There are hard-luck superheroes like Peter Parker, aka the amazing/sensational/spectacular Spider-Man, whose trials and tribulations are the stuff of pop culture legend.

And then there's Kang Sang-ung (2PM's Lee Jun-ho), who takes "damned if you do, damned if you don't" to new levels of being put-upon... and being cash-poor.

An unassuming low-level civil servant who only wants to save up enough to buy a house with his grounded girlfriend Min-suk (Kim Hye-jun, A Shop For Killers, Kingdom), Sang-ung finds his world turned on its ear when he inherits superpowers.

"Has superpowers thrust upon him" would be a more apt way to put it, since his surly father Dong-gi (Jung Seung-gil, Strong Girl Nam Soon) forces them on the unsuspecting Sang-ung in a rather rude and unceremonious way.

Soon, Sang-ung realises that he has super-strength and healing powers to rival those of Deadpool and Wolverine (let's fishin' go!) – but there's a catch.

He can only use them as long as he has cash on him, and said currency is "burned" up like a kind of offering to whatever greater power granted these abilities in the first place. As compensation, or so Dong-gi says, small change clatters to the ground whenever these powers are used.

It's a bit more complicated than it sounds, and the cryptic hints that his grumpy dad drops only lead him deeper down a rabbit hole.

'From our supremely self-assured demeanour, I'm sure you can figure out that we aren't the good guys here.'

Along the way, he encounters other superhumans, a mysterious and well-organised group that's targeting them, a mountain of inherited debt, more moral quandaries than you can shake an empty web-shooter at, and a stream of villains, each new one more smarmy and smug than the last.

Based on the webtoon of the same title by Team Befar, Ca$hero (an amalgam of "cash" and "hero", see?) is an easy binge, but there are caveats.

It starts interestingly enough, but gets increasingly scattershot as it progresses through its eight episodes.

While a similar and much lengthier show like Moving managed to hold attention through better plotting and more compelling, sympathetic characters, Ca$hero struggles to maintain its grip despite its strong and likable central couple.

Part of this is because it keeps bending the rules and logic of Sang-ung's powers.

'Hey, hold on! I'm the one with super-strength; you're only supposed to be able to walk through walls. Dang it, this show could do with some consistency.'

When Dong-gi finally seems to come clean about these abilities late in the series, he drops a puzzling clue that makes it all make sense – only for the finale to put paid to whatever theory the viewer would have formed by that point.

Writers Lee Jae-in and Jeon Chan-ho also squander the opportunity to mine Sang-ung's powers for the subtle social commentary and comedy gold that the best K-dramas are so good at.

Instead, the focus is just on one big action set-piece after another, culminating in a finale that's a clear triumph of style over... well, not exactly substance, but another s-word. Ah, yes: sense.

All eight episodes of Ca$hero are available to stream on Netflix.