Jeff Trammell reveals how Lonnie was almost different in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

The first season of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man introduced a new status quo to this new universe. Apart from Norman Osborn, the show's version of Lonnie Lincoln has become a fan favorite. In the show, Lonnie is a classmate of Peter Parker, who, unlike his comic-book counterpart, is a pretty cool guy and friend of Peter.

In the comics, Lonnie "Tombstone" Lincoln is older than Peter and is already a dangerous mob boss who has risen to the ranks after working as a muscle for hire for characters like the Kingpin. He is one of the minor characters that tests our beloved Wall-Crawler physically. But the Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man introduces us to Lonnie Lincoln who has a bright future ahead of him.

It is tragic when he jeopardizes his own life by joining the 110th Street Gang, in exchange for his younger brother Andre's freedom in the third episode "Secret Identity Crisis". This decision has huge ramifications as Lonnie is thrown off the football team, and almost loses his life to Mac Gargan/Scorpion. However, he does team up with Spider-Man to beat the Scorpion in the finale.

However, the closing moments of the finale also hint that Lonnie is now the leader of the 110th Street Gang. Jeff Trammell in a D23 interview revealed that Lonnie almost turned different in an earlier version of the series.

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How was Lonnie different in an earlier version of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man?

Recently on February 28, 2025, showrunner and head writer Jeff Trammell was interviewed in D23. He made a shocking revelation about a different version of the animated Spider-Man series. The revelation was that Lonnie's story was almost different on an earlier draft of the series. The showrunner revealed that they began with the idea that Peter and Lonnie were not on the same side. Trammell said:

“There was an early version of the show where Peter and Lonnie were on completely opposite ends. As time went on, I thought, ‘I don’t know if that’s fun. Let’s try putting Peter and Lonnie together and seeing how they complement each other.'”

The showrunner then went on to explain his reasoning behind changing Lonnie's character the way we saw play out in the series:

“Peter and Lonnie share a lot of really cool personality traits, but they’re also very different. Being able to juxtapose those characters as we take them on similar journeys with different obstacles is something I was really interested in exploring.”

Here's how Trammell justified Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man's version of Lonnie Lincoln:

“Lonnie has so much history in the comics, but there is so much more to explore with him onscreen. That was what really drew me to him. Peter is going through growing pains, and he cares so much, and Lonnie is doing the same. Lonnie has a huge heart, and so he does what he feels is necessary given the circumstances. At the end of the day, he cares too much—to a fault. Peter is like that, too. They’re both intrinsically people who want to help but are taken on different journeys throughout the course of this show.”

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What do Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man showrunner's comments mean?

Comic book fans are notoriously picky about comic book accuracy, however, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man proves that change can be a good thing. In the previous versions of the character's adaptations, Peter shared qualities with other Spidey characters like Eddie Brock, Ben Riley, Harry and Norman Osborn, and Miles Morales, this is the first adaptation to choose a different character.

Over ten episodes, this show manages to provide this small antagonist with a developed backstory before his eventual physical transformation into Tombstone.

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is available to stream in its entirety on Disney+. Watch it as we wait for the second and the third seasons.