Unsolicited Thoughts on Spider-Noir

One of two things would happen with Episode One of Spider-Noir (Amazon Prime, 2026). Either I would press the stop button quickly, or I would settle in and binge away. I had my reasons for skepticism. Eight of my scarce hours were on the table, and if a show wanted to invoke classic noir, well, hawking "Noir" in the title is already trying too hard. 

My self-disclosures: I'm not a comic book guy. But I grew up on the cartoons, and Spider-Man can be good fun. I also don't go for any multiverse stuff. Endlessly re-versioning a character tends to water down the compelling original. Still, there is always room for an inventive retelling, and Spider-Man as a Prohibition-era detective counts as inventive. Plus, casting Nicolas Cage as said detective is like storing creative gasoline under the bright lights. Something is going to happen. 

I binged the series.

A little despite myself. Not because the series isn't enjoyable -- it is -- but because I have those purist expectations. You can't just put a brokedown detective in a smoky jazz club and call it noir. The world has to feel bleaker by the second. There has to be danger, not least for the detective. Marlowe couldn't lift a car or swing across town. When he got hit, he felt it.

A brief synopsis of Spider-Noir: Ben Reilly (Cage) is the brokedown detective, and not a great one by his own admission. He was better as the Spider, the masked hero who had stood between New York and mobster violence. He is retired these days after blaming himself for his girlfriend's murder. Since then, both he and New York have gone from bad to worse. A rare new case drags him back into the mob world, where he discovers others with superpowers, connections to his past, and possible cure for his inner spider.  

Spider-Noir's New York is rotting from inside out, a squalid town of post-war cripples and trash in the street. Nobody has much future, only a precarious now and a past dragging them down. Even mob boss Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson) is miserable and paranoid after a string of betrayals and murder attempts. 

If that sounds noir, it is. Mostly. But the problem is the same one facing any superhero story: No matter its other ambitions, there is still a superhero around. They have to do superhero things and be drawn toward a superheroic climax, or what's the point of introducing powers in the first place?

To its great credit, Spider-Noir understands this. Reilly dons the Spider outfit only when he absolutely must, a few minutes max in the early episodes. The supervillains are conflicted gangsters, with low-tech displays of powers they understand are slowly killing them. Sandman is sandy, sometimes, and Tombstone can't be hurt. 

Instead, Spider-Noir starts centered around normal-ish people who make bad choices and hate their place in life. As the series progresses, the laws of fiction prove inescapable, and the episodes shift from PI case-of-the-week to superpower flexes. The noir intent shifts, too, from plots and staging to destiny's hand and an inevitable end that even crime lords and superheroes can't escape. It's both Spider and Noir--and thankfully it doesn't wobble too far either way.  

And the writers understood their leading man. Nicolas Cage is going to play Nicolas Cage, not broad but always simmering. Powerful at his best, uniquely funny. Cage is older now, and he brings that to his world-weary, lost-a-step Spider with a bad back. The casting is inspired--and necessary. A play-it-straight actor couldn't bear the concept's load, and the noir spin probably collapses under its own smoked-up weight. No, this called for Spider-Cage, a double pour of Sam Spade and Roger Rabbit.

Which breaks another classic noir rule. When Bogey and Co. cracked foxy in The Maltese Falcon, the wit had a knife's edge, underpinning the tension, not breaking it. Spider-Noir leans on drawing a laugh, and I did laugh. 

Of course, The Maltese Falcon was released 85 years ago. Noir has evolved, whether I grouse about it or not. Noir today is more malleable than back in the Bogey flicks. Pace matters as much as the puzzle. Color signals as much menace as shadow. In a neo-noir lens, anything goes, even spider detectives. 

Still, Spider-Noir picked specific, Golden Age noir trappings. It's a mantel worn loosely, in parts homage and affectation. Spider-Noir doesn't wear that trench coat quite right, but it's not trying too hard at it. It's doing its own thing.