Customer Reviews

Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do

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Kevin Smith's interpretation of Spider-Man in the first three issues of this limited series was the best in years. Spidey was witty and throwing off some genuinely funny one-liners while bantering with Black Cat, and the series showed incredible promise at the outset.

Then Kevin Smith had to take a few YEARS off halfway through the six-issue run to direct a few movies. When he came back to finish the last three issues, the change in direction was jarring. For the first three issues you have a lighter story, but the last three issues take an unnecessarily sadistic twist. Suddenly the villain set up for three issues is gone, a minor character becomes a major one, and we are subjected to the rapes of two characters (off panel, but clearly confirmed by dialogue). It's as if Kevin returned to the story after the hiatus with a whole new outline and decided to scrap the first part of the story and take it somewhere else.

The only redeeming part of the whole story is the epilogue involving the return of a major supervillain, but since there's little chance they'll let Kevin near another miniseries any time soon, we'll probably never see this developed further.

A promising beginning that was ultimately disappointing at the conclusion.

"Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do" was a mini series that started in 2002 and did not end until 2005.

Kevin Smith, who wrote the fantastic "Daredevil: Guardian Devil," is the writer here and he does a very good job over the first three chapters. However, due to a ridiculously long hiatus, the series was not finished for three long years.

The story revolves around a villainous low-level mutant named Mr. Brownstone who is a teleporter. He's smuggling drugs and getting wealthy clients to overdose. One of his victims was Peter Parker's students and another victim happened to be a good friend of Felicia Hardy, aka the Black Cat. After a contentious reunion, Spidey and Cat team up to take down Brownstone. The story takes an odd turn where the hiatus kicks in and it never really recovers. The focus is gone and all momentum is ruined. Suddenly, several other Marvel characters make guest-appearances out of nowhere. It's tolerable only because Smith's dialogue is really well written. There was a great cliffhanger at the end of the third chapter and because of the time lost, Kevin Smith cops out of it.

The art is done by Terry Dodson and Rachel Dodson and is excellent. Their take on the characters is unique and stylized and fits real well.

All in all, it's a good book and might be better to new readers who did not jump on back in 2002. It might be worth checking out for those interested.

I've always felt that Spider-Man's Black Cat was a rip-off of Batman's Catwoman. Arguably, Spider-Man and Batman are Marvel's and DC Comics' most popular superheroes, respectively, and sell the most comics for an individual character. That's why there are nineteen Batman titles and The Amazing Spider-Man is published sixteen times per month. I exaggerate, but you get my point. Anywho, it only felt natural that Marvel give Spidey a flirtatious good girl/bad girl character, too. Hence, the Black Cat. While I didn't mind the Black Cat, I never thought of her as anything but a two-dimensional Catwoman clone.

I read the latest Black Cat mini-series (2010) and thought it was pretty crappy. I then discovered that Black Cat had another mini-series back in 2002/2005*, written by writer/director/actor Kevin Smith. The official title of the six-issue limited series is "Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do," but it's primarily a story about Black Cat with Spider-Man's name thrown in there for sales purposes.

*Apparently, Mr. Smith couldn't finish the story in 2002. Issues 1-3 were published in 2002 and issues 4-6 were published in 2005. Lame? Yes. Luckily, I didn't purchase the series in 2002 and then again in 2005 because I would have been totally lost. Be glad you can purchase it now in a complete graphic novel.

Despite Smith's apparent lack of dedication to the story, I was undoubtedly impressed by the final product's gritty and mature subject matter: drugs, rape, and incest. Both were treated very well and were vital to the overall story. Smith balanced these heavy subjects by injecting humor, pop culture references, and flirtations between the Black Cat and the then-married Spider-Man.

The story gave me a new appreciation for Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat. Smith created a three-dimensional version of her, something I had never seen before. He offered a lot of background to her life, showing us why she is who she is today. The background stories were as interesting, moving, and sobering as the unfortunately canceled Emma Frost series.

kevin smith does an excellent job writing. it's crisp, humorous when is should be and somber when appropriate. Great use of other heroes. Now that Spidey is single, this book makes me want the cat to come back into amazing spider-man.