The title and logo reveal teaser has the logo briefly glitch out in a very similar fashion to the glitch effect constantly shown in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — fitting, considering the multiverse shenanigans in that film.
MJ reads a tabloid suggesting that Spider-Man is able to manipulate the minds of others so that they will be attracted to him, or otherwise do his bidding. While that's obviously not one of Spider-Man's powers, it does accurately describe one of the powers of his gender-flipped counterpart.
The smear campaign against Spider-Man from The Daily Bugle has taken the picture of Peter from Far From Home and photoshopped half of the Spider-Man mask over it, recreating the iconic half-Peter-half-Spidey image from the comics.
During the brief Mirror Dimension scuffle seen, No Way Home takes a page from Spider-Man 2 by having a major fight atop a train that runs off the tracks (although, given the bizarre nature of the Mirror Dimension, nobody is harmed). The train itself has a similar appearance to the one seen in Spider-Man 2, although it isn't identical.
When Aunt May tells Peter they should help Osborn, he replies "This isn't my problem." And later when he meets the other Peters after Aunt May dies at the hands of the Green Goblin, he tells them the villains are no longer his problem, perhaps referencing Raimi-Verse Peter's now memetic"I missed the part where that's my problem."
The Lizard's roar sound effect from The Amazing Spider-Man appears in a brief scene where a giant, unseen creature attempts to attack our hero, but is stopped by a barrier, serving as confirmation of who the mystery character is before he is seen more clearly.
Before the highway brawl starts, Peter is seen dressed in a similar suit to the one that the Raimi-verse Peter wore in Spider-Man 3 during his date with Mary Jane and his subsequent fight against Harry Osborn.
One of the highway signs seen when the Green Goblin appears is for the George Washington Bridge. In the comics, Gwen Stacy fell to her death there after being thrown off the bridge.
Carrying on the tradition from the first two MCU Spider-Man movies, one of the cars seen on the highway has the license plate number "63A5M-3", with the 5 resembling an S, seen just before Doc Ock makes his entrance. Ock first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 1) #3, released in July 1963.
An early draft of the first Iron Man movie had Tony Stark be responsible for the creation of Otto Octavius's tentacles in Spider-Man 2. During MCU Spider-Man's fight with Doc Ock, the latter ends up absorbing some of the nanotech from the Iron Spider suit into his tentacles, thus technically making them Stark tech.
Unlike the blue color scheme he had in his first film appearance, Electro's lightning now matches the golden color of his original comic design. His electricity can form a "mask" in front of his face, resembling the star-shaped mask of his classic comic counterpart.
Doctor Octopus's trenchcoat attire, while still far grittier than his depictions in the mainstream Marvel Universe, is slightly adjusted from its appearance in Spider-Man 2 to look closer to the colors the character wears in the pages of Ultimate Spider-Man.
The way Doc Ock greets Peter is almost exactly the way he greeted Harry, and later Peter and Mary Jane, before interrogating them in Spider-Man 2.
Doc Ock wraps his tentacles around Peter's torso, and attempts to crush his skull, much like he attempted to do to his version of Peter during the bank robbery in Spider-Man 2.
The Green Goblin mockingly delivers a speech to Peter about the nature of choice, much like he did to the Peter Parker of his own universe in Spider-Man. He also warns Peter "no good deed goes unpunished," which is essentially the message of his "in spite of everything you've done..." lecture to his universe's Spidey.
Green Goblin is seen wearing both his traditional mask during the day and a goggle-based design inspired by rejected concept art◊ from Spider-Man. His street clothes, by coincidence, happen to be the signature purple and green color scheme from the comics, with the hood of his purple sweatshirt resembling the purple tunic and cap that he wore in the comics. After the apartment fight, his clothes end up tattered and looking an awful lot like his classic costume.
Jameson in advertisement and Ned in the final film incredulously asks if the Lizard is a dinosaur. Captain George Stacy from the Lizard's universe mockingly calls him a dinosaur in The Amazing Spider-Man. In that same scene, Jameson is shown wearing a very similar outfit to the one his Raimi-Verse counterpart wore when witnessing his Spider-Man fight Sandman and Venom.
The "inter-dimensional cracks" that appear in the climax are purple and look much like shattered webs, similar to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
When Webb-verse Peter says he's "lame" compared to the other two, Raimi-verse Peter reassures him that he's "amazing", referencing the film series he came from.
The premise of the film is similar to the infamous storyline One More Day, which also dealt with the consequences of Spider-Man's identity being revealed to the world. Similarities include Peter accepting a deal from a magical being to make everyone forget his identity (Mephisto in the comics, Doctor Strange in the film) at the cost of his relationship with MJ, Peter meeting two alternate versions of himself, Aunt May being wounded by a villain with Peter hunting the villain in revenge and nearly killing them (though unlike in One More Day, Peter is unable to save May), and finally Peter starting a new life with a new status quo.
Electro admits to believing that Webb-verse Spider-Man was black under the mask, because he was from Queens and stood up for the underprivileged. He figures (correctly) that there still must be another, black Spider-Man out there.
At the end the apartment Peter moves into looks like a cleaner version of the apartment the Raimi-verse Peter lived in in the latter two films of the Spider-Man Trilogy, complete with a landlord who's a stickler for the timely payment of rent.
The fact that Sandman and Electro seem to be getting along well with each other in Happy's apartment may be a nod to the fact that in James Cameron's unmade script for a Spider-Man movie, Electro and Sandman were supposed to be the Big Bads and that prevented them from appearing in Spider-Man: The Animated Series (until the film was cancelled and a different version of Electro was introduced in the final season).
Even moreso than One More Day, the film's plot is extremely similar to the story One Moment in Time: Peter asks Doctor Strange to make the whole world forget that he's Spider-Man, but has second thoughts about it as the spell is being cast, which causes the spell to go awry and chaos to ensue.
MJ's distaste towards the surname Watson, as well as worrying about how her father would react to Peter being Spider-Man, are references to the fact that Mary Jane Watson despised her father for being an Abusive Dad for most of her life.
Just like in his debut film, Lizard ends up fighting a Spider-Man in a high school lab.
Peter saving the MIT representative by way of hanging her car on a strand of web is also reminiscent of how Webb-verse Peter saved people from the Lizard's first rampage.
After Ned hears from Raimi-verse Peter about what happened to his world's Harry Osborn in Spider-Man 3, he promises his Peter that he won't become a supervillain and try to kill him. In the comics, Ned was once brainwashed into becoming the Hobgoblin.
Ned wears a jacket with a mostly blue top and yellow sleeves. This is the color scheme of the hobgoblin outfit that Comic Ned wore when he was brainwashed, albeit with the colors of the top and sleeves switched.
Sandman's cure looks like a miniaturised version of the Super Collider he fell in in his Origin Story in Spider-Man 3.
Right before Norman jumps into the fray in the finale, there's a barely-audible musical sting as Peter-2's eyes react; this is a quieter version of the sound cue used to denote Tobey's Spider Sense going off.
Several shots are homages to previous Spider-movies:
Norman Osborn's goblin mask lying shattered next to a dumpster as he runs away in the background is an homage to the shot of Raimi-Peter's Spider-Man costume hanging out of a trash can while he walks away in Spider-Man 2, itself an homage to the famous panel◊ from Amazing Spider-Man #50.
When the Green Goblin flies into the final battle in his new outfit, unleashing a barrage of razor bats from the 2002 film, MCU Spider-Man jumps and spins to dodge them in an identical manner to how Raimi-verse Spider-Man did in said film, complete with slow motion.
Peter standing solemnly at his Aunt May's grave near the end is nearly identical to Webb-verse Peter standing solemnly at Gwen Stacy's grave near the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, with MCU Peter even wearing similar attire (complete with beanie).
When Peter goes to the bakery where MJ works to try to get her to remember him at the film's end, she appears to see and recognize him and waves. Rather sheepishly, he waves back, only for the shot to reveal she was actually waving at Ned, who's coming in behind Peter and heads over to join MJ. The entire scenario is a beat-for-beat callback to a similar scene between Raimi-verse Peter and Mary Jane early in the 2002 film.
Aunt May's death scene appears to be a mixture of Uncle Ben's death scene from the 2002 film and Gwen Stacy's death scene from The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Fittingly, both are later brought up by the other Peters as analogues to MCU Peter's situation.
When Green Goblin reveals his arm blades in the final battle, he whistles as a beckoning taunt to the MCU Peter. The New Goblin's arm blades made a whistling noise every time he swung them around.
Apart from Electro being briefly introduced in his blue bioluminescent appearance from The Amazing Spider-Man 2, there is another nod to this. In the Creative Closing Credits, Jamie Foxx's name is accompanied with rings of yellow cartoon bolts. One or two of the bolts briefly changes color into light blue.
The shots of Peter 3 being shocked in the final battle are a near-perfect recreation of the shots from the climax of The Amazing Spider-Man 2
MCU Peter pulls some moves from his game counterpart while fighting, such as his using his webs to slingshot himself through a balcony, a move PS4 Peter used on Kingpin in the opening fight.
Peter ends up running through a F.E.A.S.T. facility unmasked. F.E.A.S.T. is a prominent location in the comics, being a homeless volunteer shelter and a front for Martin Li / Mr. Negative, and is well-known for its appearance in the game. Bonus points in that Peter is seen wearing a black and gold suit that looks similar to the one that that game's Spider-Man wore during the finale.
Peter gets an upgraded suit with a large Chest Insignia from Doc Ock that resembles the one seen on the Advanced Suit.
The inscription on Aunt May's grave is the same as in the game.
The new suit Peter makes for himself at the end is based wholesale on his classic comic-book suit, and is also near-identical to the game's Classic Suit.
When Peter's astral form is briefly pushed out of his body, he watches his body — being controlled by his Spider-Sense — keep the box away from Strange every time he reaches for it. All the while, his astral form features nigh-invisible wavy lines over his head, the iconic depiction of said spider-sense in the comics.
Peter initially refers to the Green Goblin as a "Green Elf". On Earth-3145, where Ben Parker rather than Peter is Spider-Man, the Green Goblin is known as the "Emerald Elf".
Matt Murdock has been Spider-Man's attorney — and more — a number of times in the comics.
When Tobey Maguire's name appears in the Creative Closing Credits, it's accompanied by a sketch of him with half his face covered up by his mask, almost exactly as it appears on this poster for Spider-Man 2.
During her latest student news report, Betty Brant tells Peter to "Go get 'em, tiger!" which was a quote famously used by Mary Jane in Spider-Man 2; "tiger" itself is an Affectionate Nickname Mary Jane gives to Peter in various media.
The theme tune of Betty Brant's "Burning Questions" on The Daily Bugle's TikTok account is a sped-up version of Hans Zimmer's theme tune for The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
When all three Spider-Man land atop the Statue of Liberty, not only do they land in the order of their theatrical tenures — Maguire, followed by Garfield, followed by Holland — but Peter 2 lands in the same pose that Spidey landed atop the logo in Spider-Man: The Animated Series while Peter 3 lands in a Ditko-esque two point pose.
Peter 2 says his place for alone time is atop the Chrysler Building, which is where he went to after avenging his Uncle Ben's death.
Just like the third film in Tobey Maguire's trilogy, the final battle in Tom Holland's trilogy takes place in a construction site.
The final confrontation between Peter 1 and Green Goblin is remarkably similar to what happened in The Night Gwen Stacy Died. Like in the comic, Peter nearly beats the Goblin to death out of revenge for him murdering one of Peter's loved ones. Peter trying to impale the Goblin with his glider alludes to his death in the comics◊, which was of course recreated in Spider-Man.
Peter tells Doctor Strange to "have a heart", a nice Shout-Out to "What If... Stephen Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?".
Peter-1 disables the Green Goblin's glider by shoving a pumpkin bomb into it, a move straight out of the series finale of The Spectacular Spider-Man.
Peter-1 tries to kill Norman Osborne with his own glider, only for Peter-2 to jump in-between them to block the strike. In Spider-Man 3, Venom tried to kill Peter-2 in the same manner with Harry Osborne's glider, only for Harry to jump in-between and block the strike. The key difference between the two is that Harry did it at the cost of his life, while Peter-2 ultimately survived both interactions.
in the pages of Spider-Man and the X-Men, which became a meme due to the absurdity of the scenario - Sauron wishing to use a machine to turn people into dinosaurs - and the dialogue lampshading that Sauron could do something actually beneficial to society with the tech he's using like curing cancer, to which Sauron responds: "But I don't want to cure cancer. I want to turn people into dinosaurs."
