Is Felicia out of character, in the new ASM title?

Out of character? Well, that's hard to say considering that Felicia has been one of the least consistently written characters in Spidey's entire history. Consider: Marv introduced her as a burglar who was a bit unbalanced and had a crush (from afar) on Spidey; a bit of extreme hero worship. Then, Stern reveals, she was just pretending and was actually a very shrewd and calculating thief (my personal favorite version of her) who fakes her death and later reveals she is able to set up her own "bad luck" for her opponents. She and Spidey then become a couple (of sorts) and a team (of sorts) for awhile until that messy marriage to MJ gets in the way of everything. After that, she is handled kinda poorly but, in Marvel's defense, a big part of her appeal was gone once Peter was married. There were a few decent tales where MJ reaches out reluctantly to Felicia when Peter needed help but there was only so far that could go in the roughly 20 years they were married. Then, once BND hit, I was hopeful but that version of Felicia was easily the worst I have seen (those Campbell covers, though, were smokin' hot!). So this new status quo for Felicia as of ASM #3? I....kinda like it! She is not a full-fledged villain as so many seem to think; nor is she (necessarily) a killer. She is a pissed-off super thief who believe Spidey wronged and publicly embarrassed. I like the fact that this is an edgier, more mysterious and unpredictable version of The Black Cat; I don't see Spidey explaining his way out of SpOck's actions easily nor do I see Felicia trusting him again anytime soon. She is clearly not interested in a romance right now and is setup to be a "wild card" in the comics for the near future. A nice and entirely suitable place for The Black Cat IMO.

I think that's mostly true though I think you are a wee bit generous in your assessment of Kevin Smith's mini. It's pretty clear he intended that Klum raped Felcia (just an awful plot point in any conceivable iteration)and then there was the year-plus wait for the next issues and conclusion of the series that saw that particular plot point awkwardly retrofitted to what we can only imagine was Marvel's objections. Anyway, I love Kevin Smith and thought this Daredevil work was solid but this mini-series was not very good IMO.

Otherwise, yeah, I agree that it sucks that Marvel wants Peter single and so won't pair him with Felicia. To me, single means you can date, you can even have a "steady" but it appears they won't even go down that road right now, perhaps because Carlie Cooper was not all that well-received.

Yup, I guess I can agree that this new Felicia is one that feels---in some ways---like a new character or, perhaps more accurately, she reminds me a bit of some of DC's New 52 characters.   Sort of a soft reboot of her character in a way though, getting back to my original point from earlier, her character morphed wildly since the mid-1980's so I am not really losing sleep over this and, most importantly, I think Slott is crafting a nice story here so let's see where he goes from here.

No one is saying characters have to remain static, or that Black Cat cannot change or develop as a character into a villain. Rather it's how that transition has occurred. It's one thing for Felicia to want revenge against Spidey over the mistaken belief he was responsible for her incarceration. But then we're also being asked to believe:

1. SpOck also outed her "secret identity" even though her identity was already public and has been for decades.
2. That her being captured by "Spider-Man" somehow made her into a laughing stock in the eyes of the criminal underworld, even though by that very logic every single crook and super-villain who Spidey has ever taken down would also be considered a laughing stock--including by some of the very crooks who've labeled Felicia a laughing stock. And remember, SpOck, along with taking down Black Cat, also took out nearly every single crime boss in the entire city, including the Kingpin! Not to mention SpOck, because he would go as far as torturing and murdering criminals in cold blood, actually made crooks afraid of Spidey, so you'd think Black Cat, as opposed to having her "street cred ruined" would actually be highly respected for having survived her encounter with SpOck minus a tooth.
3. That this same desire for revenge and wanting to build up her rep now makes her want to be a crime-boss all of the sudden. You know, just like that other cat-themed antihero over at Marvel's Distinguished Competition.

stillanerd @ CBR

I guess you're basing the assumption that this is a sexist thing, on the "boy's club" reference. It could be, I haven't given it much thought, because I don't find it important. The issue here, and I read it in someone else's post, is that thieves try to keep a low profile. Felicia, being a thief, never showed much interest in her rep before, so whether she's doing it now because of feminist motivations, or whatever, isn't relevant. As a thief, you want to avoid confrontation, sure you can take pride in being the best at what you do, but fighting "The spider" was never in her job description. Losing a fight with him, can't damage her professional record. She's still every bit as good at stealing as she was before, I don't think anyone could challenge that. Her judgment in choosing lovers, though, gets seriously compromised, From that angle, she could be attacked by other criminals in the superhuman community, but only from the ones with the brain of a six year old.

It could be argued, that she wasn't always a thief, that she's also had her crack at the masked adventurer life; but that was another character, the pre-OMD one.

Hmm, a more credible female villain than, say, Monster & Menace (the goblin sisters). How difficult could that prove to be, I wonder?

Screwball's beating, at the hands of SpOck, could be a better motivation for making the transition, than what we saw in Felicia's case. There's no personal history between the characters, and the assault was far worse. The problem is that it doesn't give the impression, that Slott has any intention of taking that plot any further. Screwball's final remark, supposedly funny, undermined the gravity of the situation. Add to that, the route already taken, and is almost certain we're stuck with the Black Cat, as the main female villain.

The reason why I find this post interesting, is because it basically answers the question posed in this thread:

Felicia will be out of character IF, in the event of Spider-Man being unmasked, she doesn't get to her pre-OMD status. In the meantime, we have a temporary situation where she has lost part of her memories/personality.

The only thing I'm in disagreement over, is in the fact that she hasn't "regressed". She's a different person now, she's unlike anything she previously was. The sudden loss, of a very important part of her personal development, could be reasonably argued, as to the reason why this is so.

Will Slott take this opportunity, to short out his own mess? I doubt it.