Black Cat #7: Emperor’s New… Goop?

One of the best things about our happy little corner of superhero comics is the potential for sequential storytelling to weave vast tapestries of character history, allowing storytellers to stumble upon thematic and fresh concepts that they may not have been able to make resonate with readers without that prior history. The recent friendship between Mary Jane and Felicia is one of those kinds of developments. Thus, their crossover in Black Cat #7 is not only one that warrants some cheers, it also comes with the added bonus of G. Willow Wilson’s dialogue writing and character flourishes that I’ve come to love both on this book and in recent work like Poison Ivy. Granted, this isn’t your typical MJ/BC affair. With recent developments over in Al Ewing’s Venom, MJ is now hosting the iconic symbiote, who similarly shares a history of a tumultuous fashion with both characters.

Their journey to the Negative Zone is a road paved with humor and heart in how Felicia, after all she’s gone through as of late, tries to save what is left of her self-image by preventing MJ’s public image from collapsing. The pacing of this is decompressed, this issue acting mostly as setup for the thematic through line, but in a way that services the storytelling that high compression wouldn’t have been able to. A lot of room is left to ruminate and allow our characters to breathe as they work each other and their ongoing problems out without ever directly confessing any hardship.

Their shared dynamics, and the tonal balance of Gleb Melnikov’s art, made the start of this arc a ton of fun and still somehow substantial on the thematic side. It is a bit hard to review an issue like this, which is all about the dialogue and the subtle quirks in how characters interact with one another, but as a long-time reader it is just so satisfying to reach a point with these three where every moment they spend together feels rich. The texture of Wilson’s ability to modernize but not lose the magic of a character’s personality adds that extra touch of care to elevate this humorous team-up.

Furthermore, it’s that attention to characterization that left me shocked. I have not been fond of how the ongoing Venom/MJ story has been treated in the pages of other books. With Wilson at the helm, I found myself adoring the pairing and the potential for it beyond the scope of its initial debut. Melnikov brings such cartoonish personality to the symbiote as well, evoking the character’s early McFarlane days without ever feeling directly derivative of them. Outside of MJ, Melnikov is doing the most with emotion in the faces of his characters, the expression in their movement, and general presentation, which helps solidify such a dialogue-driven book as something still worth presenting in a visual medium such as this. So often, readers will complain about the presence of talking heads and dialogue-heavy comics, when in reality we just need to recognize all the artists like Melnikov doing the most with these integral conversations.