Spider-Man
Expy in the Spider-Man franchise.For expies OF Spider-Man, see Spider-Man Send-Up.
Comic Books
- Not too long ago, during Marvel's Dark Reign event, the Sinister Spider-Man title (Mac Gargan's Venom posing as Spider-Man) introduced us to Doctor Everything, a pretty blatant expy of Watchmen's Dr. Manhattan, right down to his... disturbing penchant for nudity.
- Spider-Man villain Sergei Kravinoff a.k.a. Kraven the Hunter is an expy of General Zaroff of The Most Dangerous Game. While Hunting the Most Dangerous Game has become a widespread trope, it's no coincidence that the comic book villain shares the Russian aristocrat background of the original.
- In a probably deliberate example, since the character is a Redeeming Replacement for one of Spider-Man's worst enemies, Phil Urich the heroic Green Goblin is an expy of Peter Parker. Urich is an Unlucky Everydude who works for the Daily Bugle and has an Uncle Ben just like Peter (although Urich's doesn't get killed). In the Spider-Girl series, the two characters are close friends.
- This trope is lampshaded in full during Spider-Verse by Pavitr Prabhakar, the Spider-man of Earth-50101. During the events of the story, he comes to wonder whether he and the other Spider-Men are mere offshoots of Peter Parker after noticing all of the similarities between his own and Peter's backstories as well as the overwhelming number of alternate Peter Parkers as Spider-Totems, triggering a minor Heroic BSoD. Luckily, a quick peptalk from Billy Braddock, the Spider-Man of Earth-833, snaps him out of this, saying that Pavitr is just as much of a hero as Peter, and that the latter could be an expy of him.
- According to Brian Bendis, the Bombshells from Ultimate Spider-Man were based on the question "What if the Gilmore Girls had super powers?"
- Untold Tales of Spider-Man: In keeping with the high school focus, two of the new characters are analogues for characters from Archie Comics: Tiny is a big dumb blonde Jerk Jock like Moose, and Jason Ionello is a sneering dark-haired friend nobody likes just like Reggie. Some of the later issues also play up Flash and Liz's resemblance to Archie and Betty.
- In Web of Spider-Man, there's a black-wearing hero/antihero with a red cape, who is an African-American in his civilian identity, and whose first enemy is a man with a clown mask named "Deathgrin"? Hmmm...
Live-Action TV
- Spider-Man (Japan)
- In Episode 17, when Samson the wrestler turns into a Machine BEM, he resembles The Thing.
- Saeko Yoshida, Amazoness' civilian identity, is a gender flipped version of J. Jonah Jameson.
- Professor Monster is also loosely based on Doctor Doom.
- The Amazing Spider-Man (1978): Rita Conway for Glory Grant, and Doctor Moon for Miles Warren (the Jackal).
Western Animation
- Marvel Rising: Initiation: The comic book version of Spider-Gwen exists in an alternate universe where it was Gwen Stacy, not her nerdy best friend Peter Parker, who was bitten by the radioactive spider. Since the Marvel Rising cartoon takes place in the mainstream Marvel Universe (where Peter Parker is presumably already Spider-Man), Gwen's nerdy best friend is a Canon Foreigner named Kevin, who serves the same basic role. He even looks very similar to Peter and gets killed off like him too.
- In The Spectacular Spider-Man, Tombstone was made into an expy of the Kingpin, who couldn't be used due to legal issues.
- Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends: Iceman's sister Lightwave was an expy of Aurora from the X-Men and Alpha Flight.
- Spider-Man: The Animated Series:
- The show has a minor recurring expy of Sharon Carter named "Agent X".
- Lt. Terri Lee is basically a Race Lifted version of Jean DeWolff.
- Spider-Man: The New Animated Series
- Lewis Wyler (Turbo Jet) is loosely based on Rocket Racer, mainly in being an African-American villain with technology that gives him super speed.
- Talon is loosely based on Black Cat and was even originally intended to be this continuity's version of Black Cat before the MTV executives persuaded the creators to retool the character to be more like her voice actress.
- Dr. Zellner reminds many fans of Miles Warren, the mastermind of the The Clone Saga.
- Korvac from Ultimate Spider-Man (2012) is an expy of Thanos, even though Korvac himself originated in the comics as well. His status as a cosmic tyrant and the leader of the Chitauri both come to Thanos, especially the MCU version.
- The show's version of Scorpion is a ninja with a grappling hook. Hmmm...
