The Marvel Universe is chock-full of unique friendships, whether it’s the brains-and-brawn combo of Reed Richards and Ben Grimm or OG Heroes for Hire Luke Cage and Iron Fist. If you told me that Mary Jane Watson and Felicia Hardy, aka the Black Cat, would become friends, I would have laughed in your face. The two have been romantic rivals where Peter Parker is concerned, but in recent years, writers have started to forge a bond between the two. Black Cat #7 is the latest exploration of this bond, and it’s a pretty fun one.
MJ comes to Felicia for help with an extremely sensitive matter, which requires Felicia’s thieving skills. Felicia agrees, partly to take her mind off her current troubles and mostly because she owes MJ for bailing her out of jail. There are two things she doesn’t know: MJ has recently bonded with the Venom symbiote, as shown in the pages of Al Ewing and Carlos Gomez’s Venom run, and the item she wants Felicia to steal is in the Negative Zone!
From the minute MJ enters the page, the dynamic between her and Felicia reads less like a standard superhero comic and more like a superpowered take on Broad City, thanks to G. Willow Wilson’s scripting. In perhaps the most hilarious bit of dialogue, MJ exclaims: “I couldn’t just go through my contacts and send personalized texts telling everybody, ‘By the way, I’ve fused with an alien suit!'” That sentence would sound insane coming out of anyone’s mouth, and yet Wilson makes it work.
Wilson also addresses a similar issue that MJ and Felicia have faced: namely, the slings and arrows of internet comments. In Felicia’s case, she’s still getting online heat for how her turn into heroism ended up, and though she tries to play it off, it’s clear that it’s affecting her. She also connects with MJ about this, and Wilson lets the moment linger with the reader, prompting them to pause and reflect. Given how hostile certain online spaces can be, this is a story that feels very relatable.
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Black Cat #7 also sees the return of Gleb Melnikov to interiors, and he gets to put his own spin on Venom. Melnikov’s approach to the Lethal Protector feels more in line with Todd McFarlane’s original take; instead of a jaw full of razor-sharp teeth, Venom’s head looks more like a cross between Spider-Man and one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. McFarlane isn’t the only artist Melnikov homages, as an image of Venom and Felicia leaping through a lightning storm feels like a direct callout to The Dark Knight Returns.
It’s in the final pages that things get really weird, in a good way. We see mermaids, and Felicia flirting with mermaids (prompting another perfectly timed MJ remark). The Negative Zone is as strange and deadly as it’s been portrayed in other Marvel comics, resembling a desolate wasteland crossed with a ’70s sci-fi painting. We even get to see the return of the Venom Submarine, and Melnikov makes it look as weirdly awesome as it was in the Venom book. The art truly pops thanks to Brian Reber’s colors, especially Venom’s black and gold color scheme.
Black Cat #7 launches a new story arc that builds on one of the Marvel Universe’s most unique friendships, and gets weirdly awesome in the process. Here’s hoping the next issue keeps this same mix, because it’s a good one!
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