Mary Jane and Black Cat: Beyond #1 – Bad Girls, Good Comic

mary jane and black cat in sexy black catsuits

Mary Jane Watson and Black Cat, aka Felicia Hardy, have been major players in the webbed corner of the Marvel Universe, and the new one-shot comic Mary Jane and Black Cat: Beyond #1 shows us what happens when these two ladies team-up to protect Peter Parker.

Mary Jane & Black Cat: Beyond #1

Erick Arciniega (Colorist), VC’s Travis Lanham (Letterer), Jed MacKay (Writer), C.F. Villa (Artist).
Marvel Comics
January 26, 2022

At the start of the comic, Peter is in the hospital. Both Felicia and Mary Jane want him to stay there until he fully recovers. When Felicia visits him, she finds a stranger holding Mary Jane at gunpoint while Peter sleeps. The mystery man is the supervillain known as “The Hood,” and he lost his eponymous piece of clothing and wants Felicia to get it back for him–or else. To get Mary Jane out of the situation, Felicia tells The Hood that she is integral to the operation. The women have until sun-up to hunt down the magical hood, so they’ll have to put their heads together and take to the streets to figure out just where this hood has ended up.

Oh, yeah, and there’s a demonic duffel bag key to the story. I should mention that.

At a first read-through, this one-shot feels packed and a little too much so. There’s enough material here for a miniseries, with a lot of the most interesting action happening off-panel. It took me a second reading to follow the action. And even so, the flow of the panels can be confusing, and it isn’t always clear what’s happening. There’s one panel where the dialogue flow is so confusing that I couldn’t figure out how one bubble connected to the former or the one that follows.

Mary Jane & Black Cat shines in its depiction of the two title women and their relationship. Felicia in particular has a strong narrative voice. Even though I don’t closely follow the Spider-Man corner of the Marvel Universe, I enjoyed MJ and Felicia’s characterization and the rare nature of this one-shot team-up. It left me wanting to see more of these two together.

mary jane black cat

Despite Black Cat being our narrator and the more compelling of the two, Mary Jane does a lot of heavy lifting, which was nice to see since she’s often depicted primarily as Peter Parker’s love interest in the media. In addition to using her fame as an actress to impress movie buff Count Nefaria while Felicia gathers information, she borrows one of Felicia’s costumes to pull off a heist.

The sexualized bodies on J. Scott Campbell and Sabine Rich’s cover might turn off readers wary of this kind of art, but the interior work itself is very different. Villa draws Mary Jane and Felicia to be conventionally sexy, but the art doesn’t feel dehumanizing or distracting from the story. In fact, both women are full of dynamic agency, and their physical posture makes sense for what they’re doing.

Although it could be very tempting to make a story centered on a rivalry between the two women, the issue not only avoids reinforcing this construction but addresses it head-on. After wrapping up the action, MJ and Felicia have a moment to sit and watch the sunset. They have a heartfelt talk about the ways they feel perceived (Felicia as the “bad” girl in contrast to MJ and MJ as the “bad girl” compared to Gwen Stacy). Felicia even gets a little meta about her 43-year presence in Marvel comics: “The bad girl. I hate that that’s what I am in his life. His history.” This comic reveals that that stereotype is unfair and limiting.

Mary Jane and Black Cat: Beyond #1 will be a treat for fans of both women and those looking for a fresh perspective on Spider-Man comics. It isn’t the best in story or art accessibility, but it’s still good fun.

Advertisements

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Close
Menu
WP Twitter Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com