After watching the first episode of Spider-Noir, I couldn’t help but feel that there was something overwhelmingly familiar about the noir-drenched superheroics of the rumpled Ben Reilly and his crime fighting alter ego, the Spider. In fact, it must be a sign of my declining years that it took until the second episode to properly pin it down; but after “Tread Lightly” gets to really go to town on this whacky stew of a premise, it finally hit me like a gloved right hook. The last time I’d seen superhero antics with a 30s aesthetic that this fun, it was back when Tim Burton was still making Batman movies and the fashions, clipped tone and the numerous use of dutch angles has obviously proven to be a massive influence. Better yet, in only two episodes, Spider-Noir as kind of put more respect on those other movies based on pulp heroes that rode on Batman’s cape during the 90s. Dick Tracy? The Rocketeer? The Shadow? Ben Reilly’s socking crime on the jaw in salute to you, you forgotten heroes of yesteryear.
Despite his better judgement, former superhero turned washed-up private eye Ben Reilly has found himself in the midst of a super powered mystery that keeps getting weirder the deeper he looks. After narrowly avoiding one shifty deal that got a fire-powered super called Addison and a fellow P.I. killed, Reilly was hired by singer Cat Hardy to locate her missing bodyguard, a guy who can turn into sand by the name of Flint Marko. Turning over Marko’s apartment for clues, Ben discovers that both Addison and Marko both fought together in World War 1 and were both former enforcers to all-powerful mobster, Silvermane. Realising that there’s a sizable connection between a multiple things he’d rather avoid, Reilly realises that he’s now in way too deep and a sassy, back and forth conversation with Cat Hardy confirms that’s something is indeed fishy among this small, super powered community.
Meanwhile, operating off a tip that Addison was paid to take a hit out on Silvermane, ace reporter Robbie Robertson seeks out Addison’s wife, but only succeeds in finding the hulking Lonnie Lincoln instead. Discovering that Addison’s wife was spending her late husband’s ill-gotten gains in an up-market hotel, Robertson hunts her down, but can’t get any new information. Meanwhile, it seems that Marko’s disappearance was his own idea as he’s been hiding out with Lincoln as his sandy condition worsens, but after Silvermane’s men threaten both Ben and his long suffering secretary one too many times, the battered gumshoe decides its time to get back in the web-slinging saddle and once again take up the mantle of the Spider.
However, while leaping onto cars and punching out goons turns out to be second nature to the relapsed hero, it turns out that his timing could use some work, as his little intervention prevented Silvermane from wandering into a police stakeout. It seems that the Spider’s a little rusty when it comes to the do-gooder business.
“Tread Lightly” is essentially everything you’d want a Spider-Noir episode to be. While the last installment dropped us into this whacky mash-up of superhero camp and hard-boiled noir stylings and waited until we got up to speed, episode 2 just wades right in and magnifies everything you liked about the previous episode by 10. The main thing people will take away from this sophomore offering is that despite teasing us with the potentially dreary plot thread of Ben Reilly being the latest in a long line of heroes to hang up the tights, he’s renounced that bullshit long enough to throw on the mask and coat and indulge us in a rollicking, climactic action sequence that sees him descend on two car loads of car totting thugs and dispatched them with a deft combo of webs, fists and cheeky quips.
Frankly, it’s fucking glorious and it’s everything you hoped a live action Spider-Noir brawl would be as he car surfs and dispatches gunmen with scintillating wit (the tai-chi callback from earlier in the episode is a killer), but even better is the fact that Nicolas Cage has opted to make his Humphrey Bogart voice even more exaggerated as he cracks wise through his woolen mask. But while we give thanks that the show didn’t opt to have Reilly wrestle with the weight of becoming the Spider for the entire season, the build up to it throughout the episode also serves to deliver a superlative experience. Long term Spider-Fans will be overjoyed that a long-running comic feud is hinted at when Robbie Robertson meets Lonnie “Tombstone” Lincoln on screen for the very first time, but while their meeting isn’t one of animosity, it does serve to expand the growing super powered community that’s bubbling at the core of the show. Even more interesting is that the likes of Sandman and Tombstone are being played as more tragic characters and the pathos we feel for them fully buys into the whole Spider-Man gig of his rosta of villains mostly being victims of circumstance.
But as the plot twists and turns, maybe the most freeing thing about the show is that it’s allowing Nic Cage to fully embrace the weird in ways that go beyond chewing on that classic, 30s drawl like his life depended on it. Cageaholics will no doubt be tickled pink at the little side mission that sees Ben retrieve his ditched spider-gear by pretenting to be a spectacled plumber with an already more bizarre accent, but as he’s also got that extra, tough-guy Spider-Noir voice too, it’s a fantastic showcase to prove that the legendary actor still has that baffling talent of somehow making potentially ridiculous acting choices and then managing to pull them all off magnificently. It’s also nice that we’ve got the Spider and Silvermane having the chance for a little face to face to really build up that rivalry and the chemistry between Ben and his motherly secretary, Janet, sparks enough that it makes sense her disappointment in him is what makes him don the webs once again. But proving that the show really does understand what it takes to be a Spider-Man show is the fact that the old Parker luck (or should that be Reilly luck) is running worryingly true to form. Yes, Reilly has become the Spider once again and put Silvermane on notice, but in doing so, he inadvertently saves the mobster from walking into a prohibition sting that would have put him firmly behind bars. Simply put, the Spider has fucked up huge – and if that isn’t the defining nature of Spider-People in every reality, I don’t know what is.
With the introductions of episode 1 nicely dispensed with, Spider-Noir is free to fully take flight and show us that it can really do. The look, the performances, the action, it all takes full advantage of the sort of pulp thrills the 90s tried to push in the wake of Batman and if the people behind the show can keep it up, the remaining six episodes will be a freakin’ treat.
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