My hopes were high for Spider-Noir, based on those amazing trailers, but I also had my doubts. Could it live up to the hype? Yes, it could. Spider-Noir is a triumph, fusing fast-paced storytelling, compelling characters and dazzling cinematography into a hugely entertaining, loving homage to a magical bygone era.

Much like its animated predecessors, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse, Spider-Noir reinterprets familiar Marvel characters in an alternate universe, this time set during the Great Depression. But it's Nicolas Cage's portrayal of Ben Reilly, a hard-boiled PI with a secret superhero identity, The Spider, that steals the show.

The live-action series is still set in 1930s Depression-era New York, but the spidery superhero is not Peter Parker. Co-showrunner Oren Uziel, a film noir fan himself, thought the Parker character was too closely associated with a boyish high school type, which didn't fit the noir vibe. So Cage plays Ben Reilly, embittered and jaded after losing his fiancée five years earlier.

With ruthless Irish mob boss Finn Byrne, aka Silvermane, pretty much having a chokehold on New York City, characters like Janet, Ben's secretary (played by Karen Rodriguez), and Robbie, his reporter buddy (Lamorne Morris), are crucial to the plot. And then there are the emerging super-villains: Flint Marko is slowly turning into Sandman, while Lonnie Lincoln is becoming Tombstone.

Meanwhile, the egomaniacal Leyden dubs himself Megawatt as he can absorb and release electricity. Circumstances conspire to thrust Ben back into action, but it's his personal demons that threaten to consume him more than any villainous plot.