Mary Jane and Black Cat: Beyond #1 // Review
Writer Jed MacKay and artist C.F. Villa made an impressively enjoyable team on the all-too-brief Black Cat series that ended last year. The first month of 2022 closes1out with one more story featuring Marvel's greatest thief in Mary Jane and Black Cat: Beyond. The one-shot finds two of the more prominent women in Peter Parker's life teaming up to save him from certain death. MacKay's buddy action comedy once again gives Black Cat a bit more sharply witty time on the page while giving mid-level Hollywood actress Mary Jane Watson some strikingly clever moments as well.
Peter Parker is holding on to life in a hospital bed. As he's not exactly conscious, he's more vulnerable now than he's ever been. Naturally, a villain is going to take the opportunity to threaten Parker and his girlfriend Mary Jane's lives if the world's greatest thief can't steal something very valuable from a very dangerous person. As she is confident that Mary Jane is in trouble as well, Black Cat convinced the villain to let her go as part of the job that lies ahead. Little does Black Cat know: she's gaining a very valuable asset who turns out to be absolutely crucial to the operation.
MacKay manages to make both characters equally appealing. The contrasting personalities of a thief and a screen actress come together remarkably well in a funny, well-modulated action story That serves both characters well. Not content to simply tell a good story, there is real character development between both of the title characters. They both come across as being very sharp and sophisticated. Either one of them would be brilliant in a crisis situation. It makes them fun to hang out with for this van of a single issue. Judging from this issue, two would make for a really good ongoing series as well.
Villa is brilliant at alternating between sophisticated drama and stylish action. This issue also allows him to do some rather intricate work distinguishing between the two women in Spider-Man's life. They come across as very interesting characters and their own right, Thanks to beautiful and nuanced characterization on the artist's part. The addition of a screen actress into the mix with Black Cat Allows for more of an appealing sense of visual action in both dramatic and comedic moments. The overall rhythm of the story comes across very fluently thanks to a very sharp sense of rhythm and layout on the part of Villa.
There was a time when Peter Parker could have been said to have been having a midlife crisis. It was back in the mid-1980s (back then, continuity could still be said to reach back to the character's origin in the early 1960s, which would have made him middle-aged at the time.) He just come back from another planet with an alien costume. Spider-Man he was hanging out with Black Cat. As Peter Parker, he was getting into severe emotional territory with Mary Jane. One woman represented one side of his wife. The other represented the other. Ultimately he got married to Mary Jane. MacKay Takes the traditional dynamic between the two of them and pairs them beautifully in a really, really breezy action story that's got a little bit of emotional weight to it as well.
