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We already know that one story element of Spider-Noir will be the fact that “The Spider” was the only superhero of his world during his active years. However, now it’s been confirmed that Spider-Noir will feature at least 5 Marvel Comics characters – including one Spider-Man villain who has never been in the live-action movies!
5) Ben Reilly/The Spider
Starting with the obvious: Nic Cage’s “Ben Reilly” is actually a composite of multiple Spider-Man universe characters. The most prominent and obvious is the Spider-Man Noir (or “Spider-Noir” or “The Spider-Man”) character from the comics. That version is “Peter Benjamin Parker” from Earth-90214, aka “Earth-Noir,” which is stuck in the Great Depression. After getting bitten by a spider hiding inside a spider-god idol, Peter B. Parker gains the powers of a Spider, and uses them to wage a one-man war on the NYC underworld, which is run by crime lord Norman Osborn. The Spider-Man went on to serve in World War II, taking on missions to defeat the Nazis, before America officially entered the war. Unlike the main universe Spider-Man, Spider-Man Noir lived up to his name by being darker and more brutal, totally willing to maim and kill his foes.
However, the name “Ben Reilly” is something different: it was the moniker adopted by a clone of Peter Parker in the main Marvel Universe (Earth-616). “Ben” first appeared in a Silver Age Spider-Man story in 1975, in which the villain known as the Jackal creates a Spider-Man clone as the perfect adversary for the Wall-Crawler. Instead, the clone finds he has the same heroic heart as the real Peter Parker, and the two team up to stop the Jackal. Peter thought his clone died in the battle; in reality, the clone realized he was a clone and decided to leave Peter to his life and seek a new life for himself.
Reilly was brought back in the 1990s as a prominent character in one of Spider-Man’s most infamous story arcs, the “Clone Saga”. He reconciles with Peter, creates his own superhero identity (the “Scarlet Spider”), and eventually takes over the mantle of Spider-Man so that Peter can “retire” to a normal life. Since the Clone Saga, Ben Reilly has come in and out of Spider-Man lore on a seemingly endless loop, either as a surrogate Spider-Man or a challenging foe.
The core beats of Cage’s hero alter-ego, “The Spider,” will largely be the same as the Spider-Man Noir comics. That said, Spider-Noir will be the first big change to Ben Reilly’s core lore that we’ve seen, and diehard Marvel fans are interested to see if the series is doing anything more than fan service with the name-drop. Spider-Noir producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) tease that it will be a thing: “I have to be coy about the reasons, because you’ll find out,” Lord said regarding the name.
“The reason he’s named Ben Riley is explained,” Miller added. “We’ll leave it at that.”
4) Robbie Robertson
Joseph “Robbie” Robertson has been a part of Spider-Man lore since the 1960s and has the historical distinction of being one of the very first prominent black supporting characters in comics. Robbie is one of (if not the) top editors at NYC’s Daily Bugle, the newspaper (now news outlet) run by cantankerous publisher J. Jonah Jameson. Robbie is also tied to the underworld through his history with superpowered gangster Tombstone, with whom he grew up. Robertson is the cool, level-headed foil to JJJ’s fiery volcano personality.
Spider-Noir‘s version will be played by Lamorne Morris (New Girl), and will be a freelance reporter looking for a true “heart of the city” story. He tags alongside his longtime friend Ben Reilly, hoping to catch wind of a sordid urban tale. According to Spider-Noir showrunner, Oren Uziel, the J. Jonah Jameson and Robbie Robertson dynamic will very much be alive with Ben Reilly and Robbie:
“They’re both investigators. They both go back a long way. Their friendship has really deep ties. The biggest and most obvious difference is that Robbie is a guy who almost carries around a rabbit’s foot. He thinks he’s lucky, and it’s all going to work out. Ben is a character who thinks it’s never going to work out. It’s all going to go to sh*t,” Uziel explained. “Life’s a big disaster. So Ben’s cynicism is kind of an opposing force to Robbie’s optimism.”
3) Cat Hardy
Cat Hardy is played by Sinners actress Li Jun Li, and is described as being the femme fatale of this Noir tale. “Really, she’s Rita Hayworth… and then a little bit of Lauren Bacall, because Bogey and Bacall go so well together,” Uziel teased. “There’s some Kim Basinger from L.A. Confidential, in terms of how she fits into everything. She’s an amalgam of a lot of different things.”
“An amalgam of a lot of different things” is interesting terminology: Most Marvel fans have taken one look at “Cat Hardy” and jumped to the conclusion that this will be an alternate universe version of Marvel’s Black Cat, aka Felicia Hardy. Black Cat and Spider-Man have a long history of “Will they? Won’t they?” chemistry, even though Felicia is often on the wrong side of the law as a master cat-burglar. In other words, Black Cat is already kind of a femme fatale character, so doing a flip on her within the Spider-Noir universe seems like a no-brainer.
