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

[wyokid]

Just read this for the first time, was wondering what everyone thought of it.

[RyanParkerMan]

There's already a thread on this. I guess it's old now.

I didn't like it.

[Regulus B.]

I hate that story to a degree I can hardly articulate. And if I owned the trade, I'd burn it.

[Kevinroc]

First of all, the art was great. The Dodsons are quite good.

And my opinion is split in two different ways. When it was put on hiatus for so long, I lost most of my interest and it felt completely different from the first part of the series, which I had remembered being fun and light-hearted.

Giving Felicia a "rape as backstory" origin also rubbed me the wrong way completely. It changes Felicia's entire motivation to get back at her rapist, and then it turns out he died in some car accident completely unrelated to Felicia's actions. She didn't have an opportunity to think about revenge and decide against it. She had no power in this new backstory.

And then there was far too much talk of "rape" and it is treated far too lightly in the second half. This is some pretty heavy stuff and the execution was, I found, horrible.

[RyanParkerMan]

I hate that story to a degree I can hardly articulate. And if I owned the trade, I'd burn it.

Yeah, it was poorly done. And I know people love the Dodsons but I hated the art. It certainly isn't a spider-man story and that's what gets me the most. Had the story been done differently (not over sexualizing the characters and handling the subject matter with a bit more taste and maturity) it could have been atleast somewhat interesting to see Peter in a story like that.

[okpanic]

I liked it, for the most part. For me the first half of the series was really strong, but in the latter three it kinda tapers off (which seems to be a consensus).

The star of the mini-series for me, apart from the art, is the writing of the relationship between Peter and Felicia. The banter and chemistry is spot-on and just works so well. I'd go as far to say it's probably as perfect as their partnership has been, and paved the way for a more mature Black Cat in the Marvel Knights/Spectacular run.

[marvelgeek]

Artwork is amazing. Spider-man and Cat's relationship is written great. That being said, giving Black Cat a "rape origin" was a terrible move, Nightcrawler seems soooo out of place in the story and the line "He's leaning on my boob" is just poor writing

[Hambone]

I though it started off strong and I liked Cat and Spidey's interaction. The college rape origin coupled with Mysterio 3 (Klum) who was also raped was a bit much though.

[Scott Taylor]

Well, I read it through. That puts it above some trades I have attempted to read. Plus it had Felicia in the shower. But it all went downhill from there. A good basis for a story was present, but it got lost in all the rape and drugs and negative stereotypes. Black Cat put into a fridge.

Not to be saying its the only comic to ever promote that stuff, but it came across as pretty heavy-handed and crass here, to me.

[okpanic]

Well, it is Kevin Smith.

[Specimen 297]

#1-3 = good.
#4-6 = bad.

[E. Wilson]

Well...I was going to start with a profanity-laced diatribe about how intellectually lazy and insulting it is to use rape and sexual abuse in as casual a way as this story did, I think it'd be more effective to simply say that after reading this series, I've gone out of my way to actively avoid anything with Smith's name attached to it.

(Which does take some doing in the circles I travel in, I tell you what.)

[FirestormTheNuclearMan]

Is this the one where Black Cat comments on Spider Man's lower anatomy, and looks like she is talking to the reader?