Spider-Man Noir #1: The Gwen Stacy Affair

There is a certain level of atmospheric and tonal expectation that comes with a title like Spider-Man Noir that readers will look for as the benchmark for a good, pulp-style story. While much of the aesthetic juice that drives the genre is missing from this debut issue, in its place is an effortlessly charming establishment of character from Erik Larsen and Andrea Broccardo that pushes substance over style. Instead of penning a hardcore noir tale with a Spider-Man in it, the team reimagines the character as though this were the Peter Parker archetype you know and love, transposed into the late 1930s — a more honest, historical-fiction approach that readers will either come to appreciate or dislike (and I wouldn’t necessarily fault them for the latter).

That being said, there is still a great book here regardless of the shift in approach compared to previous interpretations. Erik Larsen, armed with the dialogue stylings of his ever-famous Savage Dragon, plays with the Spider-Man mythology in the same cute and clever way classic What If…? stories would. With the introduction of a corrupt George Stacy, whose death sits at the heart of this issue’s central mystery, the book sets up an intriguing new spin on the same storyline that drove Gwen and Peter apart in Earth-616 — except here, it’s that death which draws them together.

Surrounding it all is some excellent action and a genuinely charming retrofitting of Spider-Man’s youthful, late-’60s spirit into the 1940s. This isn’t an approach for everyone, however. At the expense of this direction is the more cutting social commentary found in previous runs on the character, which leaned heavily into his hot-blooded, socialist ideology. The tone here, more jovial and lighthearted, contributes to this shift — as does Larsen’s surface-level handling of themes like fascism, which exist mainly to serve the narrative’s popcorn fun. That isn’t a problem for what the book is trying to be, but it isn’t the return to form that hardcore fans of pre-Spider-Verse Spider-Man Noir might be hoping for.

The art, while fantastic, lands in much the same camp. It isn’t the moody, stylized, or visually atmospheric pulp mystery aesthetic that fans may expect, but it is undeniably strong in its colors, paneling, and fluidity. The action scenes bounce with electric energy, and Broccardo — who is excellent in every book he illustrates — continues to prove himself one of Marvel’s most underrated current artists. He fits perfectly with what Larsen is aiming for, and together they bring out the best in one another’s styles.