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It is a big year for Spider-Man Noir fans, with Nicolas Cage reprising his role from the animated Spider-Verse films as the eponymous webslinger in a live-action TV show. However, one person who doesn’t seem excited is Fabrice Sapolsky, who co-created the character for Marvel Comics. To him, Sony and Prime Video might be using the Spider-Man Noir name and design, but it is a totally unrecognizable character to him.

We sat down with Fabrice Sapolsky at Emerald City Comic Con 2026 to talk about all things comics, and, of course, we had to ask him about the upcoming TV show. However, Sapolsky maintains that this isn’t the same character that first appeared in 2009’s Spider-Man: Noir #1.

“It’s not. If you look at what they made, what Sony and Amazon [have] made, they made a different product,” Sapolsky told Popverse editor Graeme McMillan at ECCC 2026.

“They created something that is not what I created. That does not even have the same name," Saposlky says, referring to the Prime Video show's title of 'Spider-Noir.' "There’s a lot of, I understand that there’s a lot of legal issues there, why they changed the main character, why they changed the name, and they went and changed so much that what I created 20 years ago now is barely recognizable. No, I don’t feel any connection to it. I don’t feel it. I wish them well. 

"This is their thing. But I did not create any character with a stupid hat, and I take Peter Parker’s story seriously," he continues. 

For Sapolsky, the core of Spider-Man Noir isn’t in the murder mystery or detective story. Instead, he thinks the character firts more comfortably as a social justice story, which is an aspect that has been “erased” in recent years.

“It’s a different thing. There’s a lot of social issues that we’re addressing through the project that have been erased in this new version, and a lot of that is, I guess, the result of having a big animated hit that won an Oscar… I would say this: when you create for the big corporations, Marvel being a big corporation, you’re a surrogate parent. You’re basically creating stuff that were never yours in the first place, and whatever happens after they tell you that they are no longer interested in your service is not your business. So whatever happened after 2018 when Marvel decided that they wanted to go in another direction is not our business.”

Marvel's most reliable superhero has proven he can do a whole lot more than just 'whatever a spider can.' Swing into Spidey's history with Popverse's...

• Best Spider-Man comic books 
• Spider-Man movie watch order
• Spider-Man's actors, ranked
• and the Spider-verse explained!

Just watch out for that radioactive blood.