This article contains spoilers for Black Cat #4!
While every comic hero has a whole range of foes to challenge them in their adventures, most have one nemesis who's worse than the rest, and Marvel just revealed Iron Man's is no super-villain. The revelation comes from Felicia Hardy, aka the Black Cat, and shows that while casual fans may struggle to list more than a handful of Iron Man villains, there's one devastating influence that looms larger than the rest.
Jed MacKay and Nina Vakueva's Black Cat #4 sees Felicia Hardy, Spider-Man's on-again-off-again lover and Marvel's most prominent cat burglar, finally get a mirror-image opponent of her own. Lily Hollister was formerly the supervillain Menace, but she was recently rendered amnesiac and has since built a new life for herself as an actual (albeit dangerous) new hero, the so-called Queen Cat. Lily takes the idea of being a mirror image of the Black Cat to hilarious lengths, wearing pretty much the same costume but with the colors inverted. The imitation is so close that Lily is now on a mission to take down Black Cat in order to cement her own identity.
Needless to say, Felicia Hardy is delighted at the attention, particularly since a fist fight swiftly sees her best Queen Cat with relative ease. But while Marvel's greatest thief won't let anyone take her in, she does take pity on Queen Cat after hearing her story. Though she knocks out the misguided vigilante, she leaves the concussed Queen Cat a note agreeing to be her personal nemesis. "You see, I've been at this game a long time," she explains. "If you want to be a superhero, you need a foil. A criminal counterpart. All the greats have one. Spider-Man and Venom. Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Doom. Wolverine and Sabretooth. Tony Stark and bourbon."
It's a fittingly catty dig at Tony Stark's alcoholism - most famously depicted in the classic 'Demon in a Bottle' story arc - but one that rings true. In the context of Felicia's missive to Queen Cat, it's a way of demonstrating her superior knowledge of the superhero scene, dropping a little insider insight to make Lily feel like a rookie. But the comment also serves to confirm that Tony's personal struggles really are the foe that comes back again and again, even more devastating to his life than any villain could ever be. It's astoundingly dismissive, but also pretty much on the money.
Thankfully, Iron Man himself will never know about the put-down from the burglar extraordinaire. The Queen Cat really is a rookie, a woman with absolutely no connections in the superhero scene, and she's never going to come into contact with Iron Man. Which, of course, is exactly why Black Cat can be confident she can get away with this sad summary of the one nemesis likely to dog Iron Man for the rest of his life.