All 4 Actors Who’ve Played Superman AND Spider-Man

Few characters have stamped themselves onto popular culture the way Superman and Spider-Man have. Superman arrived in 1938 as the original template for every caped hero that followed him, establishing the genre’s visual language and its moral architecture. Then, Spider-Man came along in 1962, replacing invincible optimism with working-class anxiety and giving teenage readers a hero who failed tests, couldn’t pay rent, and lost people he loved no matter how hard he swung. Between them, the two characters defined what a superhero could be, and the actors who played them became permanently attached to those roles in the public imagination. For instance, Christopher Reeve gave Superman a warmth that no live-action version has fully recaptured, while Henry Cavill made him a figure of stoic weight before David Corenswet leaned into infectious hope. Likewise, Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland each found something different inside Peter Parker.

Beyond the obvious movie stars, a small group of performers quietly accomplished something no one much noticed: they played both Superman and Spider-Man. The crossover usually happened in animation or games, where scheduling and cosmetics don’t impose as many restrictions as come with live-action casting, and where voice directors are free to match talent to character without worrying about who looks right in a cape.

4) Troy Baker

Troy Baker is better known to most audiences as Joel Miller in The Last of Us games and as Two-Face across the Batman: Arkham series of games. However, the veteran voice actor also played Superman and Spider-Man. Baker voiced the Web-Slinger, a Wild West Peter Parker variant from a frontier universe, in the four-part “Return to the Spider-Verse” arc of the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series, a Disney XD production that ran from 2012 to 2017. A poncho-wearing, bandana-masked cowboy operating under a different hero name, the character still had all of Spidey’s traumas and insecurities, making it a genuine Peter Parker performance. Baker’s Superman credit came through the Infinite Crisis video game, released in 2014 by Turbine, where he voiced Clark Kent.

3) Jack Quaid

Jack is best known for playing Hughie Campbell in The Boys, but his superhero career goes beyond Prime Video’s hyperviolent series. In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Quaid voiced Earth-65’s Peter Parker, the version of the character who experimentally transforms into the Lizard and dies at Gwen Stacy’s (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld) hands before fully understanding what happened to him. That same year, Adult Swim launched My Adventures with Superman, the ongoing animated series in which Quaid voices Clark Kent as a young reporter navigating his double identity and his relationship with Lois Lane. My Adventures with Superman‘s warmer tone made it a successful adaptation that has even spawned a spinoff, My Adventures with Green Lantern.

2) Yuri Lowenthal

Yuri Lowenthal’s Superman came through Legion of Super Heroes, the Warner Bros. Animation series that ran from 2006 to 2008 on The CW and placed a young Clark Kent in the 31st century fighting alongside a team of superpowered teenagers. Lowenthal voiced the character for all 26 episodes across both seasons, developing a Superman that slowly crystallizes his moral conviction. More than a decade later, Insomniac Games gave him Peter Parker for their Marvel’s Spider-Man series, beginning with the 2018 PlayStation 4 release and extending through Spider-Man: Miles Morales and the 2023 sequel. That version of Peter is a 23-year-old already eight years into his career as Spider-Man. He also reprised the role in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse in 2023, where Insomniac’s Spider-Man makes a cameo. 

1) Nicolas Cage

Nicolas Cage’s Superman story begins with Tim Burton’s Superman Lives, the late-1990s production that collapsed before filming began, leaving Cage with costume tests and public obsession with the character. The gap closed partially in 2018 when he voiced Superman in the animated comedy Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, and then more dramatically in The Flash, where director Andy Muschietti cast him as a live-action Superman from an alternate timeline. His Spider-Man is just as extensive, beginning with Spider-Man Noir in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the Oscar-winning animated film in which his black-and-white Depression-era wall-crawler became one of the ensemble’s most memorable performances. That voice role extended into Spider-Noir, the Prime Video live-action series where Cage plays Ben Reilly operating as a retired superhero turned private investigator in 1930s New York. With two distinct Superman portrayals and two Spider-Man portrayals, across animation and live-action, Cage has a surprisingly deep history with both Marvel and DC.

Which actor who has played both Superman and Spider-Man do you consider the best?  Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!

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