5 min read

AT THE START of 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse , Peter Parker reminds the audience of everything we already know about Spider-Man: bit by a radioactive spider, death of Uncle Ben, great power and great responsibility, etc. But then the movie throws that aside to introduce a very different type of Spider-Man—not just our star Miles Morales , but a bevy of Spider-People across the multiverse, including a fedora-sporting, purple-prose-spouting, hard-boiled detective voiced by Nicolas Cage.

Now, with the release of the Prime Video/MGM+ series Spider-Noir , that Spider-Man gets his time to shine… well, as much as anyone can shine in black and white. Cage reprises his role as a trench-coat wearing hero with spider-powers, but Spider-Noir has little else in common with any other Spider-Man, let alone his character from the Spider-Verse films.…