Ok, big finish. This month, Black Cat has shown up at the motel in the rain to ask how Spider is doing. Aunt May doesn’t trust her. I guess this must be their first official meeting outside of that crazy garbage in TAC 90. Oh wait, they might’ve met while she was dating Flash. I wonder how much Peter might’ve/could’ve told May about her after she learned his secret.
She thinks she thought about calling her new ride the “Black Cat Cycle,” but what kind of grown woman names her toys? Take that, Batman! The bike is a gift from Puma (“My Mr. Right Now,” she thinks of him as), who is calling her because he’s got a line on Rhino. He fills her in on what we already know about him from last issue, then says he’s gone on a rampage and left an easy trail to follow. And he’s blackout drunk. Felicia says she’s on her way, but alone, because she can’t find Spider, this caption over an image of him strategizing with Cap’s team, see Civil War 6, etc, etc. She thinks Puma thinks she’s as crazy as MJ & May, but none of them understand the bond she and Peter share (Do they tho?) She says seeing him beaten and maybe dead on the news made her remember when she got shot up during the Octopus/Owl gang war back in TAC 76, how enraged he became, how he rushed her to the hospital and was constantly by her bedside til she recovered. She says once you go through something like that, you’re linked forever. Even despite their messy break up in TAC 100, which she flashes back to. Loving this continuity, Roberto! A+! That shout out to Al Milgrom on the credit page was put to good use.
AND this? Really good stuff. A moment for her to become someone other than the lunatic who dated Spider-Man, to start becoming the more 3D and well-rounded character she is by 2006. The person that, rather ironically, Peter David was trying to turn her into when the whole Spider-Man line got a top down refresh in 1988. And now Peter David is writing a Spider-Man titled right as the whole Spider-Man line is about to get a top down refresh, but it’s not him working with Felicia. A long and weird legacy, these superheroes. Well, Puma’s in Battery Park, where, absurdly, some sailors are trying to pick a fight with the drunken Rhino. Felicia mentions it’s Fleet Week. I went to that once! My friend’s brother was in the Navy. I went to that the year before this came out, actually, random.
Our fine boys in uniform. Rhino’s about to show them exactly what he can do when Felicia ties up his hands.
The Sabretooth fight from TAC 119! My man really did the homework!! Black Cat whupping Sabretooth seems insane in 2006, but it happened!
So, that I don’t really buy, still. She’s got her own thing now. She had her own title for awhile, and will again. She made a life without Spider-Man a long time ago, and all this was already settled. But Aguirre-Sacas is going for it in a way that I don’t even mind. This is good stuff! Full marks! I have gotten more bummed Aguirre-Sacasa wasn’t able to have a long run on Spider-Man with each of these issues. What a pleasant surprise in this time of terribleness. Rhino wordlessly walks away. Puma emerges from his hiding place and asks if she understand they couldn’t have taken him, but she is feeling empowered and doesn’t agree. And, again, it’s just the Rhino. Make him crash his head into a few walls and you’ll be fine. Then she’s back at the motel, telling MJ about all this… for some reason. And telling her she put a tracker on Rhino, and now the Punisher is after him.
My goodness. We won’t be seeing this book again until Civil War is (Finally) over. Indeed, this would’ve come out after the event was over if it had held to its schedule. As it is, there was one issue left when this saw print. But Aguirre-Sacasa has 6 more issues before the big reset, and I’m looking forward to them now.