Prime Video's New Superhero Show That Dethroned The Boys Deserves Its Streaming Success

Although The Boys deserved all the streaming records that the series broke, the superhero show that replaced the series at number one Prime Video is just as entitled to its popularity with viewers. After seven years, The Boys finally ended in May 2026, and the show’s conclusion was a hit with critics despite some naysayers questioning how a handful of the finale's subplots were handled. Although the series had its flaws, The Boys remains a masterpiece of satirical TV that upended the conventions of the superhero genre and challenged creators to come up with more subversive takes on it.

Hollywood responded, on both the big and small screen, with a slew of fresh takes on the superhero setup that deconstructed the Marvel and DC formula since 2019. Some smacked of desperation, like the ostensible murder mystery Riverdale briefly giving its heroes superpowers during one lesser season. However, movies like Deadpool & Wolverine, as well as shows like Invincible, Harley Quinn, Jupiter’s Legacy, The Boys spinoffs Diabolical and Gen Z, I’m A Virgo, and The Penguin all rose to the challenge by entertaining audiences while also stretching the definition of what viewers expect from a superhero show.

As such, it should come as no shock that the show which has taken the number one most-watched spot from The Boys on Prime Video was yet another spiky, subversive superhero series, Spider-Noir. Based on the Spider-Man Noir comics and set in 1930s NYC, Spider-Noir stars Nicholas Cage as the aging PI Ben Reilly, who once moonlighted as a masked superhero known as The Spider. Ben is forced to don his mask and return to this risky line of work when a case unexpectedly brings him back to his past.

Spider-Noir Earned Its Number One Spot On Prime Video

A blend of noir storytelling and superhero tropes, Spider-Noir puts in the work to recreate the tone, atmosphere, and visual style of ‘40s noir movies and pulp fiction classics while simultaneously functioning as a gritty superhero story. The fact that the series is available to view in both black-and-white and color is a perfect encapsulation of its appeal, as, like The Penguin before it, the show can be enjoyed as a straightforward love letter to noir movies or a colorful comic book story, albeit a particularly gritty one.

Although the romance novel series adaptation Off Campus has also technically dethroned The Boys, taking the number 2 spot in Prime Video’s most-watched list, it is fitting that Spider-Noir ruled the first full streaming week after the ending of The Boys. Before The Boys began airing in 2019, the superhero boom was already in full swing. The MCU was at the height of its box office dominance, and the one-two punch of 2016’s Deadpool and 2017’s Logan had already proven that R-rated, gory superhero stories could be mainstream hits.

Spider-Noir’s Prime Video Success Proves One Superhero Trend Isn’t Dead

However, while those movies might have been brutally violent, they weren’t all that weird or subversive. If there’s one thing that The Boys did, it was encourage the creators of even big-budget superhero shows and movies to try out weirder, more meta, experimental angles on the genre. From Invincible to I’m A Virgo to Spider-Noir, there is now no shortage of superhero shows that don’t feel anything like cookie-cutter origin stories or overly familiar tales of masked do-gooders.

The industry-wide attempts to explore the stranger, more offbeat side of superhero stories have become so widespread that James Gunn’s 2025 hit Superman was lauded by some critics for, of all things, providing viewers with an uncomplicated, familiar superhero blockbuster. While this has a place, the success of Spider-Noir in the wake of The Boys series finale is exciting evidence that the superhero genre’s penchant for experimentation hasn’t ended with the subversive hit series.