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Post by Ozymandias on Jul 2, 2014 17:34:36 GMT
One of the high points of this issue, is Black Cat's confrontation with Spider-Man and her reaction, to the revelation that he had been mind swapped by Doc Ock, the last time they met.
There're two sides, those who see her rage as pure mischaracterization, and those who defend her action can be reconciled with what we know of her. I'm somewhere in the middle.
The original work on the character, started by Marv Wolfman, Roger Stern, Bill Mantlo, Allen Milgrom and Peter David, suffered from a lack of progress, as soon as Gerry Conway brought her back, with the sole intention of playing childish games. It wasn't until Kevin Smith, that we got to see some further development done. Unfortunately, he took forever to complete his Limited Series, and by then, OMD was already upon us. Since then, the character has become unrecognizable. She no longer shares Peter's secret. She acts as a callous, treacherous, manipulative and superficial person who has little to do with the previously know character. In that stage, writers can continue to do with Felicia as they please, it makes no difference.
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Post by oldschool on Jul 2, 2014 20:02:05 GMT
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.
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Post by Ozymandias on Jul 2, 2014 20:20:26 GMT
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'll skip the agreements, which are majority, and go directly for the discrepancies Taking Stern's version, as point of reference, some semblance of a personality can be stablished for the 80's version. She was emotionally unstable, with some evident Electra complex, who fell for the mask. She may have exaggerated her interest in Spidey, in order to get a psychiatric confinement, rather than a prison term, but the interest was genuine. She also wanted to change for her relationship to work. That's true to Stern's, Mantlo's and Milgrom's versions. Then Spidey wronged her, and she made the mistake of allying herself with the foreigner. But Kevin Smith picked up the pieces nicely and matured the character (rape not included). The post-OMD character had no romantic interest in Spidey, it was a sex thing. She comes back to being a thief, and this time, Spidey doesn't seem to have as much of a problem with that, as he did when she actually had feelings for him. Is like, the crappier the women in his life act, the more lenient he is. Clearly, Marvel's intention all along has been to keep her out of any real shot at a relationship. They just want her around to spice it up, but Peter must be single, so she can't be someone like she used to be, pre-OMD.
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Post by oldschool on Jul 2, 2014 20:28:21 GMT
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.
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Post by Ozymandias on Jul 2, 2014 20:41:38 GMT
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. The Evil That Men Do isn't very good, on that I agree. I give it a 5/10. But I really enjoyed Felicia in the first half, that's where they could've taken the character forward from. The shady subplot could easily be overseen, it is after all, something in her past. I also liked the dynamics of the trio Peter-MJ-Felicia. Working on all that, and with MJ being now just a friend, a different version of the trio, could've been played. The basic complaint I have right now is, I don't know who that character posing as the Black Cat is, haven't known her since Smith's mini.
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Post by oldschool on Jul 2, 2014 20:58:10 GMT
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.
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Post by Ozymandias on Jul 5, 2014 13:15:46 GMT
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. After revisiting both Wolfman's and Stern's take on the character, I must agree. What Stern did with her was more of a recton, than what's being done now. The only difference, is that I liked the way he portrayed Felicia. It worked for me, based on Stern's reputation, more than anything else. He had fixed several Marvel history problems before, always to a good end. This time he overdid it. Stern never offered an alternative explanation, to the one revealed at the end of ASM #205, and so his retcon remains incomplete.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2014 11:12:38 GMT
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
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Post by Ozymandias on Aug 14, 2014 14:00:15 GMT
Slott sure messes up the sales pitch, when trying to explain Felicia's rage. Her "name" shouldn't be tarnished because she outed her, or because "The Spider" beat her; BTW, is everyone in the underworld referring to him that way, now? The only thing different about The Black Cat, is that she had a romance with Spider-Man, and everyone knows about it. They could certainly mock her because of that, but even then, I don't think every bad guy she crosses should be reminding her.
As for her sudden interest in rising among the criminal element, if she's a professional thief who takes what she wants, why wasting efforts in becoming a mob boss? Is there something she wants that she can't steal, after all? Oh yeah, she wants her "name" back. Since when did she care about that? What "name" was that anyway?
Slott just tries too hard to make the sell, and it feels forced.
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Post by Ozymandias on Aug 15, 2014 13:43:47 GMT
Slott sure messes up the sales pitch, when trying to explain Felicia's rage. Her "name" shouldn't be tarnished because she outed her, or because "The Spider" beat her; BTW, is everyone in the underworld referring to him that way, now? The only thing different about The Black Cat, is that she had a romance with Spider-Man, and everyone knows about it. They could certainly mock her because of that, but even then, I don't think every bad guy she crosses should be reminding her. As for her sudden interest in rising among the criminal element, if she's a professional thief who takes what she wants, why wasting efforts in becoming a mob boss? Is there something she wants that she can't steal, after all? Oh yeah, she wants her "name" back. Since when did she care about that? What "name" was that anyway? Slott just tries too hard to make the sell, and it feels forced. One other point I forgot to mention (which I actually did bring up in my Crawlspace review) was this: There is a point in which Black Cat allude to the illogical contradiction and double-standard when it comes to her rep during her meeting with Mr. Negative and Phil Urich/Goblin Knight, saying that they, too, were taken down by Spider-Man just like her. And while it's clear Slott intends this to have both villains side with her, he also winds undercutting Felicia's own narrative arc in the process. After all, if the only reason for why she's considered a laughing stock to the criminal underworld because she's a woman and they're not, then what the heck does she care about what some sexist criminals think? 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.
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Post by Ozymandias on Aug 17, 2014 21:42:08 GMT
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. Oh, I totally agree, Ozy. My main point was that Felicia Hardy has always been a character who never cared what other people thought about her or was ever in the least bit concerned about her supposed "street cred." Here being a thief was always about self-interest and following in her father's footsteps. That's why, when Greg Weisman's Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon had her do a heel turn in the second to last episode of the series, it worked tremendously well because it stemmed from who she already was as a character, and, had the series continued, would've created a very interesting dynamic as she'd be torn between seeking revenge for her dad and her growing love for Spidey (a bit like Batman and Talia al Ghul along with Batman and Catwoman, sure, but it still worked). Granted, Black Cat in that show had a slightly different backstory than the Black Cat in comics, but it's an example of how turning Felicia Hardy into another antagonist/villain for Spidey can work as opposed to what's going on in the comics now. This is a rather complicated topic. How easy is the transition from thief to villain, among the super-powered community? One could be inclined to think that is easy to walk that distance, specially by looking at the large number of villains who started by simply trying to rob a bank. But let's look closer. Those characters weren't usually thieves to start with, they were people who obtained power either because they sought it, or because of an accident. Afterwards, they went into thieving as a logical way of profiting from their power. But even when they were robing banks, most of them weren't thieves, just villains robing banks. With all that, I want to say that I don't think is a good idea to turn Felicia (one of the few bona-fide thieves in MU) into a villain. Not only because there's already plenty of villains to choose from, but because it isn't psychologically credible. One of the other real thieves from Spidey's past, the Cat Burglar, was perfectly handled by Stern in PPSS. There, he was forced into villainy, showing how far that behavior was from his nature. But of course, comparing Slott to Stern isn't fair.
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Post by Ozymandias on Aug 18, 2014 21:43:58 GMT
This is a rather complicated topic. How easy is the transition from thief to villain, among the super-powered community? One could be inclined to think that is easy to walk that distance, specially by looking at the large number of villains who started by simply trying to rob a bank. But let's look closer. Those characters weren't usually thieves to start with, they were people who obtained power either because they sought it, or because of an accident. Afterwards, they went into thieving as a logical way of profiting from their power. But even when they were robing banks, most of them weren't thieves, just villains robing banks. With all that, I want to say that I don't think is a good idea to turn Felicia (one of the few bona-fide thieves in MU) into a villain. Not only because there's already plenty of villains to choose from, but because it isn't psychologically credible. One of the other real thieves from Spidey's past, the Cat Burglar, was perfectly handled by Stern in PPSS. There, he was forced into villainy, showing how far that behavior was from his nature. But of course, comparing Slott to Stern isn't fair. Exactly! A lot of Spidey's rogues such as Vulture, Electro, Doc Ock, Mysterio, etc. were all guys who had professions in other fields such as business, science, engineering, etc. but due to circumstances beyond their control, whether it be an accident, lay off, or what have you, they used what powers, skills, or tech they acquired to turn to crime, either out of revenge or because they figured it was easy money. The exception were villains like Sandman who started off as a thief to begin with and, once he required his powers, became even more committed to robbing banks and the like because he figured "Who's gonna stop me?" And unlike Spidey, who learned the hard way the cost of abusing one's power, his villains were usually those who never learned, or refused to learn, Spidey's mantra of "with great power comes great responsibility," and you saw that a lot in Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's run. Very astute observation, Ozy. Well, to play Devil's Advocate a bit, I'm assume the idea for Slott turning Black Cat more down the path to being a super-villain is because he may figured Spidey needed more credible female villains, and figured since Black Cat was already there and her history with Spidey, he may have thought it was the most logical choice. That being said, her transition, I agree, has been way overboard and flat-out ridiculous. Not to mention, Screwball could have worked, too, given how SpOck's brutal attack on her and Jester. In any case, very good points. 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.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2014 19:07:47 GMT
I still think the situation when it comes to her character sucks big time and storyline wise it all goes back to it being Peter's fault because he didn't re-reveal his identity to her after the events of OMD/OMIT.
Her friendship with Peter was a major influence that changed her life for the better and not having those memories of that friendship is what regressed her to become what she is now.
What I don't understand is why Marvel would want Peter to have the blame for that?
Anyone who reads Spider-Man comics should be aware that the Black Cat's current direction is all Peter's fault for not doing what he should've done…re-reveal his identity to her after the events of OMD/OMIT in order to restore the memories of her friendship with Peter.
Thinker4730 @ CBR
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Post by Ozymandias on Sept 21, 2014 22:07:12 GMT
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.
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Post by darthfury78 on Oct 1, 2014 16:29:22 GMT
I have a feeling that once readers get to see Black Cat's new role in the pages of Hawkeye vs Deadpool, readers might start to question as to why the Black Cat's a villain and her motives behind it. From there, Marvel will get a lot of fan mail asking them why the writer for H vs D didn't use a better villain. To me, the idea that the Black Cat's an A-List villain will backfire on both Dan Slott and Nick Lowe. And consider how badly Slott's handled the character, the Black Cat will become a very hard sell for anyone else to use in their stories because Marvel is not short on female villains. And Spider-Man has had a lot of female villains in the past. To make the Black Cat into one will backfire on Slott badly as Alpha has: A character that's so bad that no one wants to use her. Here is a podcast that might hold your interest. Let me know if you agree with it. www.spidermancrawlspace.com/2014/07/24/podcast-315-amazing-1-2-and-3-review/In my opinion, Dan Slott has picked the wrong character to make into a villain. I still feel that there's going to be a massive blacklash at Marvel in the same manner as Carlie Cooper. It seems that Slott does not like the Black Cat at all. If that was the case, why couldn't he had used Deathstrike, Typhoid Mary, or Screwball? It's stupid to make make the Black Cat into such an unlikable villain because if this had been her initial appearance in the pages of Spider-Man, she would have been a forgotten character by now. I suspect that Marvel will reverse their decision to restore Black Cat's anti-hero status because her entire dialog as a villain is terrible. But I am sure that other writers will give the new Black Cat a shot to see how she does in their series as Lowe and Slott wants to make her into a the female villain of the Marvel Universe.
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