Just gray

There's something primal about certain media in black-and-white. Most noir films were done in the pre-color era and the tone and atmosphere of all of them suits that presentation. Bright colors just don't speak "noir"; quite literally, since it's the French word for "black" or "dark." The Glass Key wouldn't be what it is if that first dining room scene was in a nice set of peach and olive pastels that could've represented the average decor of the time. No, it needed the grays and the shadows implied by them to give the sense of menace that shrouded the politics and the maneuvering of the various characters to make the film a classic, in addition to the writing and the performances, both of which are excellent. Likewise, many comics are just suited to that more stark presentation. Quinn and Vigil's Faust just wouldn't have had the same visual impact if it was in color, since a lot of Vigil's excellent fine line work would've been washed out by color, some by the printing process and some by the failure of the human eyes to discern detail when distracted by other stimuli. This is to say nothing of the requisite blood spray in every third panel. Indeed, although we were doing all of Fifth Panel Comics' output in black-and-white because of economics (color printing was far more costly at that time), I soon decided that our presentation was better because of the lack of color and when Jeff suggested we do the Webcomic, I was still scripting while imagining everything in monochrome. (I usually still do.) That's why when I heard about Spider-Noir and that it could be watched in the old visual style of the period in which it's presented (the 1930s), I was kinda geeked about it. I mean, yet another Spider-Man production wasn't particularly thrilling, but doing it in the style of a Dashiell Hammett story sounded great. Having watched the first episode (in the lack of coloration, as intended), I have mixed feelings as yet.

I have a fondness for noir, even if some of it seems relatively staid in the succeeding decades that so much storytelling has been built upon its foundations or has tried to emulate it. Just like with jazz, I can both see and understand the underlying meaning of those stories and the style and appreciate the building blocks that they represent to a lot of more modern drama. Miller's Crossing is my favorite Coen brothers' film for more than one reason, but a primary one is that it's clearly an homage to the noir films of old, even as it retains the Coens' famed quirkiness in many of its scene changes and reaction moments. But the other reason it's a favorite is that all of the characters are fully developed people. This is, of course, a sticking point for me in all media. If you're going to tell me a story, you have to tell me a story about humans (or at least really interesting demons/aliens/whathaveyou.) If your characters are just serving the plot, rather than living their lives, a lot of the shine is going to come off your story, no matter what style or genre it happens to inhabit. That means you have to sell me on the first episode of any series with real people. Spider-Noir, unfortunately, didn't really do that.

Why can't I find any good black-and-white pics of Reilly? Should tell you a lot.

Part of it is the Nicolas Cage effect. I don't like Cage as an actor, really, because he's a capable character actor trying to do the Leading Man thing. While he was brilliant and believable as a dying drunk in Leaving Las Vegas, in all of the rest of the roles I've seen him in, he's still doing Nicolas Cage. It's the same combination of faux world-weariness and occasional jarring surprise at being in these circumstances in the first place when everyone can see said circumstances except him. Every time. This has been the same pattern since The Rock (Why am I forced to be doing this incredibly exciting thing?!) with one exception in Adaptation. Even then, half of his dual role in that film was still Mr. Put Upon Who Doesn't Understand Why Life Won't Change. And, yes, Ben Reilly is still Nicolas Cage. It's just not interesting anymore and here he has an entire role built around that perspective, as the failing PI (stereotypical) who's a retired superhero because of a tragedy and who is alternately pitied and held in contempt by everyone around him who don't understand why he can't snap out of it. Yes, a lot of noir leads are supposed to be cynical, as that's the style, but just like another of Marvel's characters, Jessica Jones, if anything Reilly is too cynical, to the point that it gets tiresome, rather than remains humorous or otherwise entertaining.

Meanwhile, we also have the intrepid reporter who knows the truth (Lamorne Morris, playing Robbie Robertson of Daily Bugle fame), the disgusted secretary who, like Cher, doesn't understand why Reilly can't pick himself up (Karen Rodriguez), the femme fatale/important client who clearly has motives beyond the central thrust of the plot (Li Jun Li as Cat Hardy, another prominent Marvel character (no spoilers!)) and the powerful crime boss whom half the city lives in fear of for one reason or another (Brendan Gleeson as the notorious Silvermane.) In the end, the only one of those who delivered an interesting performance was Gleeson and he had the least screen time. Why? Because all of them are filling stereotypes, rather than actual roles, but Gleeson adds the one thing that Cage sorely lacks in all of his leading man attempts: gravitas. Yes, he's still Brendan Gleeson, but he's not the Gleeson of In Bruges or 28 Days Later or Cold Mountain. Why? Because he can leave at least part of himself behind and inhabit the character of all of those roles, which is something that Cage has never really been able to do. Of course, that's a writer issue, too, in that all of those other roles I mentioned are stereotypes, which means there's not as much for those actors to work with and Oren Uziel may be capable at his craft but he sure isn't Martin McDonagh, Alex Garland or Anthony Minghella, respectively.

There is, of course, a little Marvel cachet with the aforementioned roles, plus the appearance of Flint Marko (the comics nerd in me immediately blinked in memory and mumbled: "Sandman?", later confirmed by the requisite fight scene) and I totally appreciate the reframing of all of said characters in the 1930s style, in which Reilly's former identity wasn't "Spider-Man" but was instead The Spider, akin to The Phantom or the original The Spider. I like all of these things because I'm a comics nerd and a noir nerd and, consequently, it would seem like this series should be right up my dark and shadowy, newspaper fluttering alley. But I'm not sure that either Cage or Uziel are the ones to make it work. I'm not bailing out immediately. I'll give it a couple more episodes to see more of Gleeson and to hopefully see Tombstone, whom I've been told is present in the series and was one of the last interesting characters I remember from the days when I was reading Spider-Man titles (the late 80s...) But it wasn't a great start (i.e. it didn't do a The Wire/Breaking Bad/Chernobyl, even if that is a very, very high bar to reach.) We've also seen the first season of Sons of Anarchy in the last few days and I haven't written anything about it because I haven't really found it worth the time. Maybe later.