This article contains spoilers for the full season of Spider-Noir, which is available on Prime Video and MGM+ now.
Spider-Noir, the first live-action Spider-Man (well, The Spider) series in nearly half a century, dropped in full on MGM+ earlier this week, followed hot on its heels by Prime Video. And as you’d expect, the eight episodes presented both in black and white and color are chock-full of Easter eggs for the comics that… Well now, hold on a second: No, they aren’t.
In fact, unlike your run of the mill MCU or DCU movie that will send you running to the closest fan wiki, Spider-Noir is almost doggedly set in its own universe, mercifully (mostly) free of the hints and teases and eye-popping character names that usually send Spider-Man fans going gaga to explain what the future holds. See, for example, the animated Disney+ series Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, which gave every single character a Marvel Comics canon identity, from the scientists in charge of Peter Parker’s intern class to a random security guard’s name tag. Instead, this detective story won’t make you comb every frame for clues…
…for the most part. While it’s hard to characterize everything we list below as an Easter egg (is an Easter egg really just a setting or a character name?), there are interesting riffs on the comics classics that we do get, including at least one deep cut character that curiously replaces another, and a portmanteau of sorts for another Spidey villain.
So with that in mind, let’s get into every Easter egg and comic book character we found in Spider-Noir. And if you found something we missed? It would be the cat’s pajamas if you let us know in the comments below, see?
As soon as the premiere episode, “Step Into My Office,” opens, The Spider is swinging through the city and delivering the following lines of narration:
“Someone once asked me what universe this was. Strange question, it stuck with me all these years later. All I could say for sure was it was the only one I knew of. And that was true then as it is now.”
In case you’re wondering, nobody shows up to recruit live-action Spider-Noir to the Spider-Society. There’s no further explanation of what this line is, or what it means. It’s almost an anti-Easter egg in a way as it leads nowhere and explains nothing. Who asked Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage) this question? Why did they ask him? Is it something we’ll get to see in Beyond the Spider-Verse, whenever that actually comes out in theaters?
'Someone once asked me what universe this was. Strange question...'“
Maybe! But as is, this is in here to explicitly state this is none of the previous movie universes involving Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, or Tom Holland. And neither is it connected to the Spider-Verse movies. Spider-Noir is an entirely different universe, and entirely disconnected from the rest.
Neither a character nor an Easter egg (you can see a theme here, right?), but as The Spider swings through NYC, we pass by a newsstand stocked with the Daily Bugle, the paper Peter Parker famously takes pictures for and J. Jonah Jameson is the editor of in the regular Spider-Man universe. Neither Peter nor Jonah appears here, but the Bugle is – we discover – the paper that fired Robbie Robertson (Lamorne Morris), and where he desperately would like his job back.
You probably know this one, right? Still in that opening montage, as The Spider stares at the grave of his lost love Ruby L. Williams (who, to the point we made above, is not a character from the comics), he says that someone once told him, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
A nerd’s favorite fact? Stan Lee originally wrote, “With great power there must also come – great responsibility,” back in Amazing Fantasy #15, the book that introduced Spider-Man. But over time it’s changed to what Ben says here, a phrase intrinsically tied to Spidey.
We should probably mention that Nicolas Cage is playing Ben Reilly – not Peter Parker. In the comics, Ben is the clone of Peter Parker, and has taken on various identities from Scarlet Spider to Chasm. But in this case, Ben is likely not a clone (there’s no indication of that in this show) but rather a way to make him distinct from Peter in the movies. Also of note: In the animated Spider-Verse movies, Cage does voice Peter Parker as Spider-Man Noir, who is different from The Spider. Confusing!
This is more of a “real life” Easter egg than anything, but also in the premiere Ben tracks a man he’s been following to the Standard Oil Company. In the real world, Standard Oil was a monopoly that was broken up by anti-trust laws in 1911, with some companies retaining the name, including the Standard Oil Company of New York. That company was absorbed into another company in 1931, and according to a newspaper Ben is reading in the premiere, the events of the show begin around October 11, 1933. Somebody call Movie Goofs!
Lamorne Morris’s newspaperman is a classic comic book character, usually depicted as the long-suffering editor of the Daily Bugle and voice of reason tempering J. Jonah Jameson’s frequent anti-Spider-Man rants.
Robbie was played by Hilly Hicks in the 1970s live-action Spider-Man show, and by Bill Nunn in Sam Raimi’s trilogy of films.
…And interestingly, Robbie’s full name is Joe “Robbie” Robertson – though it isn’t until he gets his job back in the final episode that we see his real name displayed on his desk’s nameplate.
While she doesn’t steal anything and doesn’t have bad luck powers, the femme fatale at the center of Spider-Noir is Li Jun Li’s Cat Hardy, which is a combination of Felicia Hardy and her anti-hero name, Black Cat. In the comics, Felicia is basically Catwoman to Spider-Man’s Batman, to the point that they have an on-again, off-again romantic relationship. In Spider-Noir, it’s the same with Ben and Cat, who get together briefly… Only to break up.
Ben's Spider-Sense seems to happen when he's either getting closer to the heart of a mystery, or in proximity to one of his old army buddies who were also experimented on. “
They don’t really explain this at any point in the show, but Ben Reilly – like the rest of the Spider-Mans – has spider-sense. In the comics and some of the movies, that’s the little Peter tingle that lets him know when there’s danger. Instead, in the show it seems to happen when Ben is either getting closer to the heart of a mystery, or in proximity to one of his old army buddies who were also experimented on and given fantastic powers. Basically, Ben gets a weird feeling on the back of his neck, the scene shifts, and sometimes he gets visions of the others with powers. That’s his Spider-Sense tingling!
Jack Huston’s Flint Marko is one of those guys who got experimented on, and is slowly turning into a man made of sand. A “sandman,” if you will. In the comics, Flint Marko is able to change his body into different sand constructs, which is not what we get here; it’s more some bad psoriasis and strong sand fists. More importantly, particularly in the third Raimi movie and occasionally in the comics, Marko is portrayed as a tragic villain who is trying to do the right thing even when he’s forced into crime – which is exactly what happens here on Spider-Noir.
More of a clarification than anything: Since Ben Reilly’s origin is he was bit by a guy whose DNA was fused with spider DNA, he has organic webshooters, a la Tobey Maguire, versus the mechanical web-shooters of Garfield, Holland (well, up until whatever happens in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, of course), and in (most of) the comics. Also if you were wondering, in the Spider-Man Noir comics, Peter is bitten by a spider that escapes from a spider idol in a warehouse, and is given his powers by a spider god.
The belle of Spider-Man’s 2026, as he’ll be appearing in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Season 2 and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the character Lonnie Lincoln, aka Tombstone, appears here too, played by Abraham Popoola. And he sort of has nothing to do with any other iteration of the character? Usually Tombstone is an albino gangster with nearly unbreakable skin and sharpened teeth. Here, Lonnie has some sort of crab-type armor and markings, but no different coloration. Also they don’t call him Tombstone?
Another character who doesn’t have a ton to do with his comic book counterpart, Brendan Gleeson’s (Irish) Silvermane has a stripe of grey in his hair, and like the comic book character is a mob boss. But Silvermane is usually depicted as an old (Italian) man with a robot body and a (mostly) human head. Mind you, when he was first introduced he was a regular Maggia (the Marvel Comics version of the Mafia) mob boss with silver hair, hence the name. But other than “mob boss,” there’s no real connection here, nor does this Silvermane have any special powers. Or robot parts.
Here’s the oddest one, saved for last. In the comics, Megawatt is an Australian convict with electrical powers who was first introduced in 1993’s Spider-Man Unlimited #2, and whose real name is Dirk Leydon. On screen, Andrew Lewis Caldwell plays the baddie, a failed actor who now can drain and shoot electricity, giving him the lights and stage he’s always wanted. He does call himself Megawatt by the end of the season, but his name is spelled Dirk Leyden on the show. Even curiouser, he’s not Electro, the bad guy with electric powers far more associated with Spider-Man – who often teams up with Sandman and others in the team the Sinister Six. Anyway, great news for anyone who bagged and boarded Spider-Man Unlimited #2 – that’s probably jumping up at least 50 cents in sell value!
What did you think of Spider-Noir? Did you catch any Easter eggs that we missed? Let’s discuss in the comments!
You can chat with Alex Zalben on BlueSky @azalben.bsky.social, or find him regularly yapping on the Comic Book Club podcast.
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