Ultimate Spider-Man

"Black Cat"
On the Chrysler Building, a woman dressed in black, Black Cat, watches a office room in a skyscraper. She then uses a grappling dart, which she fires at the top of the building. Black Cat then slides down the line and onto the rooftop.

Two security guards on the ground floor notice a disturbance on the rooftop from the security cameras. The older guard sends the other to investigate. The younger guard arrives on the rooftop and finds nothing. A gust of wind blows his hat off and he chases after it. Black Cat then enters the rooftop door and locks the guard out. The younger guard calls the older guard to open the door, as Black Cat sneaks through the building. After avoiding a cleaner, Black Cat blocks the security cameras and breaks into the room she was studying before. She then finds the room’s safe, and discovering it doesn’t have a combination lock, she examines the room’s surroundings and unearths the lock to the safe inside the desk’s filing cabinet. After unlocking the safe, she finds what she is looking for: a broken piece of a tablet.

Two security guards, including the younger guard from before, have realized that there is a break-in and notice that the office which Black Cat is in is open. Black Cat hides on the ceiling as the guards investigate and spot the open safe. One of the guards suddenly trips and accidentally discharges his gun. The bullet ricochets and hits a fire sprinkler, causing it to unleash a large amount of water, heavily drenching the security guards. Black Cat escapes the room and heads to the roof. As she is about to use the line she set up, she is then confronted by Spider-Man.

Spider-Man at first is stunned by her appearance, and is surprised to see Black Cat leap over the edge of the building they are on. He follows to rescue her, only to realize that she had merely clung to the side of the building and tricked him into falling. Spider-Man tries to use his web-shooter but oddly finds them to be not working. On the rooftop, Black Cat is about to flee when Spider-Man leaps back onto the rooftop, after using his wall-crawling ability. Spider-Man tries to block her way until Black Cat fights and easily subdues him. She then leaves right after telling Spider-Man, "Crossed a black cat... seven years bad luck."

Spider-Man recovers and tries to chase after Black Cat, but suddenly trips himself. As he lies on the ground, Spider-Man and Black Cat momentarily look at each other. Black Cat then suddenly leaves and vanishes into the city.

At the Parker’s residence, Peter is thinking about his experience with Black Cat and is interrupted by Mary Jane. The two are in the basement studying for their school mid-terms. Peter tells M.J. about deciding on whether to quit being Spider-Man or not, much to hers delight. Peter at first suggests that M.J. doesn’t want him to be Spider-Man, but M.J. simply says that she doesn’t want him to stop being the hero and do what he has to do. However, Peter further states that the people he fights against can be sometime very dangerous to him, and even recounts his encounter with the Black Cat (who he doesn’t mention to M.J.) in which he almost died. Overall, Peter sums that "punching someone with octopus arms” is not "fun”. Mary Jane counters his statement that punching Norman Osborn is fun, and Peter seems to agree. After Peter finishes talking about himself, he asks M.J. about her story. M.J. explains to him that her father, Greg, was caught with another woman, and how she hates him for doing that. Peter reassures M.J. that if he marries her, he won’t cheat on her. Moved by Peter’s commitment, M.J. admits her love for him. The two kiss and are called out of the basement by May Parker, who tells M.J. that her father has arrived.

A stern Greg Watson carries M.J.’s diary, much to his daughter’s surprise. May, disapproving of Greg, ask him to sort out his problems in his own home, but Greg tells May that the issue also involves Peter. M.J. is furious at her father reading the diary and leaves for home. Greg stays and reveals to the Parkers of a condensed entry in M.J.’s diary of her rescue from the Green Goblin by Peter as Spider-Man (the Goblin, Spider-Man, and the Queensboro bridge where M.J. was endangered are omitted in the diary). Greg then demands answers from Peter as to what kind of danger she was in. Peter remains steadfastly quiet, and Greg finally has it, ordering Peter to stay away from his daughter and swearing to have her enrolled in another school if they both try to get together. May stops Greg’s outburst and tells him to leave or she will call the police, after which he leaves. May asks Peter as to what kind of danger M.J. was in. Peter at first refuses to talk but tells May the indirect truth of being in a park and saving M.J. from falling on "something”. When May asks as to why he couldn’t give that simple explanation to Greg, Peter states that he is "a jerk”, in which May agrees with her nephew. However, Peter is worried that Greg might hurt M.J., to which May remedies his concern by taking a "walk” by the Watson’s home with Gwen Stacy, and planning to call the police if "anything happens”.

After May and Gwen leave for their "walk”, Peter suddenly notices something on television. The news channel reveals that a security camera caught Spider-Man chasing after Black Cat, which leads to suggestions that the two committed the theft that Black Cat had committed and are accomplices. As Peter shockingly watches the news, he remembers what Black Cat had told him: "And that seven years’ bad luck starts... right now.”

02/2004

Marvel

759606050314

50

December

2004

Direct

United States

$2.99

Modern Age

English

Magazine

2018-07-02 22:44:41

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Rude Awakenings

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2024-04-01

2018-07-02 22:44:41