Prime Video and MGM’s new Spider-Man series, Spider-Noir, is not exactly your conventional Spider-Man release, which might well be its biggest selling point. Embracing the weirder side of the Spider-Verse, the 8-part series (which we awarded a 4-star review) stars Nicolas Cage as Ben Reilly, AKA The Spider AKA Spider-Man Noir (and sometimes by Spider-Noir, hence the title), a washed-up, retired hero with a drinking problem and a less traditional hero complex. There is, from the outset, some confusion around Reilly, since Cage previously played a Spider-Man Noir variant in Sony’s excellent Into The Spider-Verse (and will return in the upcoming sequel). So we’re going to answer the two biggest questions about Spider-Noir‘s timeline.
Spider-Noir is one of the earliest releases on the full Marvel movie and TV show timeline in chronological terms. It was marketed as a post-World War I story, thanks to both Lonnie Lincoln (Abraham Popoola) and Flint Marko (Jack Huston) being WWI veterans (which is particularly important in the story), so would predate even Captain America: The First Avenger and Agent Carter if it was on the Sacred Timeline. Parts of Eternals and Eyes of Wakanda are both set before World War I, but in terms of the expanded “MCU era”, Spider-Noir is still very early. It’s confirmed that the series is set 15 years after World War I, which puts it at 1932, several years before the MCU got its first Avenger.
The post-World War I setting is important as well. In the comics, the Peter Parker version of Spider-Noir adapted his costume from the uniform of his Uncle Ben, who was a pilot during the conflict, which is why it looks militaristic. Here, Ben Reilly is also a veteran (along with the villains), which also partly explains his look (though of course it also draws from traditional film noir private detectives).
Taking the Marvel timeline as a single multi-branched thread that splinters off into the Sony universes (Sam Raimi’s, the Amazing Spider-Man, and the animated Spider-Verse), the Fox line, and the MCU itself isn’t as outrageous as you might think. The Multiverse Saga actually confirmed they all exist as annexes of one another (as we were told multiple times in the Venom marketing), and all have crossed over with each other in qualifying ways. Fans may come into Spider-Noir believing that Nic Cage’s Spider-Man Noir is the same one we saw animated in Into the Spider-Verse, but they’re different characters entirely (and there is a very good reason that’s explained in the show behind their different names).
Theoretically, this part of the Spider-Verse is just a completely separate one to the other Spider-Man Noir universe shown previously. Excitingly, that would mean two different versions of Nic Cage Spider-Noirs could actually meet each other in the future, if Sony wanted to make it happen. But that’s the only relationship between Spider-Noir and the Sony animated Spider-Verse movies. Is it related to the other live-action Sony movies? That much is unclear: it’s set so much earlier than them that it could theoretically be the same universe, but there’s nothing to confirm it.
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