BLACK CAT

Felicia Hardy's romance with Spider-Man was real — it just had a condition nobody prints on the Valentine's cards: she was in love with Spider-Man, the rooftop myth, and had no interest at all in Peter Parker, the broke science student underneath. When a hospitalised Felicia finally saw him unmasked, her reaction was not wonder. It was dismay, followed by a request to cover his face again.

Marvel's own history of the pair spells out the problem in one line: she could not understand why someone who was Spider-Man would keep living a mundane, paycheck-to-paycheck life at all. To Felicia the costumed thrill was the whole person — there was no other half worth dating — and from then on she stayed warm to the mask and hostile to the man.

That rejection quietly shaped everything after it. Feeling inadequate beside a genuine superhuman, Felicia went shopping for powers of her own — the road that led to the Kingpin's bad-luck bargain — while Peter was left partnered with someone who adored his legend and flinched at his rent, his job and his name.