The teaser trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home fits several Easter eggs into its modest running time. Two of them, however, mark a quiet nod to the Webhead’s original co-creator: not Stan Lee, whose presence in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been inextricable, but Steve Ditko, the artist who paired with Lee to create the character. One of the trailer’s biggest visual references is a direct nod to his work, along with a second, subtler nod that may require a closer look when the movie is released.
According to The Steve Ditko Reader, Lee originally approached his longtime collaborator Jack Kirby about drawing Spider-Man once he had permission to create the character. Kirby wasn’t interested, so Lee turned to Ditko instead. Their introduction to Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy #15 has since become one of the most famous single issues in comics, and Ditko continued to pen the early adventures of the character before departing Marvel for reasons that are still not entirely clear. He remained reclusive for much of his life and rarely gave interviews before his death in 2018 at the age of 90. Spider-Man: No Way Home clearly intends to honor his contribution.
The trailer’s first Easter egg to the author is hard to spot, and may need more footage to confirm. But the opening image of Peter Parker and MJ on the roof contains a piece of graffiti behind them, which appears to spell out the artist’s name. It might come to nothing, but Easter eggs have become so ingrained into the MCU right now that the spelling feels too spot-on to casually dismiss.
The Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer’s primary nod to Ditko carries no such ambiguities. As Peter and MJ swing through Times Square, Peter’s face appears on a jumbo TV, presumably as part of J. Jonah Jameson’s successful efforts to reveal his identity. The image splits his face in half between an ordinary photo and Spider-Man’s mask, behind a banner reading “Public Enemy #1.”
The genesis of the image was Ditko’s, and the severity of Peter’s position at that particular moment hides how central it was to the character’s visual language. It first appeared on the cover of The Amazing Spider-Man #8, promising a story in which Peter Parker boxes his bully, Flash Thompson. The split face was used as an indicator of Peter’s Spider-Sense, which in that case allowed him to evade Thompson’s blows and win the fight. The image quickly became a shorthand for Spidey artists to use anytime Peter sensed danger with his abilities but wasn’t in his costume.
Spider-Man: No Way Home’s use of it is typical of the way the MCU makes visual nods to the original artists. The “Marvel look” helped give the MCU its identity, and they clearly have no intention of abandoning their roots as Phase Four moves ahead. The Spider-Man films have never forgotten the debt they owe Ditko, but few images have been so prominent as this one, or played so large a role on the action onscreen. It’s inserted with such elegance that it feels like a wholly original look created solely for the movie, despite the fact that it’s anything but.
The homage is particularly noteworthy because Ditko co-created Doctor Strange with Lee as well. Given Strange’s prominent appearance in the trailer and the way these events appear to be leading directly to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it seems wrong not to honor the artist. Thanks to the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer, that’s no longer in doubt, and even if the half-face shot is the only nod to Ditko, it’s clear that the MCU hasn’t forgotten him.
Spider-Man: No Way Home arrives in theaters Dec. 17.
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