Mary Jane and Black Cat team up (again) for a Dark Web tie-in series

Mary Jane & Black Cat #1 cover art — (Image credit: Marvel Comics)

There have been three significant romantic interests in Spider-Man's life - the late Gwen Stacy (at least Earth 616's Gwen), Felica Hardy AKA the Black Cat, and of course Mary Jane Watson (formerly Watson-Parker).

Now two of them are teaming up in a new limited series titled, appropriately enough, Mary Jane & Black Cat, which ties directly into the Spider-Man/X-Men/now-Venom crossover event Dark Web.

Teaming up again, that is, following the Mary Jane & Black Cat: Beyond one-shot earlier this year.

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Mary Jane & Black Cat is written by Jed MacKay, who's written various Black Cat stories over the last few years including the current Iron Cat limited series, and Mary Jane & Black Cat: Beyond.

The series will be drawn by artist Vincenzo Carratù making his Marvel Comics debut.

Mary Jane &amp; Black Cat #1 cover — Mary Jane & Black Cat #1 cover (Image credit: Marvel Comics)

According to Marvel, MacKay's "transformative work on Marvel's premier super thief" continues with a team-up with MJ set against the "twisted backdrop" of Dark Web, where the duo is thrown together in the demonic dimension of Limbo. But something has changed with Mary Jane (perhaps it has something to do with Moira X recently possessing her to infiltrate the Hellfire Gala and MJ's seeming death) and Black Cat has a guilty conscience over something that's negatively impacting their escape plan.

"I've kind of lost track of how many lives Felicia has left at this point, but she keeps coming back - and this time she's brought a friend," MacKay says in Marvel's announcement. "Getting back to Mary Jane and Black Cat after their one-shot last year has been a delight - and seeing how they've been catching up on all the drama that's happened since then has been, well, catnip."

Mary Jane & Black Cat #1 (of 5) goes on sale December 21 with a cover by J. Scott Campbell.

Why aren't Peter Parker and Mary Jane together in Spider-Man comic books?

I'm not just the Newsarama founder and editor-in-chief, I'm also a reader. And that reference is just a little bit older than the beginning of my Newsarama journey. I founded what would become the comic book news site in 1996, and except for a brief sojourn at Marvel Comics as its marketing and communications manager in 2003, I've been writing about new comic book titles, creative changes, and occasionally offering my perspective on important industry events and developments for the 25 years since. Despite many changes to Newsarama, my passion for the medium of comic books and the characters makes the last quarter-century (it's crazy to see that in writing) time spent doing what I love most.