POBB June 7, 2026

Pick of the Brown Bag

June 7, 2026

by

Ray Tate 

Black Cat: King in Black #1

Venom began life as a parasitic pair of pantyhose in Secret Wars #8. How this definitely happened still escapes me.  The machine allegedly reads a person's thoughts and replicates what they want.  I doubt Spider-Man created Venom. Thinking:  "What I really need is a pair of alien Levis that will drain the life out of me, wreck my home life through a toxic, one-sided, borderline sexual relationship and unleash a series of otherworldly crimes upon the Marvel Universe."  No, no.  Spider-Man is actually quite intelligent.   

I can only guess that the device sends a teleport beam to search the universe for new threads.  The beam struck a puddle of ooze.  Venom thought to itself:  "Face it, Tiger.  You hit the jackpot."

  

Before its lucky break, Venom being Venom probably lurked in fashion shops all over the galaxy.  Taking advantage of the old adage that every woman should have at least one little, black dress.  Feeding on anybody who tried it on or took it home.  Though not Mary Jane Watson in early days.

Amazing Spider-Man #300

Upon discovering that the pair of pants threatened Mary Jane, Spider-Man soon does the right thing.  He hunts down the deadly dungarees, overcomes new host and punk murderer Eddie Brock and wards both to the Fantastic Four.  

Ben Grimm is clearly wearing a Felix the Cat robe to 

intimidate the planet-hopping long-johns in Amazing Spider-Man #300.

Because of Mary Jane's experience with Venom, she asks Peter to discard even his regular copy black suit.  

#300

Perhaps not wanting to take chances, Peter decides to burn it.

Also 300

Venom didn't just terrify Mary Jane, it also victimized the other woman in Spider-Man's life.  Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat.  Felicia was onto Venom from the very start.

Amazing Spider-Man #257

It rewarded that knowledge with violence.  

Amazing Spider-Man #316

Venom makes the Punisher look like a pair of comfy pajamas.  The Punisher is a bona fide antihero.  However, if we redefine heroes in the context of James Bond or the Shadow, the Punisher can be defined sometimes as outright heroic.  Venom not so.  Venom is pure bastard.  That hasn't stopped Marvel from trying to parlay Venom's bizarre haute couture success into something other than villainous.  

Only whatever his fanbase looks like buys into this.  To all of us who know what it and Eddie Brock did to Mary Jane Watson and Felicia, the creature is dead to us.  We also wish it only a permanent comic book death perhaps eaten away by voracious moths.  Tall order, but there it is.

Black Cat's opinion on Venom and Eddie Brock hasn't changed an iota.

Black Cat: King in Black #1

This brings us to a recent Black Cat and Mary Jane Team-Up. 

Hey, babies, how about some cunnilingus with your space-louse abuser.

MJ and Black Cat despite being exes and one-time rivals for Peter Parker's affection kind of like each other.    

Jackpot and Black Cat #1

Mary Jane and Felicia have in fact teamed up often.  Still, this is a bit much.

Black Cat #7

Yeah.  MJ loves Felicia?  I don't think so.  Thoroughly likes Felicia.  Sure, but loves? Is this another "love ya" vs.  "I love you," kind of thing? 

Black Cat #7

Anyway.  The entire story feels like fan-fiction created by some whiny little Venom fan.  Indeed, this whole exercise is an exploitation of talent meant to serve marketing.  You have to like Venom now.  Mary Jane is Venom.  

You are incorrect, Sir.  I can still loathe Venom, even with the shiny gold Spider on its chest, plainly indicating meritorious conduct from its kindergarten, but still like Mary Jane and Black Cat.  

Actually, liking MJ and the Black Cat precludes ever liking Venom.  You may as well ask me to like the Joker and Batgirl.  I like to see the Joker beaten to a pulp.  I'd like to see Venom harvested by silkworms.  Does that count?

Venom is essentially a garbage domestic abuser.  Like all  abusers, it also happens to be an energy-vampire taking the form of a cheap-jack costume.  It has inexplicably been artificially ballyhooed to be raised upward into the scope of the public eye.

 

Yeah.  Venom is that guy.

How did this recent nonsense happen?

Black Cat #7

What's an Archiniote?  No idea.  Doesn't matter.  Mary Jane could have said "stabbed by a unicorn." It still would present a situation just as contrived.  

Marvel:  There's a whole bunch of people who loathe Venom.  We can increase sales if we get Venom a host nobody can deny.  What about Mary Jane?  The survivor of Venom's domestic abuse?  Are you nuts?  Wait.  Wait.  Maybe the maniac's got something.

For the record, I didn't read the book where this happens, and you can make the argument that it's unfair for me to judge the fusion since I don't understand the whole story.  Let me present a counterargument.  

Jackpot and the Black Cat #1

Mary Jane was already a super-hero with a decent costume and an impressive gadget granting her superpowers before she subsumed her identity to her former domestic abuser.  Like many victims of domestic abuse, mental and/or physical, regrettably do, 

Number One

If you can't make out what's happening in the above graphic.  Mary Jane known as Jackpot possesses a bracelet which she operates like a slot machine.  The spin decides on what superpower the bracelet grants.  There's no limit to what the bracelet can bestow, nor how many times MJ can spin.

So here's another contrivance I must accept.  Mary Jane didn't wear her bracelet when threatened and forced to bond with Venom.  Alternately, the bracelet suddenly proved to be worthless for getting out of this particular situation.  Or the bracelet conveniently gets destroyed before she's threatened.  No matter what.  It seems to me that Marvel set up MJ "to be pinched by the leprechaun," disregarded her other identity, all to try to drum up fans for the domestic abuser.   

#300 again; Even MJ's clown pants are more attractive than Venom, as outerwear.

Marvel's message to survivors of domestic abuse seems to be.  You'll never escape.  Your identity will never be your own. I'm sure that this was an inadvertent social motif because only Nazis would be that cruel on purpose.  

Another means of defense.  Mary Jane could have contacted Felicia and using the bracelet, whip up an anti-Venom suit.

Felicia uses an Anti-Venom Suit to bloody Venom's nose and steal Dr. Strange in King in Black #2

G. Willow Wilson is Black Cat's current scribe.  Her run hasn't been as wacky nor Lupinesque as Jed MacCay's terrific turn.  Wilson's Black Cat is more street level.  However, Wilson respects Felicia.  She gives her dignity ninety-percent of the time.  The differences between Wilson's and McCay's Black Cat are many.  

Wilson makes the Black Cat a little more vulnerable, a little less cocksure, self-reflecting.  It's a valid characterization.  Wilson also subtly ties her into the Spider-Man universe more frequently and in a less spectacular way.  Both characterizations for the Black Cat fit.  They connect.  They're complimentary.  That being said.  If you want episodic heist and adventure, you go to Jed MacCay.  If you want a day-in-the-life comedic drama of sneak-thief Felica Hardy, you go to Wilson.  

Until this Venom garbage, I was content to read G. Willow Wilson's Black Cat.

To Wilson's credit, in the team-up, she focuses mainly on MJ and Felicia.

Unfortunately, she still must pay the bills.  So, she tailors her work to suit an ugly pair of pants. Some of her choices are missteps to be kind.

That scene never would have happened.  There is no way, in any universe that Black Cat hugs Venom.  Black Cat hates Venom more than Mary Jane.  That scene highlights the insidiousness of this whole exercise.   Mary Jane gains nothing from this story.  Black Cat gains nothing from this story.  Venom in theory gains respectability from this story.  Or Marvel wants Venom to gain acceptance and credibility from this story.  Too Bad.  I see what you did there.

A turd is a turd.  Putting a caramel in its center doesn't make it more appetizing.  That's why I cannot recommend this story in an otherwise consistently good Black Cat run.  

Not

  

 

POBB May 19, 2026

Pick of the Brown Bag

May 19, 2025

by

Ray Tate

Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag, I'm Ray Tate, and I review comic books.  This week I look at Zatanna, the character and her new series, which by now should be available in trade paperback: Zatanna: It's Showtime! ISBN: 9781799505501.

This whole thing started with Mandrake.  With the exception of the Shadow, Mandrake the Magician was the first character to use apparently occult powers to battle criminals.  Mandrake was not a sorcerer, as in the more familiar Stephen Strange and Scarlet Witch.  Neither was the Shadow for that matter.  Mandrake instead used mesmerism and trademark hypnotic illusion to fight crime in the comic strips.  In other words: an exaggerated form of stage magic.

Zatanna is the daughter of Mandrake knock-off Jonathan Zatara.  Believe it or not.  Zatara debuted the same time Superman premiered in Action Comics.

Yes.  You may have seen the dapper fellow in Zatanna's flashbacks, but he really was an individual character who had his own adventures.  Some.  Quite queer.

Love is Love in Action Comics 12 1939.

Take that Nazis.

He furthermore was a genuine wizard.  Zatara used backward spoken spells in addition to other bizarre methods to serve justice.  

Later in his adventures, Zatara fell for and married Sindella...

...a witch from the species Homo magi.  So, two powerful forms of magic course through Zatanna's blood line. 

It's really surprising that such an omnipotent being is so down to earth.  Zatanna by trade is an accomplished stage magician, She furthermore doesn't cheat with sorcery.  That's for her superhero gig.

While putting on such a show in an allegedly haunted theater, Zatanna is lured into battle against Lady White, a vampire's ghost.  Perhaps, "production manager" Jamal Campbell intended that origin as a double-whammy of supernatural to reflect Zatanna's double-dose of magic.

Lady White snatches Zee's crew to a magical realm, and Zee needs to thwart the many obstacles in the domain to find them.  However, the abduction is actually a distraction to what's really going on.  An intricate revenge scheme against the Zatara Family.

Though Zatanna is one of the most powerful characters in the DCU, she can be beaten temporarily with chloroform and/or a sap to the head.  Temporarily.  The apparition seeks a more permanent solution.  Lady White employs a magical artifact whose power dates back beyond the time of the Vikings.  No, it is not the Spear of Destiny.  Campbell's tale never really veers to the predictable.

What I like the most about this story is that it's as grounded as the star.  So many stories based in magic are filled with mystical gobbledygook.  Revenge serves as the core of Campbell's work.  The exact method of vengeance, though apparently deific in nature, is very easy to comprehend.

Zatanna is among other things a people person.  Thanks to Paul Dini, she's one of Batman's oldest friends.  When she debuted in the sixties, she sought out the Justice League to help her rescue her father.  She joined the League sometime later.  

In Campbell's story, Justice League Dark gets involved.  I've been somewhat ambivalent toward the newer lineup of Justice League Dark, but I must admit.  The team is growing on me.

The goofy Blue Devil also shows up in issue two, and here's another character I'm warming to thanks to Campbell's skillful characterization.  

I remember seeing advertisements for Blue Devil way, way back, and thinking: what's the big deal?  After reading, my opinion went: I'm not sure that he warrants this kind of hype.

In this new series, Blue Devil makes for an excellent partner for Zee.  She needs magical brawn as well as wits.  Sure.  She could have called the Justice League, or borrowed Supergirl, Power Girl, Black Canary, anybody to accompany her on the mission.  Blue Devil fits with the milieu.  

Because the Lady in White is a the spirit of a 1930s film star, her magical conjurings leans to the period.  Though Campbell isn't averse to including a few anachronisms.  

Mind you.  Batman did premiere some eighty-seven years ago.  As did psychopath Basil Karlo.  Give or take a year.

Basil Karlo in context of the Rebirthed DCU is a different sort of animal than the one who got himself unceremoniously slain by his copycat in the pre-Crisis.  The Lady in White knows just how to manipulate Karlo into killing Zatanna.

So what's Lady White's beef with the Zatara family?  Turns out it's based on falsehood, as is the entirety of the evil.  

This latest Zatanna series is pretty entertaining.  The magic cloth is pulled with the help of the entirety of Justice League Dark, and there's reveal after reveal.  

All of these twists as well as, an uncharacteristically unheroic ending, makes sense if you've been paying attention.  So, bravo to Jamal Campbell, who provides the words and the sweet, sweet artwork in a superb magical performance.

POBB March 24, 2026

Pick of the Brown Bag

March 24, 2026

by 

Ray Tate

Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag, a column of comic book reviews created, construed, constructed by yours truly Ray Tate.

So the only thing wrong with Cheetah & Cheshire Rob the Justice League is....

...nothing.  I have only sunshine and rainbows to toss at this surprisingly upbeat heist mini-series by Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott, Annette Kwok and let's give Troy Peteri the letterer some love.

The Justice League possess a Super Power Bank.  A device that will return superpowers to every hero that lost them.  Such a thing even in the context of a science fiction/science fantasy multiverse is complete rubbish.   I normally would have much complaint to lodge as I dissect its impossibility.  

However, it's a macguffin.  

It's a plot device that catalyzes the story.  So, it's actual mechanism for working or not is irrelevant.  All that matters is that it's valuable and Cheetah and Cheshire want it.  Not for world conquest.  Nope.  They want to make millions off of it.  That's a rationale I can respect.

They're furthermore willing to put together a crew to steal the Power Bank from the Justice League.  Hence the title.

Dr. Barbara Ann Minerva is the Cheetah.  She is not the first.  The Cheetah name and animosity toward Wonder Woman goes all the way back to the 1940s with Priscilla Rich.

Barbara Minerva holds the title since John Byrne, George Perez and Len Wein reintroduced Wonder Woman for the post-Crisis era. 

The Powers that Be rebooted Wonder Woman several times.  Her foes, the same.  Unlike the previous Cheetahs, Barbara Ann can no longer be considered simply as Wonder Woman's enemy.

From Tom King's masterful Wonder Woman #10

Cheetah though villainous is more of a victim because of the curse that metamorphosed her.  Rucka and Scott remind readers of that curse.  The need to eat human flesh.

Now, cannibalism is a dark theme.  However, don't get turned off by the Cheetah's struggle to fight for her humanity.  

It's part of the story.  It's buried beneath the surface.  It doesn't cross a line.  This isn't some 1960s Italian cannibal splatter film. 

Jade Nguyen is Cheshire.  Marv Wolfman and George Perez created Cheshire in late pre-Crisis days for The New Teen Titans.

Cheshire wasn't as popular as the team's previous assassin conception Deathstroke.  However, Perez's art leaves an indelible impression.  

So even if you forgot about Cheshire's history or only vaguely remember her as Lian Harper's mother, you'll never forget what she looks like.

Cheetah and Cheshire are natural partners-in-crime.  Although, I don't know where these two met.

Cheshire's encounter with Wonder Woman was singular and in a previous universe.  It's not like the two villains ever teamed up to take down Wonder Woman.

So that doesn't explain how Cheshire and Cheetah are close enough to give each other nicknames.  

This is the only conceit in the book.  You need to accept that Cheetah and Cheshire are old friends.  Thanks to Rucka and Scott's skill, it's very easy to swallow.

Third member of the team...

Lian Harper is Cheshire's and Speedy's daughter.  Roy Harper alias Speedy was the original sidekick of the Green Arrow.

Wolfman and Perez deserve credit for literally cleaning up Speedy.  They turned him into a credible DEA Agent.  They gave him the complicated history with Cheshire.  A daughter whom both hero dad and villain mom love unconditionally. 

Next crew-member, Klarion the Witch Boy and his feline friend Teekl.  

From the Demon #7

Created by Jack Kirby, Klarion is a classic occult mischief maker, and that's what the team promises the immortal kid.

You'll note that Klarion nowadays sports a blue complexion.  This change in design occurred during Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory.  No idea why Morrison or the artist made him blue, but after several universal reboots, it stuck. 

Klarion is without a doubt one of the least trustworthy denizens of the DCU.  Boy.  You just keep expecting the other shoe to drop.  He doesn't seem to disappoint.  

Yeah.  There's way more to this meeting than meets the eye.  Let me also say.  It's just swell to see Black Adam being a bad guy again.  Because that's what he is.  

Originally, Black Adam was created to be a one-off menace for the original Captain Marvel to fight.  

Squint and you can see how important 

Black Adam was to the Marvel Family

Creators however vaguely remembered that one Fawcett story and, against reason, kept bringing Black Adam back.  Popularizing the character until....

...Well shoot....

That's inexplicable. 

Cheetah and Cheshire also acquire Rebecca Sharpe, the Gambler's granddaughter.  She actually has a considerable longevity in comic books.  First appearing in the 1980s Infinity Inc.

The Gambler is one of those 1940s characters that's just too hilarious to go away, especially with his Foghorn Leghorn banter.  Granted every normal, human 1940s character should be dead by now, or not nearly so rambunctious.  Suffice to say.  DC has a flexible reality when it comes to time and space. 

Next, we have the brawn, amusingly named Featherweight.  She's the newest villain on the block.  Klarion, who crushes on her refers to her as she.  I'll go with that.   She's apparently the daughter of Ra's Al Ghul's other daughter Nyssa; created coincidentally by Rucka and artist Klaus Jansen.

Nyssa is better known in the television Arrowverse as Sarah Lance's Beloved portrayed by Katrina Law.  Or maybe not.  Doesn't matter.  

You see.  Cheetah and Cheshire Rob the Justice League is just as self-explanatory as the somewhat Japanese-translation-styled title.  

Rucka and Scott take moments to painlessly explain who these people are--without the lion's share of my history lesson, why they're motivated to rob the Justice League, and what's in it for them to be part of the team.  

Whatever their reasons, their loyalty to the heist unites them.  As with the best heist stories, and Rob the Justice League should at the very least hold an honorary position in the roll call of best heist stories, the heist is spectacular.  It's so brilliant.  So well-thought out.  It left me grinning throughout the read.

This is no ordinary heist.  The typical fictional heist only need worry about terrestrial elements.  This heist takes into consideration the whole shared universe of DC Comics---magic and super-science--to outrageously accomplish what the title states.  It even respects the abilities that comprise the Justice League.

I'm sure Batman took notes on Cheetah's and Cheshire's infiltration of the JLA Watchtower.  It will not be tried again.  If foolishly attempted, it certainly won't be successful.

Appendix

Justice League guest-stars found in Cheetah and Cheshire Rob the Justice League:  Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Renee Montoya The Question, Carol Ferris The Star Sapphire, The Red Tornado, The Challengers of the Unknown

Justice League cameos found in Cheetah and Cheshire Rob the Justice League: Jaime Reyes the Blue Beetle, Zatanna, Misfit, Vixen, Flex Mentallo, Avery Ho the Flash, Fire, Firestorm, Mr. Terrific, Captain Atom, Black Lightning, Blue Devil, Dr. Fate, Metamorpho, Detective Chimp, Raven, Cyborg, Damien Wayne Robin, Power Girl, Ted Kord the Blue Beetle, Yara Flor Wonder Girl, Spoiler, Starfire, Nightwing, Monkey Prince, Ray Palmer the Atom, Courtney Whitney the Star-Spangled Kid, Aquaman, Hawkgirl, Miss Martian, The Martian Manhunter, Swamp Thing, Donna Troy Wonder Girl, Mary Marvel, Supergirl, Oliver Queen the Green Arrow, Barry Allen The Flash

Please note that this discounts the imagery in Cheetah's dissertation on the Justice League and the Watchtower.  

Nicola Scott, by the by, also seems to relish the opportunity to illustrate as many DC Comics heroes as she can.

Sorry.  My scanner isn't big enough to demonstrate Nicola Scott's Double Page spread of the Justice League attacking Black Adam and his cronies.

This had to be a lot of work.  No doubt a pleasurable amount.

Cheetah and Cheshire is now available in trade paperback: ISBN 9781799509486.  Alternately, you can buy the six back issues at your local comic book shop.