Spider-Man Noir and Gaming’s Great Anthro Dark Detectives

Spider-Man Noir and Gaming’s Great Anthro Dark Detectives

“Casablanca, Cock-a-doodle-doo, and The Case of the Sexy Cat Man”

Seeing the words “Spider-Man” and “Noir” next to one another in the title of a TV show may sound like the results of a Mad Libs session by Hollywood executives after one too many three-martini lunches, but Nicholas Cage’s new Amazon Prime show has a far more deliberate origin than that. The shadowy crime drama superhero variant actually dates back to 2009 and the Marvel Comics Noir imprint. That comics line transplanted multiple superheroes to the 1930’s, utilizing them to tell tales more in line with classic pulp magazines and Humphrey Bogart movies than the steroid-styled musclebound punch-ups folks had come to expect from the medium.

The Noir line was likely inspired by the box office success of 2005’s Sin City, an adaptation of the highly influential noir comic of the same name. By spinning mysteries of intrigue, betrayal, and emotional men in trench coats, those comics signaled that they could relish their inherent iconographic idiosyncrasies while better appealing to audiences looking for more than simple power fantasies.

This combination of gritty confidence and self-aware absurdity made the Spider-Man Noir character a perfect fit for video games. His first big appearance after his comics debut was a 2010 multi-platform game called Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. That game, in turn, worked as a precursor to the Spider-Verse concept, which would later be adapted into blockbuster animated movies featuring Cage in the Noir role. Which in turn led up to this new live-action television program.

But any flatfoot comic book store owner or professor of Peter Parker’s prolific past could have told you that. What you may not realize is that Spider-Man Noir’s gaming appearances also belong to a larger lexicon of similarly straight-faced-but-ridiculous animal-person gumshoes in games. Here’s just a smattering for the various handsome panther-men, law-enforcing fowl, and pistol-packing pachyderms that have graced gaming in recent years.

Blacksad: Under The Skin (2019)

Like Spider-Man Noir, Blacksad started as a comic before making its way to other mediums. Comics are the perfect place to explore a concept that may be too far-out for mass consumption. John Blacksad, the handsome cat detective, found a loyal following on the printed page, which gave him the perfect jumping-off point into gaming in 2019. Similar to the cinematic Telltale point-and-click library, Blacksad’s game mixes cut scenes with environmental investigation to tell a serious story about shades of grey morality in a world where nearly no one is exactly what they seem.

Chicken Police – Paint it RED! (2020)

Debuting the very next year, the Chicken Police series went even harder with the grizzle, drizzle, and grime than Blacksad. Its largely black-and-white graphics depicted semi-realistic animal heads plopped creepily onto human bodies living in a dark city packed with heavy drinking, heavier regrets, and even the occasional flash of skin (and fur). Starring disgraced rooster cop Sonny Featherhead, Chicken Police—Paint it RED!, the first game in the franchise, also features a frustrating number of mini-games that could take you out of the moody atmosphere. This misstep was largely corrected with the spin-offs and sequels like Zipp's Café, Chicken Police- Into The HIVE!, Moses and Plato – Last Train To Clawsville, and the upcoming WILD Tactics, the current catalog of titles in the interconnected World of Wilderness universe.

Tails Noir (2021)

Originally entitled Backbone, this pixel art point-and-click got its start on Kickstarter before being picked up by publisher Raw Fury and given a new name that leaves no question of its intentions. Inspired by a real-life racoon attack, and speaking to real-life frustrations over the inequalities thrust upon marginalized groups, Tails Noir opens in an alternate-universe version of Vancouver where, as in every other game on this list, animals wear clothes and solve mysteries. But unlike some of the other games here, Tails Noir gets into exactly how this strange version of reality came to be. Uncovering the origins of animal-human hybrids and society’s broken nature are the secret underlying goals of this cozy-looking adventure.

Lord Winklebottom Investigates (2022)

This farcical, Sherlock Holmes-inspired hidden object and puzzle mystery is even more direct in its coziness. Dialing the clock back all the way to the 1920’s, Lord Winklebottom and his tea-sipping hippopotamus sidekick Dr. Frumple are so incredibly English that you almost smell the “Hello Guv’nor!” wafting off their zoo-ready bodies. However, beneath the genteel, old-timey exteriors lurks a story of murder most foul. Or should we say, fowl? It could be, as everyone from priestly sea lions to peculiar pelicans could be a suspect. Interrogating onlookers and poking at anomalies gradually uncovers twists and turns similar to those found in Tails Noir—though here, they’re explored with a much lighter, even comical tone.

Mouse P.I. For Hire (2026)

The most recent game on this rolodex is the only one to completely forego any pointing and clicking, instead favoring the FPS genre. Inspired by Cuphead and the classic Steamboat Willy-era animation that kicked off the “rubber hose animation” style in the first place, Mouse P.I. impresses with its capacity to make flat, simple shapes come alive in three dimensions, all with wall-to-wall violence and plenty of tongue-in-cheek references to more mature media. As you may expect from this list, there’s whisky, corruption, and classic jazz aplenty… but when you unlock a chainsaw made of bones that sets enemies on fire, it becomes clear that Mouse P.I. is just as enamored with Doom as it is Disney.