Marvel fans have a lot to look forward to later this year, particularly the return of Robert Downey Jr. to the MCU in Avengers: Doomsday. After occupying the role of Iron Man in the MCU for over 10 years, Downey Jr. will shift to the villain side of the aisle to play Doctor Doom in the film — there could be Tony Stark crumbs coming, though, considering the multiversal implications. Marvel viewers were treated to a street-level project to start the year with the second season of Daredevil: Born Again, which led directly into the Jon Bernthal-led Punisher special, One Last Kill. Bernthal will also reprise his role as Frank Castle in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the fourth solo MCU Spider-Man film coming to theaters on July 31. The movie co-stars Tom Holland and Mark Ruffalo.

Before Nicolas Cage played the web-slinging superhero in Spider-Noir and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, he starred in one of the most iconic film franchises from Disney which has recently made a streaming comeback. This feature led to a franchise, including a Disney+ series with 10 episodes and starring notable Hollywood names. And while it got mixed critics' reviews, audiences loved it.

2026 is a huge year for Spider-Man fans. Not only is Spider-Man: Brand New Day hitting theaters next month, but a brand-new series has launched on streaming platforms and is already a hit. This new Spider-Man show steers away from the traditional story, following a different kind of friendly neighborhood superhero. One that has more in common with detectives like Bosch than it does other Marvel superheroes.

Despite a seemingly endless stream of think pieces, the superhero genre continues to thrive on screens big and small. 2026 is the best proof of this: not only will theaters see an onslaught of capes and cowls with Supergirl, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and Avengers: Doomsday, but Prime Video has been delivering plenty of subversive superhero television with The Boysand Invincible. Last week, the streamer dropped its newest comic book series, and it's proven to be one of the best adaptations that Prime Video's tackled in recent years.

Prime Video delivered the perfect antidote to its recently concluded superhero series The Boys, which underwhelmed critics and audiences with its series finale. The streamer's latest superhero offering, Spider-Noir, has the added benefit of featuring an acting icon and being based on one of the most popular fictional characters of all time. The new show delivered exactly the results expected of it in its midweek debut, even though it failed to overthrow Prime Video's current number one title. The holdover hit defied the odds to deliver one of the streamer's biggest-ever debuts. It currently trails only The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and Fallout, which have an obvious built-in fan-following. With 36 million views in under two weeks, the steamy new romance series has outperformed legacy titles on Prime Video such as Reacher and The Summer I Turned Pretty.

Nicolas Cage always wanted to be a superhero. Not surprisingly, his stage name (his real surname is Coppola, since he is the nephew of the director) comes from Marvel’s strongman Luke Cage. As if that weren’t comic-bookish enough, his son is named Kal-El (like Superman). His collection of 400 classic comics included the first Action Comics, which he bought for $150,000, someone stole at a party and which later got sold for $15 million. Hollywood’s most singular superstar still couldn’t be Tim Burton’s Superman, and although he settled for the skull-faced Ghost Rider, at age 62 Cage finally gets the chance to play another great: the new television Spider-Man. There is, however, a twist in his Spider-Noir: this wall-crawler is also a detective in 1930s New York.

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