Every Spider-Man also needs some amazing friends. Spider-Noir is surrounded by several characters drawn from the Marvel Comics pantheon who have been refashioned as hard-boiled archetypes. Among them is Robbie Robertson, a familiar face in the newsroom of the Daily Bugle. This version is still a journalist, but pounding a freelance beat looking for stories from the heart of the city. “They both go back a long way. Their friendship has really deep ties. The biggest and most obvious difference is that Robbie is a guy who almost carries around a rabbit's foot. He thinks he's lucky, and it's all going to work out. Ben is a character who thinks it's never going to work out. It's all going to go to shit. Life's a big disaster. So Ben's cynicism is kind of an opposing force to Robbie's optimism. Robbie's living in the ‘30s and the Depression, and he's going through it, but he walks into any room thinking he can talk himself through whatever problem finds him,” Uziel says. “And Lamorne is so effortlessly charming, he's able to pull it off.” Reilly’s other major support pillar is his trusty secretary Janet, played by Karen Rodriguez. In addition to fielding calls and setting appointments, she’s a pretty good investigator on her own, and she’s a resourceful Girl Friday when Reilly needs help keeping everything together. Janet isn’t drawn from a particular Marvel character, but she does come straight out of a film noir tradition. “In The Maltese Falcon, her name is Effie. There’s always this character that can be helpful, that the P.I. can lean on, that can be hard on him, but loves him. Janet is never going to let Ben off the hook, but she cares so much about him. It's a little three-headed team: Ben, Janet, and Robbie. They're always solving the cases together in their own way.” (x)
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