Who would have thought that Nicolas Cage would become our favourite friendly neighborhood Spider-Man at 62 years old? When he showed up in a trench coat and a pointy hat in the first trailer for Amazon Prime Video’s Spider-Noir, fans were super excited. But not everyone is happy with the show. Fabrice Sapolsky, who co-created Spider-Man Noir with David Hine for Marvel Comics in Spider-Man: Noir #1 back in 2009, sees the show as something very different. And he hates the hat.
Speaking to Popverse editor Graeme McMillan at Emerald City Comic Con 2026, Sapolsky didn’t hide his feelings about the upcoming superhero series. “It’s not. If you look at what they made, what Sony and Amazon [have] made, they made a different product,” Sapolsky said. “They created something that is not what I created. That does not even have the same name.”
Sapolsky is also upset about changes to the character, too. “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,” Sapolsky revealed.
Then the comic book creator got really upset about Spider-Noir’s hat. “This is their thing. But I did not create any character with a stupid hat, and I take Peter Parker’s story seriously,” he said.
For Sapolsky, Spider-Man Noir wasn’t about solving detective cases. Instead, his comics were about social justice and set against the Great Depression. Sapolsky believes that part of the original character seems to have faded with time. “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,” he said, adding that working with large companies means creators often lose control of the characters once the project moves on. “When you create for the big corporations, Marvel being a big corporation, you’re a surrogate parent.”
Still, the show moves ahead. The city looks dangerous. Nicolas Cage stands in the rain with his hat. And Spider-Noir swings onto screens on May 25, 2026, whether its original co-creator likes the direction or not.
