In this post I bring you material form some years ago. But I wanted to comment on an entertaining story from our beloved wallcrawler and this one has been lost to many readers: I’ll review here the Spiderman / Black Cat: The Evil that Men Do miniseries, by Kevin Smith. One story that also has some story details behind it that makes it even more interesting.
Let’s dive into the background then…
The writer: Kevin Smith
Kevin Smith, mostly known as a writer and director by his movies Clerks, Mallrats and Dogma, made a big name in comics whe he gave us the great “Daredevil: The Guardian Devil” storyline from Daredevil (1998) 1-8. Right after that, he wrote the return from the dead of Oliver Queen as Green Arrow in the “Quiver” storyline, which also was very well received by critics and fans.
Sizzling hot at the moment, Kevin returned to Marvel to produce two miniseries: Daredevil/Bullseye: The Target, and Spiderman/Black Cat: The Evil that Men Do. He was also announced to be the next writer of Amazing Spiderman and a new Black Cat series. Kevin was rising to the stratosphere of comics. But…
Kevin’s movie production schedules brought the two miniseries to unbearable delays. The Spiderman miniseries first three issues were published in August, September and October, 2002. The series was delayed indefinitely, and luckily for us readers, was finished from December 2005 to January 2006. Just a little more than 3 YEARS from issue 3 to issue 4. That’s what I call a delay. Even then, it was better than the other series: Daredevil/ Bullseye: The Target published just one issue…
Of course, the performance of Smith in terms of delivery caused that his run on The Amazing Spiderman series never came to be.
We all lost with that, Kevin…
The Story
I must address that this story is not for kids due to multiple factors. Spiderman / Black Cat: The Evil Men Do is a story that grows from a simple, team up story, to a difficult, adult story about drugs, rape and how victims deal with it.
It begins with Spiderman and Black Cat looking for the same bad guy for different reasons: Spidey is investigating the death of a college student, while Felicia is looking for a missing girl. Both end up meeting while stalking a suspect, and so the team up begins. Felicia´s status as Catwoman wanna be is played to the limit in the first issues, with the Black Cat continuously flirting with Peter, even as they freefall away from buildings.
The main villain of the story happens to be one Garrison Klum, a low level Kingping who seems to be able to teleport small quantities of drugs into the bodies of people. The guy’s threat level grows from issue to issue, until in a highly climatic moment, issue 3 ends with Garrison about to rape Felicia.
That’s where Kevin Smith left the readers waiting for 3 years to know what happened…
The tone of the story from the last three issues is completely different. As always, I prefer not to disclose that much of the story from here on, for you to discover what happens with a much fresher point of view. I will only say that the story centers much more in the victims of rape and their reaction, than in the action itself. And much is talked about Felicia’s story in many web pages around here, but there are many victims of rape along the story. Ok, Ok, I’l stop here before I spoil the story too much…
The artwork by Terry Dodson
As always, Terry Dodson gives us beautiful art. Maybe in the beginning he rejoices too much on the Black Cat’s body, with unnecessary bath scenes and an extremely curvy Black Cat. It reminded me somehow of some of the pin up books from the 90´s, something like “Girls from the Marvel Universe” or something like that. Anyway, Dodson delivers his clear lines and makes a nice mix with Smith’s story.
Final Words
This is not best of the best material, if you allow me the thought. Not Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman nor Frank Miller at his best. It’s not even the best Kevin Smith’s material you can read. But I recommend this story for anybody that wants to read an entertaining Spiderman story with something extra that leaves a little more taste in the mouth when you end it. All along the story it got me hooked, always caring about what was going to happen next. And that’s a good thing to say about any story.
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Until next fast review, and as we always say… keep up the good reading!
