Anyone familiar with the ins and outs of the type of behavior usually seen within the confines of Film Noir will know that the title of the fifth episode was all but inevitable. After all, you can hardly go fifteen minutes watching some of the classics of the genre without someone stabbing someone in the back – sometimes literally. However, considering that luck-optional private eye, Ben Reilly, has just spilt his big, superhero secret to gangster’s moll, Cat Hardy, a betrayal is very much on the cards.
However, to give the dame her due, there is a very good reason for her to do so as it involves love, devotion and *checks notes* freakish German experiments that involve terrifying mutations. Fancy an origin story to help that deception go down smoother, you’ve got it – but be warned; this is no simple bite of an irradiated arachnid. This is some superhero body horror right here…
Not content with admitting that Cat Hardy’s guess about his secret identity is correct, a smitten Ben Reilly follows up this twist with a telling of the truly disturbing origins of his spider powers. Fifteen years earlier, during the final days of World War I, Ben was a soldier in charge of liberating POWs found within a German camp; however, the deeper inside he goes, he finds things that get progressively worse. Locating a large group of prisoners lock in a mass cell is one thing, but further investigation uncovers a room full of experiments in motion as men strapped to bed have various, animal related serums pumped into their veins. Trying to help one guy that’s seemingly being topped up with spider DNA, Ben his horrified to discover the POW has partially transformed into a giant arachnid and bites his would-be rescuer on the arm. While that infamous photo of the POWs that include Lonnie Lincoln and Flint Marko was being taken, Ben was just off to the size convulsing as his body reacted to his rewritten genetics.
This explains why Reilly took on this whole metahuman case in the first place – because he was there. However, while his powers have been far more stable than the ones that are rapidly killing the other guys, the doctor named Faber they’ve been seeing has actually been accidently speeding their demises up rather than curing them. But realising that their time is short, Lincoln and Marko have joined the ranks of Silvermane and even freed the recently imprisoned and electrically charged Dirk Leyden to bolster their superpowered ranks. Aiming to point his new super muscle in the direction of an insolent Mayor, the crime boss seems all but invincible.
Meanwhile, after Cat discovers from Ben that Faber’s experiments are killing Flint, she goes to the doctor to enquire if there’s anything that can be done. But after discovering that the scientist needs to discover the identity of the Spider as his condition may hold the secrets of a cure, the woman has to weigh up her love for the two metahuman hunks in her life.
A couple of things struck me while watching this episode. The first is if you are watching the “True Hue” colour version of the show, you’ll notice that the visual look of the show blows those colours out big time and like a lightning bolt out of the blue, it occurred to me that the makers of the show are trying to replicate the strange colour palette you got when studios went and colourised old black and white movies. Once again, it’s yet another awesome little detail that’s floored me with the care that’s gone into the entire show and it’s also made me quite relieved that I used a coin toss to chose which version I was going to watch (although a black and white rewatch is surely forthcoming). But beyond that, now that the bad guys are consolidating their power, it’s given us some more time with the growing horde of potential antagonists that’s amassing in for the impending finale.
However, the opening blow may come from Cat herself, which is supremely fitting as she’s a loose version of the equally duplicitous Black Cat (aka. Felica Hardy) from normal Spider-Man continuity; but all this comes to a head thanks to a wonderfully messed up telling of the Spider’s powers which prove to be fantastically memorable. Basically yanking the entire show into the realms a war film and then violently left-turning into full-on body horror, the reveal that Ben got his powers from the biting bicuspids of a grotesque man-spider proves to be a magnificent moment that not only comes out of nowhere, but feels almost Dr. Moreau-esque, or Fly-ish in its execution.
But aside from delivering a cool creature (he has a bulging abdomen, multiple eyes and even some spindly extra limbs), it fully ties all of the metahumans together into one big, neat origin and even opens up a new plot thread concerning the work of Amy Aquino’s Dr. Alethea Faber. Obviously it’s early doors for this thread (although it’s nice to see Andrew Robinson pop up as her secretary), and it sets up Cat’s Betrayal rather neatly, but what stands out most in this episode is that the more villian-centric bent gives the episode a real Dick Tracy vibe. In fact, when you see the likes of Tombstone, Sandman and Megawatt all suited up in the employ of Silvermane, you can’t help be reminded of the likes of Flat Top, Pruneface, Mumbles and other members of the character’s rogues gallery who showed up in that infamous, colourful nineties, Warren Beatty adaption.
While we’re on the subject of Spider-Noir’s list of bruisers, the show’s continuing to do a great job fleshing them out into three dimensional, quasi-tragic figures who are all essentially dead men walking due to their various conditions. Watching Marko gradually lose his humanity as his sand based powers overwhelm his morals has been quite a pleasant surprise, especially as the character struggles with this good/bad ratio in all of his other incarnations and this is nicely shown when, after Cat comes to him to plead her case, he almost accidently crushes her when a careless flick of the arm causes part of the room to collapse. Also getting a good showing is Megawatt who, while lacking in the beleaguered morals of his peers, delights in flexing his wannabe actor muscles and quoting plays when he isn’t killing guys by laying an electrified smacker on the lips. It may not be the Sinister Six and my OCD is fluctuating wildly thanks to the show going with Megawatt and not Electro (all electric powered supervillains are not the same), but the fact that Ben may have to face all three thugs, possibly at the same time at some point in his crappy future is something I can’t wait to see.
Yet another episode, yet another 45 minutes of pure gold from an overacting Nic Cage, cool villains doing cool shit and more intrigue from an extremely likable cast of characters. But as the story ramps up like the power levels of Silvermane’s lieutenants, Spider-Noir is being reassuringly careful to ensure that all of the players receive equal amounts of care. But never mind spider-sense, that’s just common sense.
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