Into the 'spider-verse' goes Nicolas Cage and his Spider Noir
When I was a kid, one of my favourite toys was Spider-Man’s car, the Spider-Mobile.
Obviously, the idea of Spidey needing a car is ridiculous. Beyond just being a New Yorker, he’s also gifted with the ability to get across town super quick with his spider-webs. Why sit in traffic?
The origin of the Spider-Mobile was a joke from the comics in the 70s, making fun of really dumb toy tie-ins that make no sense. For those of us who have grown up in the last 50 or so years, we are all very used to these pop cultural characters who never go away also having a slew of weirdo toy tie-ins. These toys are just as integral to our interest in these characters as the primary texts are.
Nowadays, the idea of a multiverse isn’t too difficult for your average audience member to get because we have all seen different versions of these characters over the years, each with their own twists on lore.
While the origins of Spider Noir, a take on Spider-Man that places Spidey in a 1940s era New York where he’s a private detective in the mould of Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe (particularly the Humphrey Bogart version of the character seen in The Big Sleep and Lady In The Lake), can be found in a 2009 comic, his real coming out to a wider audience was in the Spider-Man video game Shattered Dimensions.
That game is kind-of the origins of the Spider-Verse comics and movies, where we see Spidey interact with the hundreds to thousands of versions of the characters. Shattered Dimensions featured several versions of Spider-Man in different realities – among them was Spider Noir and Spider-Man 2099. Fun game. Fun characters.
When Prime Video announced it was moving forward with a Spider Noir TV series, which would star Nicolas Cage as the 1940s Private Eye turned Spider guy, it wasn’t as crazy an idea as it may have seemed. The foundations had been laid for it. We are now used to different takes on Spider-Man.
The only thing that seemed a bit weird was having an actor of Cage’s stature on the TV show, which felt more like a goof rather than a project built of artistic ambition.
Spider Noir debuts on May 27 this week. And fans are rightfully excited to see it. I’ve seen the first three episodes of the show and the series absolutely nails the brief.
The show looks gorgeous in both black and white and in colour. It’ll be released in both versions, encouraging the viewer to choose their preference. The dorkiest purists amongst us (watch as I raise my hand) will choose black and white, but the majority of viewers will choose the colour versions.
As a conceptual exercise, considering the Bogart film inspiration, the show only makes sense in black and white. But, frustratingly, it is hard to argue too much for that because it really looks incredible in colour. It’s a stunner.
Nicolas Cage is delightfully daffy playing the 40s era beaten down gumshoe Ben Reilly AKA The Spider. And there’s a great supporting cast with New Girl’s Lamorne Morris a particular standout as press reporter Robbie Robertson.
But we know all of that from the trailer.
Where the show is a disappointment is that the show doesn’t offer all that much more. The murder-mystery is a pretty stock 40s era B Picture storyline (albeit with a superhero slant of sorts), which is stretched out across eight episodes.
And the show perhaps looks a little bit too shmick. A lot of the visual choices on the show offer an elevated version of black and white detective films from the 40s. And that’s cool. But this ultimately looks so good that it doesn’t feel enough like an actual 40s movie.
For this show to be great, it needs to look a bit shittier.
Ultimately, this show needed to be a movie or episodic TV. Or at least make it more like a movie serial from the 40s with shorter runtimes. The prestige TV elements of the show are too much for it to be great.
I also had trouble with the merging of superheroics into this world specifically. Comics and detective stories all operate comfortably in the world of pulp. But where superheroes speak to an idea of a stunted maturity of its audience (again, I raise my hand here), detective stories have a greater maturity. A proper adult spirit to them.
Press play on the show. If you suspect you’re going to love it, you likely will get a kick out of Spider Noir. But what you won’t get is a great show. And that’s a shame because it is realised so exceptionally well.
Your first look at the TV event of 2026
Some people stand in the darkness
Afraid to step into the light
Some people need to help somebody
When the edge of surrender's in sight
… here’s your first look at the new Baywatch TV show:
Farewell The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, hello The Colbert Rep….lacement
There was a dark moment right at the conclusion of The Late Show’s final episode last week. I was no fan of that final episode, but even I couldn’t help but notice shocking moment at the end where the final credits rolled and in its place was an episode of Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed. This long-running late night and syndication filler show is horrendously bland, unfunny, and trite TV trash.
CBS used it to fill the programming gap left by the cancellation of the Colbert-produced After Midnight game show and, through a canny timeslot rental agreement by Byron Allen, it will replace the show at the earlier 11:30pm timeslot held until last week by The Late Show.
It was bad enough when an unsuspecting viewer would be confronted with Comics Unleashed starting… or even worse…. awake from dozing on the couch to discover it on screen. But to know that this is the show replacing The Late Show, it hurts. Regardless of whether The Late Show was pulled for political reasons or because the business model for late night doesn’t make sense, Comics Unleashed now represents an existential threat to longtime traditions.
Tonights ennui will be presented to you by Tide.
Seeing Comics Unleashed at the finale of Colbert last week… it was like a knife to ones side.
The AV Club has a good write-up that explains what is so wrong with Comics Unleashed and how it speaks to a moment where we may as well just say that American broadcast TV has pretty much just seen its final death spasm (at least until the next one…).
Allen has been on TV ever since. After co-hosting the proto-reality show Real People, he hosted his own syndicated late-night show, The Byron Allen Show, in the late-’80s and early-’90s. Allen followed that with Entertainers, a cheapo celebrity interview show cobbled together from junket Q&As, which is, remarkably, still on the air. However, Comics Unleashed remains his most successful television venture.
Every episode of Comics Unleashed is the same: Allen performs a brief observational monologue before hosting four comics for 20 minutes, lobbing them heavy-handed set-ups for the prewritten material they’ve brought with them. Inoffensive, apolitical, and utterly nontopical, it’s an advertiser’s dream. It’s also the rare TV series that’s better known for its “time-buy” business model than the quality of its content. Allen produces the show through his Allen Media Group (née the hilariously vague Entertainment Studios) imprint, buys airtime that would normally go to infomercials, and gets to keep the revenue from the commercials that air during the show.
Pretty much since it premiered, Comics Unleashed has been a frequent punchline for stand-ups, both for its strict rules and low pay. “Casey Anthony left prison with $537.68,” Todd Berry tweeted in 2011. “That’s the same amount you get for appearing on Comics Unleashed.” On multiple episodes of his podcast, the late Norm Macdonald critiqued the show and goofed on its title, saying, “Oh, you couldn’t be more leashed.” Macdonald recalled an appearance in which Allen’s producers put his jokes through “six layers” of scrutiny. More offensively, he said, Allen couldn’t segue between his guests and their patter. One Allen setup Macdonald liked to repeat was for Jon Lovitz: “So, Jon, I hear you’re growing older.”
News Desk
Tom Hardy has been fired from Paramount+ show MobLand after two seasons due to bad behaviour. There has been no comment about this from Hardy, not even a mumble. Read: Deadline
RIP TV writer Jeffrey Lane. Known for writing on shows including Mad About You, Cagney and Lacey, and Lou Grant, he passed at age 71. Read: Deadline
Ugh. We lost Grizz. 30 Rock supporting actor Grizzwald Chapman, of Grizz and Dot Com fame, has died at the age of 52. Chapman found fame through his friendship with Tracy Morgan, who brought him onto the show. They met when Chapman was working as a bouncer at a strip club. Read: NYT
In what he called an “excruciating 23 hours without being on TV,” Stephen Colbert returned as the host of Only in Monroe for a one-hour special. Read: Deadline
The final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert saw a series record set with 6.74 million viewers. Technically, the show once passed 20 million viewers, but that was after the Super Bowl and thus doesn’t really count as far as I’m concerned. Read: Variety
Boots Riley says there is no chance of a second season return for his Prime Video series I’m a Virgo. He wasn’t happy with the budget for the series, which he says saw cuts to around 40% of the script. Read: Deadline
Spartacus: House of Ashur has been given a thumbs down to a second season. Read: Deadline
Trailer Park
HBO Max’s sizzle reel of upcoming titles includes looks at Lanterns, Harry Potter, Gilded Age, and House of The Dragon.
The Boys prequel Vought Rising debuts on Prime Video in 2027.
Maa Behen debuts on Netflix June 4.
When trouble knocks on her door, a mother and her estranged daughters attempt to cover up a crime in a nosy colony where no secret is safe.
Husbands in Action debuts on Netflix June 19.
A detective teams up with his ex-wife's new husband to chase down her kidnappers. Can this unlikely duo put aside their differences for one wild rescue?
Here’s the first 13 minutes of the new 007: First Light video game, set for release this week.