Ultimate Spider-Man Has Marvel’s Best Love Story (and It Doesn’t Involve Peter Parker)

There’s a love story brewing in Ultimate Spider-Man, and the most interesting thing is it doesn’t have anything to do with Peter Parker. Ultimate Spider-Man already has one of Marvel’s best relationships, with Peter and Mary Jane Watson being a married couple with two kids. Relationships can be a tricky thing in comics. Some fans want to see their favorite heroes in loving, stable relationships, while other fans are against the idea of their heroes being stagnant and bogged down by a significant other. What the latter group doesn’t realize is there’s a middle ground where a blossoming romance can also make for compelling storytelling.

Ultimate Spider-Man is quietly building one of comics’ best new love stories. Instead of focusing on Peter Parker and Mary Jane, the romance involves their son Richard, who has been dressing up as Spider-Man in his father’s absence. A night of patrol for Richard turns into a confrontation with Black Cat (Felicia Hardy), who is looking for revenge against Spider-Man for injuring her father, the original Black Cat. The only problem is it was Peter, along with Harry Osborn as the Green Goblin, who defeated Black Cat. Even with that confusion up in the air, sparks are subtly flying between our new Spider-Man and new Black Cat.

Spider-Man’s son flirts with Marvel’s new Black Cat

Spider-Man and Black Cat have a quick fight in Ultimate Spider-Man #14, though neither person is truly harmed. Instead, Richard defuses the situation by unmasking and revealing himself to Black Cat to prove he isn’t the Spider-Man who hurt her father. They each offer up their ages — Richard claims he’s 15-and-a-half and Black Cat says she’s almost 17, though Richard knows that means she’s 16. Richard and Felicia quickly go from fighting to talking to each other, and it’s a cute exchange to watch unfold.

Felicia can tell that Richard reads a lot of books by how he speaks, using a mixture of bigger words and unique sentence structure. They also go against your typical superhero/supervillain archetype when Richard and Felicia share their first names. Heroes usually want to prevent villains from learning intimate details about themselves, but since Richard is basically a hero-in-training, he doesn’t know any better. But it’s an early indicator that Richard and Felicia are already getting comfortable around one another.

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We catch up with Richard and Felicia a few hours later, and they’ve already shared a great bit of information. For example, Richard knows Felicia’s backstory of her father being a member of Kingpin’s Sinister Six, how they secretly run the city, and how the original Black Cat inserted Felicia in his place after he got injured fighting Spider-Man and Green Goblin. But when Felicia asks Richard what his father does, Richard wisely says he can’t tell her because it would jeopardize their safety. Since Richard is coming across as mysterious and dangerous, this intrigues Felicia even more.

An unexpected love affair is brewing in Ultimate Spider-Man

You can make a case that the storyline between Richard Parker and Felicia Hardy is just as entertaining as the main story arc in Ultimate Spider-Man. Fans surely weren’t expecting to see Richard donning Spider-Man’s picotech A.I. costume, which is the Ultimate Universe version of the black symbiote suit. Marvel has flipped the Spider-Man/Black Cat dynamic on its head by having their relationship be between each character’s offspring. Spider-Man and Black Cat began as on-again/off-again lovers in the main Marvel Universe, and Felicia also knows that Peter is Spider-Man. Covers for Ultimate Spider-Man also led us to believe it’d be Peter Parker squaring off against Black Cat. But nope, the story took a drastic swerve all for the better.

Much of the credit for making Spider-Man and Black Cat’s love story as interesting as it is goes to the book’s creators: Jonathan Hickman, Marco Checchetto, Matthew Wilson, and VC’s Cory Petit. Hickman doesn’t write Richard and Felicia as annoying teenagers; instead, they’re complex, smart, and full of potential. Checchetto and Wilson perfectly capture teenage body language, with the best example being Richard and Felicia’s conversation while sitting on a rooftop watching the sunrise. Even though they’re dressed as Spider-Man and Black Cat, they have their guard down and sit relaxed next to each other.

Hopefully, there won’t be too much drama in the future for our Spider-Man and Black Cat. Future issues of Ultimate Spider-Man tease a team-up between father and son as our two Spider-Men fight together against the Sinister Six. With the Sinister Six at war with each other, that could spell bad news for Black Cat. Whose side will Richard choose if it comes down to helping Black Cat or taking down the Sinister Six for good?

All good love stories come with a healthy dose of heartbreak, which could spell bad news in Ultimate Spider-Man. Seeing the romance bloom between Spider-Man and Black Cat is one of the many things that makes Ultimate Spider-Man one of the best comics on the market. It’s only a matter of whether the love story will have a happy or sad ending.