Writer: Dennis “Hopeless“ Hallum

Art: Luca Maresca, Rachelle Rosenberg, VC’s Travis Lanham, and Sana Tekeda

Price: $3.99

Release Date: May 20th, 2020

Finally, The Black Cat Strikes is back! The book that no one asked for but after reading the first three issues is a book we all need. Due to Covid-19, we didn’t get any new comics for a month, and now that they are back, it’s hard to remember everything about them. I will admit, I did slightly forget about the last issue’s cliffhanger. I remember I enjoyed this book, but let’s dive in and see what the lovin’ was all about…

Thankfully, Marvel does have a recap page, which reminds us that Peter was hurrying off to see Black Cat when her apartment exploded. When Peter finally arrives in Felicia’s burning apartment, Spidey tries his best to find her. The whole time he is in the burning building, three things come to mind as I am reading this. The scene does remind me of a bit of the 2002 film, Spider-Man. Another thing is that Hallum’s voice for Peter Parker/ Spider-Man feels like the MCU’s Spider-Man, Tom Holland. Yes, this Spider-Man has a video game so technically he should have a similar voice like him. But when reading this issue, I keep on thinking this is the MCU Spider-Man. Lastly, the whole fire scene feels like Hallum captures the essence of Spider-Man. I may not have been head over heels on his past two Gamerverse Spider-Man books, but feels like he finally gets Spidey.

We get a bit of a transition to later in the week. We see a montage of what Spider-Man has been up to as well as seeing the same for some criminals. The montage was excellent, and I wish we got that in the City at War comic.

Next up, we get some love talk between Peter and MJ. I thought the conversation would be cringe-worthy since it’s Peter talking to his former lover, especially the way MJ was feeling before this whole Felicia and Peter fling. Thankfully, things got interrupted when a brawl takes place between Hammerhead in a big robot type body and Silver Sable in a helicopter. Yea, that’s a cool interruption!

All through this brawl, we get a flashback of Black Cat and Spider-Man when they were an item. We get two flashbacks during the fight. First, we see Felicia and Peter stopping a criminal, and second, we see Peter finding that Black Cat isn’t much of a good gal. For a while, we weren’t getting any Spider-Man action, but now we get a double dose. We also get some Black Cat and Spider-Man team-up action, and it turns into a triple threat match that looked great! Of course, in triple threat matches, things can get nuts, and it turns into a fatal four-way with a surprising guest joining in!

Final Thoughts:

I am so glad to have this book back! It’s a great issue with some artwork that totally rocks. Dennis Hallum does seem to finally have Peter’s voice down and the cliffhanger was a cool surprise. So far, this is the best of Gamerverse books so far. If you haven’t read the first three issues in this series, I suggest you give them a look, especially if you are a gamer as well as a comic book reader.

8.2/10