Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #700 (Story 3)

Background

Spider-Man and Black Cat used to date. This story is about them.

Story 'Date Night'

Some time ago: Black Cat waits for Spider-Man to arrive for their date night. He swings in with flowers but quickly receives an Avengers alert and has to leave!

Black Cat quickly follows and, spotting that Spidey is dealing with a giant robot, decides that he could do without the police hounding him. She swings to the ground and encourages the police to follow her to stop a robbery in progress.

She leads them on a merry dance through a cinema (where Reed and Sue Richards are on a date), a jazz club (where Ant Man and Wasp are on a date) and Central Park (where J. Jonah Jameson talks seductively to a large bag of money!).

Spidey is still fighting, so Black Cat leads the police into a museum and happens to steal a vase for her flowers!

Cat swings home and Spider-Man, having dealt with the robot, follows shortly after. Their date can now begin.

General Comments

Unfortunately, the tone of this story is one of pointlessness. I can see that this is a depiction of Black Cat helping Spidey out and I’m sure that this story would fit in a young readers’ digest or some sort of short story anthology with lots of other out-of-continuity stories but in Amazing Spider-Man #700, the epic, the swansong, the death of Peter Parker… it really doesn’t work.

Ultimately, I can’t see what else this story achieves. It isn’t funny, it doesn’t go into any depths of anyone’s relationship, it doesn’t depict stunning art and there’s no character progression. I’d continue, but, not unlike these eight pages, there’s no point.

It annoys me that Jen Van Meter wrote such a brilliant Black Cat series a couple of years ago and here there's no substance and the character is poorly used.

The art is quirky and adds a great deal of cuteness to the pointless tone but doesn’t really help and enhances the fact that it doesn’t belong here.

Overall Rating

Sigh.