Spider-Noir Season 1: He Gets by with a Little Help from His Friends

The following recap contains spoilers for Spider-Noir Season 1 (created by Oren Uziel).

Welcome, dear reader, as we look back at Season 1 of the MGM+ / Prime Video series Spider-Noir. This show has been a long time coming. I had this in my Most Anticipated TV Show category for both our 2025 Awards and 2024 Awards. Though, really, this is a character we’ve all wanted to see more of since his debut in 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. And I’m here to tell ya, it was worth the wait.

The series achieves perfection as an homage to film noir, with all the classic tropes of the genre. We have the private detective with a dark and troubled past, a femme fatale who tempts and ultimately double-crosses him, powerful gangsters, and corrupt politicians. The visual elements are an absolute treat, whether you watch in black and white or in oversaturated color. In fact, it actively encourages you to rewatch immediately to go try the other format once you’re done, giving those streaming numbers a nice little bump, no doubt.

Yet, it is also a classic comic book superhero story. As showrunner Oern Uziel puts it, “what if you made a Bogart movie where Bogart just happened to be Spider-Man.” In this take on Spider-Man, it’s Ben’s fiancé Ruby who delivered the classic line, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Though after losing her, Ben Reilly has abandoned the responsibility for five years now, and would gladly abandon the power as well, if he could. As he twists it, “with no power comes no responsibility.” Just the right shade of cynicism you’d expect from our jaded noir hero.

The Spider (really Robbie) stands behind the bar in the penthouse — *Robbie as The Spider*

Not THAT Spider-Noir

Right out of the gate, they squash (like a bug) any notions of this Spider-Noir being related to the one portrayed in the Spider-Verse movies. The very first line of the series is a voiceover from our hero relaying how someone had once asked him what universe this was. A strange question that’s stuck with him all these years later. This is the only universe he knows of.

Then again, in their final encounter at the mausoleum, Cat tells Ben that in a different world, she really would have run away with him. A different world, hmm? Could that be a wink and a nudge from the writers? OK, probably not.

Clearly, behind the scenes, they don’t have rights to certain names for the series. He’s not Peter Parker, he’s Ben Reilly. He’s not Spider-Man, he’s The Spider (similar to radio drama heroes of the period, like The Shadow or The Green Hornet).

Then again, they did drop a little throwaway line in Episode 6 that he had changed his name after the War, making it hard for Dr. Faber to find him. No doubt that’s exactly why he changed his name, to evade the Army doctors and others like them that would come after him. But then, we have to wonder, what was his name before the change?

Sandman and Megawatt side-by-side looking irritated, Cat in the background between them — *Sandman and Metawatt consider a change of management*

Foes

It’s not a Spider-Man story without a villain or two for him to face off against. The first superpowered bad guy we encounter is James “Jimmy” Addison. A bit of a fire bug, you might say. Alas, his candle flame is snuffed out before we even get to know him. Turns out he was surprisingly not bulletproof. At least, he seemed surprised by that fact.

Tombstone and Sandman are the reluctant villains. Lonnie Lincoln (Tombstone) is just trying to get by, supporting himself and his mom. A soft bed and hot meals are more than he’s had in a long time. Flint Marko (Sandman) doesn’t enjoy hurting people. He’s kind, when he isn’t busting heads, but loyal to a fault. Both are redeemed in the end and deservedly so.

Dirk Leyden (Megawatt) has no reluctance about him whatsoever. The aspiring actor is chewing up the scenery wherever he goes and he never shuts up. Definitely my favorite villain of the season and he also had the most spectacular ending. He’s the only one who realizes he and his fellow “monsters” are the ones with the superpowers, so maybe they ought to be in charge.

Because Silvermane, the primary antagonist of this season, has no actual superpowers. He’s an old man who, per his own assessment at the beginning of the story, had maybe gotten a little too comfortable with The Spider being gone these last five years. By the end, his sage advice to Cat is to “never get comfortable.” Words that become his epithet at her hand a few moments later. He tells her the fighting is the point, it’s what gives the whiskey its taste. But Megawatt probably assesses it better when he says he’s fighting to stay relevant.

Robbie and Ben are at the back of the crowd talking at the Mayor's election rally — *Mayor’s missive misses mark*

Friends

One standout difference in this Spider-Man interpretation is how much help he gets from his friends. All too often, Peter Parker’s story is dominated by the difficulties stemming from having to keep his identity secret from everyone around him. Ben Reilly, though, has got a bit of a Scooby gang thing going on with his friends, and I’m here for it.

Janet is the responsible one. She holds down the fort, books the clients, handles the money. She also does the research, with connections down at the precinct that she can bribe with a sandwich. A connection that works both ways when her contact tips her off that every precinct in the city is looking for Ben. Janet’s the one who gets Lonnie to open up and she’s also the one who delivers Cat not one, but two slaps, for what she did to them.

Robbie is the best friend and sidekick, getting in on both the detective work and the hero work. He’s the one who tracks down Flint and Lonnie at the Hooverville encampment, and finds Addison’s wife at the hotel. Robbie is also the one who takes down Tombstone, having the smarts to figure out there was a place where he still had soft tissue vulnerable to a needle. Takes him down and saves his life at the same time. When he departs, Lonnie tells him, the city needs men like him just as much as it needs a guy like The Spider.

Rounding out the Scooby gang is the kid, Frankie. A jack of all trades, Frankie tips off Ben to his tail, poses as Ben to keep the goons in place watching his apartment, and keeps tabs on Cat for Ben. Truly, a junior detective, just like the call of the Mystery Hour radio program he listens to.

Split screen, Silvermane on left and two mirrored images of Cat holding a gun on right, both reflected in shattered mirrors — *Cat and mouse*

Come Together

Perhaps the most gratifying thing about the show is that the writing was also really, really good. Everything that happened served the story, and all those elements came together, moving confidently towards the finale, and wrapping up all the threads in a satisfying manner. Nothing too pretentious, just a good story, well told.

In the end, a surprisingly large number of characters get a happy ending. As Robbie puts it, “I get a newspaper to run, Morris wins, Flint gets the girl and Janet gets a new office.” And what does Ben Reilly get? A new lease on life…and a really good hot dog, of course.

Ben tried to tell Ogden Faber that The Spider was never a hero. He only did it for the thrill. But Faber knew better. Sergeant Reilly ran into danger to liberate a camp of tortured soldiers, and then he came home and chose to save a lot more. Ben also tried to tell Robbie that he only did it at the time because it made him feel good. To which Robbie counters that maybe he should think about why it made him feel good.

At the bar, at his absolute rock bottom, the run-of-the-mill schmucks were mocking The Spider. As down on him as he was on himself. By the final battle though, the crowd is booing his opponent and cheering for The Spider. Thanking him and patting him on the back. Once again, he’s The Spider, the city’s hero. Always on guard, always ready to swoop in and save the day.

Ben, drunk at the office, in his goggles, hat, and boxers, holding a beer bottle — *I Spider!*

Quick Takes

A couple of quick takes on the rest of the season:

While discussing the German super soldier program, Janet mentions that the war ended 15 years ago. World War I ended in 1918, making this the year 1933 then.
That also lines up with the Mayor’s empty campaign promises to end prohibition, which ended on December 5, 1933, with the repeal of the 18^th Amendment.
It looked like Janet could have bribed the entire squad room with sandwiches, if she had brought enough of them.
Instead of being bitten by a radioactive spider, Ben was bitten by a radioactive man-spider. Which is significantly creepier.
I know I’m probably in the minority, but I love having those “previously on” bits at the beginning of each episode. Would that we could have stretched this enjoyment out across the entire summer, dropping weekly episodes instead of all at once.
That said, there are some good ending lines to many of the episodes. Not cliffhangers, per se, but just a nice button to bring it to a close. I especially appreciated “We’ll be needing another grave” (Episode 3), “Nice to meet you, Mr. Spider” (Episode 4) and the dual “Get me Ben Reilly” coming from Silvermane and the Mayor (Episode 7).
It was mildly disappointing that Cat Hardy was never fully realized as the Black Cat. I kept expecting and hoping for the smallest manifestation of her bad luck powers. Great as the Sony live-action films have been (mostly), as a longtime Spider-Man fan, a live-action portrayal of the Black Cat remains at the top of my wish list.
Then again, maybe she’d been using them on Ben all along, but he’s so “down on his luck” that they had no effect. Ha!
In the Spider-Man: Noir comic books, Felicia Hardy goes on to become a hero herself, taking on the moniker of The White Widow.
My favorite Janet moment is the hilarious montage when she reveals that she’s known that Ben was The Spider all along, because he’s told her multiple times when she’s stumbled upon him at the office completely blitz out of his mind.
There were several great montages set to old time tunes throughout the season. The above scene to Bing Crosby singing “Nice Work If You Can Get It.” Ben in disguise visiting all of the hospitalized patrolmen to Benny Goodman playing “All the Cats Join In.” The bar fight set to Rosemary Clooney singing “Sway.”

Metawatt, charged up, stands facing Dr Faber, who is scared, in her lab with tanks in the background — *Megawatt confronts Dr. Faber*

My favorite Robbie moment is when he clues Ben into the fact that when he hung up the mask, Robbie lost everything. His whole newspaper career was built around reporting on The Spider, but he never asked Ben to come back. Because Robbie understood the price Ben had paid for being a hero.
Addison doesn’t even warrant a cool villain name, leaving comic book fans somewhat in the lurch trying to figure out who he was supposed to be. Then again, Tombstone is also never actually named as such in universe and Sandman is only endowed with that name by Megawatt as he flourishes to the crowd in their final battle.
Ben’s spider sense seems to be not as finely tuned as we’re used to seeing from Spider-Man. It’s literally manifesting as a pain in the neck, and he’s not always sure what it’s trying to tell him. Although he does use it to break into Silvermane’s safe in Episode 3, in a manner that is not at all how the spider sense usually works.
His organic web shooting ability is likewise flakey, failing him twice at critical moments. Good thing it didn’t fail him when Flint Marco tossed him off a building.
Another minor disappointment was the makeup job for the Sandman. It just seems to me that in this day and age of amazing CGI special effects, they could have done better than something that looked my daughter’s art project where she dipped some pasted construction paper into a plate of glitter. I heard one reviewer call him Gravelman, and that kind of fits the look, too.
When Reilly goes looking for Carmedy, he describes him as “More pinniped than human. […] He’s so pinniped-like, you wouldn’t believe it.” A pinniped is a member of the seal family, as in the “syphilitic walrus” he described him as earlier. The depth of Ben’s vocabulary has no bottom to it.
“Res ipsa loquitur,” the Latin phrase Ben says to Silvermane before he claims to not speak Latin, means “the thing speaks for itself.”
They actually explain Ben’s predilection for speaking like old movie stars as part of his backstory that he tells Cat. After he was bit, he had to relearn how to be human again, and did so by going to the movies and watching the actors, studying the way they spoke and moved.

Janet, dressed up and standing at the police station, holding up a bag from Buckley Bros. Delicatessen — *It ain’t a bribe if he don’t get to eat it*

Just before Freckles comes to Ben’s apartment, we catch a glimpse of Ben’s honorable discharge paperwork as he is packing to leave, and the name on that document is “Ben Reilly.” A prop department slip up, I’d hazard to guess, since the name change line comes a few minutes later.
In the closed captions, they use the comic book sound effect of “thwip” a couple times. I love that.
The scene where Cat catches up to Silvermane in a room full of mirrors should have had us asking, hey, where did this carnival funhouse come from? It also seemed like she must have popped off about 20 rounds from her little pea shooter, between the upstairs shoot out and destroying all those mirrors. But as the meme says, I’ll allow it. It’s tropey and goofy, and we’re having so much fun by that point that you hardly notice.
Being a big fan of The Tick, I like a little levity with my super heroes. So, that was a concern going in, with this older, jaded version of Spider-Man. No worries though, he was right up there with the best of them trading pithy barbs just as much as he was trading blows with the bad guys.
I can’t help but wish they could have made this just a bit more kid-friendly. I mean, if they’re making an homage to the old 1930s noir films, did they really need the gore and the language? Those noir films didn’t.
This is only the beginning of a Spider-Man filled year. We’ll get Spider-Man: Brand New Day at the end of July, and Season 2 of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man later this fall.
TV Obsessive’s own Tina Kakadelis has an interview with one of the series editors, Jennifer Barbot, where she talks a little about the process of editing in both color and black-and-white.

Ben hides in a closet, lines of light and shadow play across his face — *No shame in hiding in the closet*

Best lines of the season:

“Mr. Reilly’s a very nice man, but he was just about to leave.” “Who told you that?” “That you were leaving?” “That I’m nice.” (Episode 1)
“What do you think?” “I think you might need a cold shower. I think I might need one.” (Episode 2)
“I don’t like surprises.” “I’ll remember that when your birthday rolls around.” (Episode 2)
“Excuse me, w-what’s happening in there?” “Bit of an existential crisis, if I’m honest.” “About my toilet?” (Episode 2)
“I could use someone like you on my payroll.” “I’m not a fan of your retirement plan.” (Episode 4)
“What happened to your face?” “I…walked into a door.” “How many times?” (Episode 4)
“You know, a hot dog at the game is better than roast beef at the Ritz.” (Episode 5)
“I want to know what kind of goodbye I should give my friends.” “I don’t think you need to divvy up your three worldly possessions just yet.” (Episode 8)
“Did I come at a bad time?” “Not at all. Silvermane was just teaching us a lesson about how to kill a defenseless woman.” (Episode 8)
“Go to hell, Ben.” “I have. I’m keeping it warm for you.” (Episode 8)

Ben stands at the office door, smirk on his face — *A new lease on life*

Conclusion

Looking ahead to a Season 2, the possibilities seem endless. There’s undoubtedly a story to be told of Ben’s escape from the Army doctors who cut him open, pulled him apart, and put him back together again. We didn’t dig very deep into the events surrounding Ruby’s death either. Perhaps Ben’s understanding of those events is all wrong, or he could have even been an unreliable narrator of that story. If nothing else, we didn’t get near enough punching of Nazis in this first season, so that’s something they absolutely need to rectify.

Of course, there also is an existing canon of Spider-Man: Noir comics to plumb for story ideas as well. Other Marvel Noir properties could be pulled into the picture. The death of Silvermane leaves the city open to a new, dare I say it, Kingpin of crime to move in and take over? Perhaps crossing over into Daredevil: Noir and Punisher: Noir territory?

That’s all for now. Please let us know your thoughts and feelings about the series so far, and any theories you have on what’s to come, in the comments below.

All images courtesy of MGM+ / Prime Video