Marvel nerd,” Pchajek says. “Back in the beginning of high school, I had a costume for comic con, and I did some birthday parties for my mom's friends’ kids, and I did one for my chemistry teacher's son as well. And it was just something I kind of did occasionally.”

Pchajek was living in Manitoba, a province of Canada. When someone at his job needed a Spider-Man, Pchajek saw it as a call to action. “About four years ago, I was setting up a dance floor for this kid's Make-A-Wish. Here in Manitoba, it's the Dream Factory. I was going to be setting up a dance floor, but they really needed someone to play Spider-Man. There were a couple of companies that did similar things to what I do now here, but they didn't have a lot of male performers, so they didn't have someone to play Spider-Man, who was this kid's favorite superhero.”

 “I was like, 'Okay, well, yeah, I have an old suit I can make work.' It was a Party Stuff costume, and a mask from a different suit and red Nike runners that I put together,” Pchajek recalls with amusement.

Little did Pchajek realize that he would be meeting a boy who would change his life forever.

“The kid, his name is Ethan, was going to go to Disneyland, but because his condition with leukemia was worsening, they decided to throw it here, because he wasn't allowed to go on the plane. His dream was to go meet Spider-Man, and he couldn't even leave Winnipeg.”

Pchajek made that dream come true by bringing Spider-Man to him. Dream Factory put together a special day for Ethan where he got to rescue Spider-Man, help take down a villain, and party together afterwards. Ethan didn’t see Pchajek as a cosplayer. To him, he was Spider-Man, and he was his special friend.

The Winnipeg Webhead

After his adventure with Ethan, Pchajek began regularly appearing as Spider-Man. He developed a persona, the Winnipeg Webhead, and his calendar was soon filled with birthday parties, community events, hospital visits, and Make-A-Wish/Dream Factory events. This meant it was time to upgrade his suit.

“I've very much upgraded the suit since I first started,” Pchajek says. “There's a company I've worked to kind of fine-tune the suits a little bit. I can get a really nice Spider-Man suit for like, $1,500 or more, and be great, but I'd be terrified to wear it at a birthday party, because if a kid throws a cupcake or whatever, things are ruined. So, I found a really good suit for a good price and worked with the company to kind of fine-tune it a bit.”

“The soles of the bottom of the shoes are now red instead of just black, so it blends in a bit better. The lenses are made out of different materials, so that I can use my eyelashes to defog them when they fog up.”

When Pchajek and I met in 2023, he had almost 34 Spider-Man suits. Today, he’s trimmed it down to 10. To be fair, that’s still an impressive number of Spider-Man costumes, and far more than I own. When Pchajek is booked, he tries to find out which version of Spider-Man the kid is into, so he can show up as the Spider-Man they know best, whether it’s the Insomniac video game, Maguire, Garfield, or Holland. Pchajek says the kids appreciate the authenticity because it makes it seem more real to them.

Pchajek was in demand, and it wasn’t long before he started his own business. Legend Character Rentals doesn’t only handle Spider-Man, but many other pop culture characters such as Elsa, Buddy the Elf, and even comedy duos like Bill and Ted.

“Someone asked me for Buddy the Elf,” Pchajek recalls. “Okay, well, I can get this costume for this much. And so, I did that. And then someone else asked for Captain America, and then Batman, and Flash. Spider-Man is always going to be our number one most booked character, I think, but having these other characters gives us more interest. I realized there was sort of a niche, untapped market here in Winnipeg, where there were a few other companies that did that, but it was they mostly only did princesses, or they only did impersonator,s or stuff like that. We try to do a broad overview of a lot of them. You can actually have Buddy the Elf and the Grinch and Elsa all show up with Spider-Man.”

Pchajek says that Legend Character Rentals offers around 60 characters, and that number is regularly growing. At the time I spoke with him, Pchajek says they were getting ready to do 80 events in one month alone.

“A kid will be like, 'Oh, hey Elsa, it's good to see you again.' And you have that moment where you're like, did they see me at a birthday party? Did they see me at Disneyland or whatever? We have to play off of that. Our costumes have to be at that level. Our knowledge of these characters has to be at that level of the movie. Because to the kid, it's like, yeah, this is Elsa. All my performers. I have to really hammer home the fact that like I'm not paying you to play Spider-Man. You are Spider-Man, because to these kids, you are that person.”

Power and responsibility

Pchajek’s business requires him to wear many costumes, but Spider-Man is still his favorite. Although a big part of their business is birthday parties, Pchajek never forgot the impact Ethan had on him, which inspired him to do more hospital visits.

“I love being able to do that with a big chunk of my team. Birthday parties, daycare visits, we get paid for those ones there. My vision and goal with this company is to use those to fund hospital visits and those sort of events. This is really why we do this. You get to make kids smile and especially in times when kids need it most.”

“There was a kid at one hospital visit, and he just got out of surgery an hour ago, and he's going back to his room, and he saw us in the hallway. The boy just had half of his torso cut open, but he so excited. He was shocked. We got to say hi and took pictures. It’s dire for these kids who are facing life-threatening diseases or having surgery, and this is such a huge boost to their day. Yes, medicine can help, and yes, rest and all that, but having their spirits lifted doing this sort of thing is huge. It's a huge honor to be able to be a part of that.”

The relationships that Pchajek builds during these visits don’t end when he walks out the door. Pchajek makes sure that Spider-Man is a regular part of these kids' lives, checking in on them during birthdays, holidays, and other special events.

“There's a couple other families that I've met through this over the years, and typically at the bigger hospital events, I don't really get to have as much one on one time with the kids, but there's a couple times at some of these events where I've gotten to know them, and I've reached out to the Dream Factory or the Children's Hospital.”

“I say, 'Hey, I just want to be able to send them a birthday message or Merry Christmas or something like that.' We'll film a quick thing. Spider-Man says, 'Hey, hope you're doing well. I just want to wish you happy birthday. We had so much fun hanging out with you. I'm looking forward to seeing you again.' It's cool, because they'll always usually send a video back, or a video of the kid watching the video, and that's awesome.”

“There's one kid I've met who is on a reserve, and it's a very different lifestyle there. When I had gone to his birthday party the second year in a row, he had shown me that he kept a picture of me and him on his nightstand at home. He said, 'When I'm sad, I always look at this picture and it's nice knowing you're there.' He was like nine or ten at the time. His family has already booked me for next year again. This will be the fourth time that I'm seeing this kid on an annual basis. I get to watch the kid grow up, and Spider-Man is like his best friend. It's really cool being able to pour into these kids’ lives and do it. I'm not Josh, I'm Spider Man in that scenario, but it's nice being able to be a part of their childhoods.”

Pchajek’s inspiration

As Spider-Man, Pchajek has teamed up with many wonderful children, but he’s never forgotten Ethan, the boy who started his journey. “That was a huge shift. I get to use my God given talents of being a nerd, and get to use them for good, and for pouring into these kids’ lives, and then over the years, just doing these different events, seeing how much it means to these people. There really isn't anything quite like it.”

“You get to bring this joy to these people in dark times, or if it's for a birthday party, it's good times too. It's not really about me at this point; it's interacting with that kid and being able to do that.”

After a long battle with leukemia, Ethan passed away. When Pchajek got to that part of his story during his 2023 BGSU presentation, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Listening to Pchajek talk about Ethan, you can hear in his voice how deeply it affected him.

Pchajek has kept in touch with Ethan’s parents. Ethan’s mother, Dearly, who spoke with me for this article, is forever grateful for the impact Pchajek had on her son. “We'll never forget the genuine happiness and spark in Ethan's eyes as he moved through the puzzles to find and rescue Spider-Man that day,” Dearly says. “Josh played the role so well, and we are forever thankful for Josh and the core memory we got to create with him. It brought our son so much joy to get to interact with his all-time favorite superhero, and it brings us even more joy now that other children and families get to experience it as well. We are so proud of him!”

Dearly sent Pchajek an artist’s rendition of Ethan and the Winnipeg Webhead, which is one of Pchajek’s most prized possessions. Pchajek and Ethan’s family gave us permission to share the image for this article.

“To anyone, this was just a kid with Spider-Man, but to me and to Ethan's family, this is Ethan and me as Spider-Man,” Pchajek said during the closing of his 2023 BGSU presentation. “I am Ethan's Spider-Man. I got to be Spider-Man for the bravest kid I know, who could fight any battle against any supervillain, and still nothing compared to what he was going through. And I owe my life to this kid. He has quite literally changed my life forever.”

The 2018 film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse tells us that anyone can wear the mask. One thing is for sure: the world is a better place because Josh Pchajek is under the mask.

Marvel's most reliable superhero has proven he can do a whole lot more than just 'whatever a spider can.' Swing into Spidey's history with Popverse's...

• Best Spider-Man comic books 
• Spider-Man movie watch order
• Spider-Man's actors, ranked

Just watch out for that radioactive blood.