After a while, every seasoned comic book fan realizes that many superhero battles can get a bit…cliché. Both villains and heroes end up making the same silly mistakes during a fight. The bad guys make improbable last-second escapes. Villains like the Black Cat “die”—only to reveal they’d been faking the entire time. What’s hilarious, however, is that the villains themselves have gotten wise to superhero reactions and actually joke about it in private.
Showing that even bad guys can gain some self-awareness, Spider-Man’s ex-girlfriend Felicia Hardy (aka the Black Cat) has been known to ridicule superheroes in private while fraternizing with her fellow super villains. This happened in Black Cat #6 by Jed MacKay and Mike Dowling when the titular cat burglar decides to get some R&R between heists by going on a date with a fellow crook. While Felicia candidly admits that dating can be tricky in her line of work, she ends up going out with the relatively charming rogue, Batroc the Leaper—a French mercenary known for tangling with Captain America.
While chatting about their usual foes and illegal lifestyle, the talk turns to superhero clichés when the Black Cat asks Batroc if he’s ever died and come back, commenting that this sort of thing happens to people in their business. Batroc admits he hasn’t died and come back (yet), and Felicia muses she also hasn’t been resurrected—but has faked her death a couple times (usually with Spider-Man) to get out of a scrape.
Batroc laughs that he’s done the same thing, prompting Felicia to snicker about how easy it is to just fall off a cliff into some water and have the hero assume you’ve died. Showing he is equally familiar with superhero tropes, Batroc points out how dramatically superheroes agonize over a supervillain’s fake death, wondering if there is a way they could have saved them. Happy they are both on the same page, Felicia raises her glass and offers a toast to the heroes, claiming, “They’re hot and also dumb.”
The rest of the date goes surprisingly well, with Felicia inviting Batroc to go out with her and steal something during a lull in their conversation (Batroc steals a blender for her). The two end up spending the night together, although in a moment of self-reflection, Felicia also admits that people in their line of work can only enjoy casual flings and don’t have the temperament for a long-term commitment.
It’s a remarkably self-aware tale that exposes the limitations of both superheroes and supervillains. While Felicia completely embraces her life as the Black Cat and couldn’t imagine living any other way, she’s also very conscious of what her lifestyle prevents her from having. Superheroes might be object of ridicule in her dinner conversations, but the Black Cat still admires their nobility and ethical standards, as they represent something even a master thief like her can’t steal.