Nicolas Cage stars in Spider-Noir, but his character is named Ben Reilly rather than Peter Parker. In the comics, “Ben Reilly” is traditionally a name associated with the Scarlet Spider – a clone of Peter, created by the Jackal. Because this clone shared Peter’s memories, he chose the first name “Ben” in honor of Uncle Ben, and went with Aunt May’s maiden name for his surname.
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From an out-of-universe perspective, there’s a reason Spider-Noir doesn’t go by the “Peter Parker” name. As showrunner Oren Uziel explained, “Peter Parker feels very synonymous with a high school kid. Boyish. On his way up.” We’re dealing with a world where “the Spider” is down-on-his-luck, tired and world-weary, so this incarnation of the wall-crawler goes by a different name. But, importantly, it turns out there’s actually a reason from an in-universe perspective – and it’s a lot smarter than anyone expected.
Ben Reilly Changed His Name in Spider-Noir
By the end of Spider-Noir, we’ve learned that Ben Reilly hides a lot of secrets. He served during the First World War, where he played a key role in liberating a group of POWs who were being experiment on by German scientists; that’s where the character was bitten by a genetically-engineered man-spider hybrid, which granted him super-powers. When he returned home, he changed his name to help his identity so it would be harder to track him down. The idea is a smart one, linking the Spider to the various Spider-Man characters who appear in the Amazon series.
This logically means the Spider probably is a Peter Parker variant after all; in fact, the opening scenes subtly hint some multiversal characters have passed through this timeline, tying it to the broader Spider-Verse (why else would anyone ever ask the Spider “what universe” this was?). Nothing is ever explicitly stated, but it would make sense for any version of Peter Parker to choose “Ben Reilly” as an alias given its ties to his own family history. It would be a wonderful way to honor his own Aunt May.
As Uziel hinted, the name-change serves as a smart way of signposting how different the Spider is going to be. This is a character who swears and gets drunk, and he has a much darker sense of morality than the traditional Spider-Man. There’s still the sense of power and responsibility, but this lesson came from a lost love rather than Uncle Ben – a Gwen Stacy figure, whose lesson he has spent five years rejecting. The comparisons and switch-ups make Spider-Noir all the more satisfying, and we can only hope it won’t be long before there’s news of Season 2.
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Image Courtesy of DC Comics
