And The Symbiote Makes Three — Reviewing ‘Black Cat’ #7

After mistakenly reading internet comments, Felica Hardy jumps at pulling off an interdimensional heist with a now gooey old friend. That’s right, it’s a crossover as the all-new Venom swings into Black Cat #7.

A whole new Negative Zone-based adventure begins, from G. Willow Wilson, Gleb Melnikov, Brian Reber, and Joe Caramagna.

<<Spoilers Follow>>

I love the dynamic between Mary Jane Watson and Felica Hardy in the modern era. Once, they were romantically connected foils around their ties to Peter Parker. Now they are, like, best friends who have had a number of awesome adventures in recent years. Putting them together with MJ’s new Venom lifestyle before even Peter knows just works.

That’s because Felicia’s interaction is more slightly put off but willing to help a friend, compared to how Peter will likely react.

Through this run so far, Wilson has been so good at capturing the struggles that Black Cat is dealing with; trying to navigate between hero and thief, and the mess it’s brought to her life. We’re seeing behind the more flippant bravado to the more concerned and hurt Felicia is great character work.

Interplay between the two women flows so smoothly. Plentiful humor and heart are apparent through and through. It really leans well on the perfect balance of pure comic book fun and more serious situations. MJ’s quest ties into what Felica is currently going through on paper might seem silly but in execution it’s the opposite.

Helping with that dynamic is the style that Melnikov has developed over the years. It’s one that has a lot of softer, rounder whimsical feeling alongside a sharper, denser edge. This gives every character a pure focus where their emotions and body language are never in question, keeping a softness at all times which heightens those emotional beats while also humanizing things even more.

Action sequences are energetic and glide across the pages with genuine ease.

Color in Black Cat’s world has been in Reber’s hands a lot over the last few years. He matches Melnikov’s delivered energy with a lot of really bright colors that seem to stand opposed to the somewhat darker lifestyle that Black Cat often enjoys. Yet, that contrast and how it fits into the overall tone is precisely chosen and executed.

Plenty of shadows and darker heavier colors still come into play, adding depth and more weight to everything, standing at another type of contrast in the world.

Capturing voices is an important matter in these respects. Caramagna is a master at lettering. There’s a reason you see that name across a lot of credit pages, adding little visual flair modifications which give characters distinctive beats, shifting the presentation but also placement on the page. Nothing overwhelms. It all flows so smoothly.

It captures the perfect atmosphere for this space and the happenings so that the world itself has a voice and personality.

Black Cat #7 is now available from Marvel Comics.