Spider + Cat + Redhead notes (Patreon)

So after the 'bachelor party' of Earth-69, I wanted to do something much more basic and character-driven and more conductive to arc storytelling. There's a bit of that in what Natasha's up to, but I really want to establish a world beyond Peter and Felicia and MJ in their lovenest, get into the extended Spider-Man family. For now, that means avoiding the Avengers--who get the 'super parent' treatment with Peter a lot and generally have enough written about them--and instead focus on a few more street level heroes, the long-time fixtures in Peter's circle. It was actually in writing this that I figured out the dynamic of Matt being the big brother, Peter being the middle child, and Johnny being the little brother, which now has me picturing them as the Powerpuff Girls. Sorry.

In short, hope you like Jess and Carol, because I've gotten quite a few requests for them to be interacting with the Spiders. And with Carol being an old flame of Peter's, and a friend of Mary Jane's, we should be seeing more of them. But also characters like the Fantastic Four, Matt Murdock, Jennifer Walters. I think a lot of people like this series as an escapist fantasy of Peter's life where he actually gets to enjoy himself, so I do want a 'day in the life' type mise-en-scene to it. Of course, Peter's life tends to involve elaborate supervillain plots, so we'll get into that after a few more chapters of the present marital difficulty. Hopefully those shenanigans won't drag too much like Earth-69.

For Natasha, I wanted to go more comicsverse than MCU, though obviously Johannson was an inspiration for Nat's description. I liked the idea of setting up a differentiation between her and Black Cat, despite all the surface similarities, with Felicia being more of a sex fantasy and Nat the iron fist in the velvet glove. And also totally inspired by Kate Beckinsale in Underworld, movies with so little plot they might as well be about Spider-Man having a threesome.

For now, though, I think I've given y'all enough to chew on here, so let's move on to something Voyager. But until next time, who would you like to see join the Spider-family? And does anyone miss Ana?