Mythology Gag in Ultimate Spider-Man (2012).
- In a couple shots of the trailer, the "Iron Spider" costume can be shown in all its red and gold Stark-designed glory.
- Wolverine and Spider-Man have a "Freaky Friday" Flip which was a story in Ultimate Spider-Man. The episode was also written by Brian Michael Bendis.
- Stan Lee is the janitor of Peter's school. He also name drops Irving Forbush, and after telling Peter that no one, not even he, could do anything alone he gives a point greeting to a fellow SHIELD agent named Steve. He also has a box labeled "Stan's Soapbox"
. - This exchange (Harsher in Hindsight considering Peter's current state in the Ultimate line):
- Spider-Man: Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man reporting for duty!
Nick Fury: Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D., Spider-Man. Hope you survive the experience.
- Spider-Man later repeats the line to the other young heroes in "New Warriors".
- Spidey is still a terrible driver, but Lampshaded by Peter pointing out that in New York, driving is hardly necessary for getting from place to place, especially since he can thwipp thwipp.
- The first episode even has a reference to the first Iron Man movie (specifically, the scene where Tony tries to learn how to fly in his lab).
- Spider-Man sees a version of his Iron Spider armor, and comments it's been done.
- By the time of his first appearance, Sandman has gone insane and split into several aspects of his personality - one of which is his inner child - an altered reference to one of the more important storylines featuring the character in "Peter Parker: Spider Man."
- One of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents can be seen wearing a pair of webbed glider wings that look exactly like the ones made famous by Spider-Woman.
- Captain America and Spider-Man teaming up to fight Doctor Doom going through his castle. Heard of that before?
- White Tiger initially introduces Power Man as Luke Cage before he corrects her. In the modern comics, Luke no longer wears a costume or uses an alias while fighting crime.
- When Spider-Man first meets Curt Connors at SHIELD, the doctor has his right arm hidden up his sleeve, making it appear as though he's missing it. Most incarnations of Dr. Connors a.k.a. The Lizard are in fact amputees, having lost their arm during military service.
- In the first episode where he gets his supervillain alias, Doctor Octopus fights Spider-Man at an amusement park... just like he did in Doc Ock's introduction episode in The Spectacular Spider-Man. In both episodes, Ock even threatens an innocent bystander to bait Spider-Man.
- The show's version of Dr. Octopus as handicapped and reliant on his mechanical arms may be a referance to the Marvel Noir universe's Dr. Octopus or to the mainstream Doc Ock, who was wearing a cybernetic life-support system due to being crippled and dying from internal injuries sustained in his fights with Spider-Man.
- Likewise, Venom's origin seems to parallel the backstory of Marvel Adventures version of the villain, replacing the Tinkerer with Otto Octavius as its creator.
- Venom's first host was Flash Thompson, who happens to be Venom's current host in the comics.
- A Stark tech invention "scatters molecules across multiple dimensions" — including the one in which Peter Porker, the Amazing Spider-Ham exists. But the one that turns out to be important is the verse in which The Super Hero Squad Show takes place.
- It serves as a double nod: to SHS itself, and to the fact that in it, Spidey was the only Marvel hero never to appear. There was even the occasional "a guy with a spider theme? No way!" joke. The glimpse of SHS Spidey here is the only appearance of one ever.
- This happens with Spider-Ham again when Loki turns Peter into his porcine counterpart.
- In the episode where Luke Cage's parents are revealed to be alive, Spider-Man points out that, according to Luke, his parents died in a plane crash. In the comics, Peter Parker's mother and father were killed in a plane crash. note .
- When watching the Hulk fight the energy villain Zzzax, MJ describes him as "Incredible".
- The device Harry has to contain the symbiote is similar to the device used by Spider-Man in Spider-Man Unlimited to hold his new costume.
- In the episode "Back in Black", Doop (of X-Force, later X-Statix) cameos as Venom's sidekick in Peter's fantasy sequence.
- Peter has a hard time telling where the source of an attack is coming from when warned by his spider-sense, which is also how it worked in the Ultimate Spider-Man comics as well. (The mainstream 616-verse Spidey can use his to pinpoint the source.)
- In "Freaky", Wolverine threatens Mesmero by putting his fist under his chin, then popping the claws on either side, asking "Wanna try for three?" This mirrors what he did in the graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills.
- In the episode "Beetle Mania", the team's Imagine Spot of them Curb-Stomping the Beetle showcases his Mark I, II, and III armours from the comics.
- Spider-Man imagines a Spider-Buggy this alludes to the Spider-Mobile in the mainstream 616-verse.
- When Coulson looks at the list of Flash's understudies in the horrible Spider-Man musical he and Mary Jane wrote, Peter is the last on the list. The name immediate above his? Miles Morales, the current comic book version of Ultimate Spider-Man.
- The auditionee playing the guitar is wearing Ben Reilly's Spider-Man costume.
- When meeting Coulson's team of young heroes, Captain America remarks that there may be a few future Avengers in their line-up. In the comics, Spider-Man, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage all ended up joining the New Avengers.
- And in the Marvel Adventures universe, Nova (albeit a different one) is also a member. Both Novas in the mainstream universe are also members of the Avengers (Richard was one of the original Secret Avengers and Sam was recruited to the Avengers by Thor after Avengers vs. X-Men).
- After the Green Goblin destroys the Helicarrier, Ava, Sam, Luke, and Danny end up living at Peter's house, just like Gwen Stacy, Johnny Storm, and Bobby Drake did in the Ultimate Spider-Man comics.
- When Spider-Man first meets Doc Ock face-to-face, he jokes that he needs a haircut. He offers to take care of it if he'll give a bowl and some scissors. Doctor Octopus is, of course, known in the comics for his bowl haircut (which he likes just fine, thank you very much).
- One episode has Spider-Man referring to Power Man's battle with the Rhino as a "Contest of Champions."
- Aunt May beat Peter in a video game where she plays the Hulk vs The Thing, which happened on previous Marvel shows.
- When Kraven wears the White Tigers' amulet, he transforms into a humanoid tiger, much like in The Spectacular Spider-Man where he became a humanoid lion.
- Several references are made to Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends:
- In "The Lizard", Spider-Man's Imagine Spots of his team-ups with Connors and Doc Ock resemble the opening to the show.
- A cabdriver refers to Hawkeye as Spider-Man's "amazing friend".
- The term is used again in part one of Spider-Verse by Spider-Girl when referring to Spider-Man, much to his dismay.
- Another reference is made in "Inhumanity"; When he meets Lockjaw, Spider-Man mentions that he once had a dog named "Ms. Lion".
- Hawkeye's Avengers ID card is a slightly modified version of the cards seen in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
- Some of Spider-Man's Imagine Spots depict the various villains in their Silver Age or Bronze Age appearances, most egregiously in "Beetle Mania" and "The Lizard."
- The Spider-Cave in Boston contained the Spider-Copter, which was an actual toy made at one point years ago. The Spider-Mobile was also seen in the Cave.
- In Carnage, Peter is transformed into Carnage when the Green Goblin injects him with a sample of the Venom symbiote. This parallels how he became Carnage in the Ultimate Spider-Man video game.
- One of the Goblin's backup gliders in his hideout resembles his classic flat-faced Goblin Glider from the 1970's.
- Nick Fury's biography "Eye on the Prize" contains a review by Thor, reading "I like this book! Another!".
- Canon Foreigner Salem's Witch is based off longtime Marvel heroine Scarlet Witch.
- Deadpool defeats Taskmaster with the power of dance, just like he did when the two first fought in the comics.
- Likewise, Spider-Man defeats Tasky the same way Daredevil did in the comics.
- Deadpool's imagination chibi was actually lifted from the comics of his Marvel NOW! series. While that was most likely inspired from this show in the first place.
- The Chitauri look a lot like their film version
- The Rhino looks like The Amazing Spider-Man video game version of the Rhino.
- In "Game Over", Spider-Man says he hopes Arcade is hiding out someplace fun like an amusement park. In the original comics, Arcade used to trap his victims in a twisted amusement park called Murderworld.
- In the same episode, the Bad Future level in Arcade's game is inspired by Days of Future Past. There's even an Homage Shot to the infamous cover of X-Men #142, which shows Wolverine being vaporized by a Sentinel.
- In "Blade", Spider-Man asks which team of heroes Fury has sent to assist him. After mentioning the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, he asks if his new teammates will be the Power Pack.
- Scorpion's new Powered Armor from "Return of the Sinister Six" resembles his usual armor from the comics.
- In "The Avenging Spider-Man", when Loki puts his mind in Spidey's body, Doc Ock is very impressed and says he'll have to make a note of that.
- At the start of "Agent Venom", Scorpion has been Venomised. Mac Gargan, the comic book Scorpion, was the third Venom for a while in the comics. The rest of the episode is about setting up a version of the fourth and current Venom in the comics, Flash Thompson as the heroic "Agent Venom".
- Before becoming Agent Venom, Flash briefly attempts to fight crime in a homemade Scarlet Spider costume.
- At the end of the same episode, Spidey says S.H.I.E.L.D. should "take the initiative" in training new teenage heroes (to stop Taskmaster doing so), and refers to said heroes as "New Warriors"
- In The Savage Spider-Man, we get to see Spidey turned into the Man-Spider with him turning back to normal offscreen when Ka-Zar uses a skunk-like creature as medicine. Also, there's Ka-Zar meeting Spidey as they must rescue Zabu from Kraven; Ka-zar's debut in the 1981 cartoon gets a full remake. Ka-Zar was brought into the story by Zabu getting kidnapped in the Super Hero Squad Show, too, making it a double reference.
- In The Spider-Verse, Norma Osborn wears a gender-swapped version of the classic Green Goblin costume and uses a classic Goblin Glider and pumpkin bombs.
- Also, Petra Parker, used to her non-mutated, female Goblin, sees Peter's Goblin and asks if he is a man or a monster. Norman responds with "Why can't I be both?" This is a reference to the cover of the very first issue of The Incredible Hulk, where the tagline was "Is he a man or a monster? Or is he both?"
- In the same episode, Spider-Man saves Spider-Girl from getting thrown off the Georg(ia) Washington bridge in a nick of time. If only Gwen Stacy were as lucky.
- Also The Spider-Verse is a slight nod to the last time a team of alternate Spider-Men got together to stop a foe, as well as the last time the Green Goblin made a habit of traveling by portal.
- "Nightmare On Christmas" has several:
- When Spidey is sent to "Christmas past", the animation style is reminiscent of the 1960s cartoon. When chasing after the Enforcers, he even web-swings in the exact same fashion as Spidey '67 and lampshades the recycled backgrounds of the 60's cartoon.
- In the same segment, there is camera seen webbed to the underside of a bridge, midst Spider-Man's battle against the Enforcers. Not only is this a reference to how Peter Parker got his photos for the Daily Bugle in most other continuities, but apparently he did in this continuity as well. (Implying that this version of Peter quit working at the Bugle not long before joining S.H.I.E.L.D.)
- The classic scene of Peter throwing his Spider-Man costume in the trash from Amazing Spider-Man #50 ("Spider-Man No More") is reproduced.
- In the "Christmas future" scene, the Superior Spider Man series is referenced through Parker Industries, and even the "Goblin King".
- Luke tries on the present Danny had planned to give to Ava (a tiara), and says it looks good on him. This is a nod to the comic version's first costume, which included a metal band on his forehead (referred to by many as a "tiara"). He also says to Aunt May "Now this is what I call a sweet Christmas.
- In "Ant-Man", Doc Ock's nanobots have similar color schemes (and rough design similarities) to the Spider-Slayers from Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
- In the video game that Peter and Miles are playing at the beginning of "Return to the Spiderverse Part 1", Spider-Man's fighting stance and idle-animation are the same as they are in the Marvel vs. Capcom series.
- Among the various unnamed Spider-Men seen in the "Return to the Spiderverse" episodes is what's basically Spider-Man as a giant robot. Just say that Spider-Man is inside the mecha instead of being the mecha itself and this will seem a lot more familiar.
- "The Symbiote Saga" has several:
- In Part 1 the second Carnage mostly fights hostless like in Ultimate Spider-Man while his personality is similar to the symbiote's host in the main continuity, Cletus Kasady and briefly bonds with Doctor Octopus like in the Play Station video game Spider-Man (2000).
- Part 2 references Maximum Carnage, (Carnage being the main villain aided by Shriek while Spider-Man, Venom, Captain America, Iron Fist, Cloak and Dagger try to stop him) Planet of the Symbiotes (New York is overtaken by a army of symbiotes) and Spider-Island.(the infected populace is cured by Anti-Venom)
- In Part 3 Carnage attacks New York in a giant form (another Planet of the Symbiotes reference) before arriving at Peter's highschool where it bonds with Mary Jane which is similar to Carnage bonding with Gwen Stacey in Ultimate Spider-Man.
- In the final episode, Kraven refers to climactic battle with Spider-Man as his "Last hunt" before being knocked out.
- Also in the final episode, the first name Flash suggested the new S.H.E.I.L.D recruits he's been put in charge of training is "Coach Venom." In the comics Flash was an assistant gym coach while in Philadelphia.
