2009’s Spider-Man Noir has the makings of a classic noir: a hard-boiled detective, corrupt politicians, crooked cops, gangsters, femme fatales, and a brooding, black-clad anti-hero. It’s 1933, and New York City is in the grips of the Great Depression. After his Uncle Ben is murdered by the Goblin’s mob, Peter Parker crusades against gangster Norman Osborn’s gang, which includes 1930s versions of Spider-Man’s rogues’ gallery.
Spider-Noir, Sony and Amazon’s live-action series starring Nicolas Cage (who voiced a version of the character in 2018’s animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), has cast Brendan Gleeson (Joker: Folie á Deux), Jack Huston (Mayfair Witches), Li Jun Li (Evil), Cameron Britton (Mindhunter), Abraham Popoola (The Great), Scott MacArthur (The Mick), and Amanda Schull (Suits), but only Lamorne Morris’ (New Girl) role as The Daily Bugle‘s Robbie Robertson has been confirmed.
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Here are some Spider-Man Noir villains who could appear in the series, which “tells the story of an aging and down on his luck private investigator (Cage) in 1930s New York, who is forced to grapple with his past life as the city’s one and only superhero,” per the official synopsis.
Norman Osborn: The Goblin
Spider-Man Noir #1 introduces Norman Osborn as “The Goblin,” a racketeer who works freelance for the highest bidder. Industrialists, police chiefs, and New York Mayor Jimmy Stryder all pay for the Goblin’s services: murder, drugs, arson, extortion, debt collections, prostitution, protection rackets. As the Spider-Man, a gun-toting vigilante, Peter targets Osborn’s operations and unmasks his real face: a goblin-like freak.
The Enforcers
Ox, Fancy Dan, and Montana are Osborn’s muscle and the Goblin’s Enforcers. Fancy Dan is eaten alive by a swarm of spiders that escape from a cursed spider god idol imported by Osborn, and a spider’s bite endows Peter with cursed power.
Adrian Toomes: The Vulture
The Vulture was a geek “living in a cage, biting the heads off chickens” at a circus freak show before he was recruited by the Goblin, as told by Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich. An animalistic, fang-toothed carnie cannibal, it was the Vulture who tore Ben Parker to pieces after he was beaten by the Goblin’s gang. Vulture is shot dead by the Spider-Man when he attempts to eat his Aunt May.
Sergei Kravinoff: Kraven the Hunter
A Russian animal trainer known as Kraven the Hunter, Sergei Kravinoff is part of the Goblin’s “freak show.” Kraven dies fighting the Spider-Man, who kicks the animal tamer into a case of man-eating spiders.
Dmitri Smerdyakov: The Chameleon
Kraven’s half-brother is the Chameleon, a master of disguise and former circus performer who has the ability to mold his features in perfect imitation of any subject. He’s killed while impersonating The Daily Bugle‘s J. Jonah Jameson.
Felicia Hardy: The Black Cat
Felicia Hardy is the owner of The Black Cat: the hottest speakeasy in town. After Ben Urich is murdered by the Chameleon (posing as Jameson) for threatening to expose the Goblin in the press, Felicia takes Ben’s files and helps the Spider-Man bring corruption charges against high-ranking politicians and police officers. She eventually becomes Peter’s lover while The Black Cat club becomes a neutral ground in the criminal underworld.
Crime Master
Spider-Man Noir: Eyes Without a Face #1 picks up eight months after the Spider-Man took down the Goblin, leaving a power vacuum in New York City. The new crime boss is the Crime Master, but it’s revealed the masked criminal is a figurehead created by Josef Ansell, head of the Friends of New Germany: a group of German immigrants seeking to establish an American Nazi party sponsored by the Nazis in Germany.
Flint Marko: The Sandman
Crime Master’s muscle, Flint “The Sandman” Marko is an enforcer who gets his name from saying “sweet dreams” to his victims who typically have their heads crushed by his bare hands. Built like a brick house, the Spider-Man remarks that Marko has “skin like granite.” He’s shot dead by the police before he can beat the Spider-Man to death.
Otto Octavius: Doctor Octopus
The “most brilliant biologist in the country,” Dr. Otto Octavius immigrated from South Africa and had the government finance his research in a lab on Ellis Island. Octavius experiments on animals in the hopes of curing conditions of the nervous system, like the one that bound Octavius to a wheelchair with robotic arm attachments. Octavius is a white supremacist trafficking human test subjects — abducted Black Americans supplied by Crime Master — to conduct his horrific experiments of the brain and nervous system. After Otto’s tentacles kill Crime Master, the Spider-Man brings “Doc Ock” to justice.
