S02E04 "Black Cats and Crossed Paths"

Characters: Peter Parker/Spider-Man; Max Modell; Black Cat; J. Jonah Jameson; Miles Morales; Anya Corazon; Gwen Stacy; Randy Robertson; Robbie Robertson; The Master Planner

Teaser
In Horizon High, PETER PARKER is sleeping on his feet in an empty hallway. When every phone in the building goes off, he is startled awake—"I'm okay, Miles, I can sleep when I get home," he exclaims. Peter answers his lab phone. It's MAX MODELL, calling from his car. He is pleased that Peter is there so early because he's expecting an important delivery but won't be there in time to accept it. ("Yeah," Peter says. "I'm ... early.") Modell gives Peter the security code that will let the delivery man turn over the package, and asks Peter to put the item in a safe place until he (Max) can arrive. Peter takes the delivery (from a man who doesn't wait for the code), and finds it's a large glass bottle containing a viscous black liquid. He is examining it when BLACK CAT drops from the ceiling and takes it off him and runs off. She is searching the school for anything else to lift when Spider-Man catches up to her. There's a brief fight, but Black Cat catches Spider-Man with her "bad luck power" and gets away. As she dives out a window, Spider-Man gets a tracker on her. But when he follows her out a window he lands on the road right in front of a speeding truck. He leaps away and lands on the windshield of another car, which is being driven by J. JONAH JAMESON.

Act I
Jameson crashes the car, knocking Spider-Man free, but the publisher comes out screaming at him for being a menace and for causing him to bust both his car and his cell phone. Spidey protests, but runs off when he sees Max arriving nearby. On the roof he starts to track Black Cat, but is interrupted by a call from Max, asking where the delivery is. Peter says he put it in his lab safe but had to run an errand and left the school. Max tells him that's alright, so long as the delivery is safe and he gets it by the end of the school day. Spidey promises him he will.

Spidey returns to his tracker, and finds that Black Cat is at a computer store. He races off, but hits first a cluster of pigeons and then a swinging I-beam at a construction site. (He tells himself it's all just coincidence, that there's no such thing as "bad luck".) At the computer store, Spidey catches Black Cat in the act of making off with one of the newest model of cell phone. Again, she hits him with bad luck, causing him to accidentally web the clerks instead of her. Outside, Jameson is pushing his way to the front of the line of people waiting for the store to open; just as he reaches the doors, Black Cat darts out and away; Jameson dodges her, but then is knocked flat by Spider-Man, who runs off as though scalded when he helps Jameson up and discovers who it is. As he runs off, Spider-Man admits there might be something to this "bad luck" business, especially when he finds that the receiver for the tracker is on the fritz, and that he's lost Black Cat as a result.

Back at Horizon, Peter is fixing the receiver (which is located in one of his suit's lenses), but is interrupted by Max, who explains to him that the canister contains V-252, a extra-terrestrial substance given him by the space program for study, and which might turn out to be next year's annual special project for the school. He asks Peter to fetch it for him, but Peter pleads being late to class and runs off, only to crash into MILES MORALES, who asks him if he finished working on the gyro-stabilizers for the new security robot; Peter pleads having to run an errand for his Aunt May; he bumps into ANYA CORAZON and yells that "I'll have your thing for you by the end of the day," prompting GWEN STACY to ask Anya what "the thing" is; Anya only shrugs and says that whatever it is, she hopes it earns her an A. On the roof, Peter finishes repairing the receiver, and spots Black Cat.

She is in a comic book store, and she simply walks in and walks out with a rare and expensive comic book. She checks it off an itemized checklist she has going. Outside, Spider-Man drops in on her, but she blinks at a tow truck, causing it to careen out of control toward a mother and child, and runs off as Spider-Man dives to save them. In the car that is being towed, J. Jonah Jameson looks up from his cell phone (where he's reading a reminder that today is his wedding anniversary) in time to see himself and his car being swung toward Spider-Man.

Act II
Spider-Man webs people out of the way, but the tow truck rolls over and Jameson's car is totaled against a wall. Spider-Man runs over to help the man struggling from the wreck, and catches a punch in the chin from Jameson, who screams for a cop to arrest the menace. Spider-Man runs away, and discovers that the blow from Jameson has again knocked out the receiver in his lens. He stops in a coffee shop to repair it, where he runs into RANDY ROBERTSON, who carries on a one-sided conversation with Peter about his dad quitting the Daily Bugle to start his own media company. But Peter quickly gets the receiver repaired and runs off once he has another lead on Black Cat.

She is entering a jewelry store at the same time that Jameson is inside demanding to see the cheapest diamond bracelet they've got. Black Cat ignores him and in the back of the store cuts out the glass of a display case to take a large diamond. Spider-Man dangles from the ceiling to taunt her that her trick won't work this time, because he's got his eyes closed. But when Jameson yells "Spider-Man!" he opens them in time to get hit with the "bad luck blink." Spider-Man falls onto Jameson's shoulders, and together they careen around the room knocking over cases and vases. Spider-Man leaves Jameson in a heap and rushes off. Spidey decides that instead of racing off after Black Cat, he'll do a little investigating to see what truth there is to this "bad luck" power of hers.

At the Daily Bugle, Peter talks to ROBBIE ROBERTSON (who is busy packing his office), asking what he knows about the criminal Black Cat. Robertson brusquely tells Peter that she's a master burglar, daughter of another master burglar, and that Jameson has been trying to get footage of her for years. Peter remarks that he will try to get some. Robertson then tells him that he'll pay double Jameson's rates at his new media company. Peter exclaims that he didn't know Robbie was starting a new media company; Randy pops up to hector Peter for not listening to him at the coffee shop. Robertson interrupts to say that getting footage of Black Cat may be a moot point now. He points to a monitor, which shows a live feed of Black Cat at the wheel of a red sports convertible, racing down the street. A terrified J. Jonah Jameson is in the passenger seat.

Act III
Peter excuses himself and races for the roof. He checks his tracker—still signaling—and uses it to plot an intercept course toward Black Cat. He summons his photographic drone meet him there.

Down on the street, Black Cat is racing along, teasing Jameson, when Spider-Man drops onto her hood. Her bad luck effect sends him hurtling away, to land atop a truck that gets caught in a traffic jam while she races away. As Spidey runs after, he reflects to himself aloud that if two negatives make a positive, maybe he can give himself some good luck by giving her some bad luck. He catches up to the convertible and before Black Cat can hit him again, he uses webbing to take control of the wheel, steering it under a ladder for bad luck. He then causes it to knock a side mirror off by hitting a wall (for seven years bad luck). He ends by webbing a U off a neon sign and hanging it upside down on the rear view mirror, explaining that hanging a horse shoe upside down causes all the good luck to run out. In short order, a tire bursts, the hood flies up, and the convertible careens into a dump truck that buries Black Cat and Jameson up to their necks in sand. As they are at an intersection, they are soon swarmed by people snapping photos on their cell phones; Peter's drone drops to take it all in too.

As the police are leading Black Cat away, Spider-Man (dangling safely from a light post) drops them Black Cat's loot, except for the bottle of V-252, which he says he will return to its owner. He asks Black Cat if she was working for someone or just playing a bizarre scavenger hunt. She only retorts, "Wouldn't you like to know." She then blinks at him again. He cringes, then tells her "Nothing happened." "Not yet," she coos as the cops put her in the back of the cruiser.

Dissolve to The Daily Bugle. Peter enters, congratulating himself on getting the V-252 back to Max with the principal none the wiser, on finishing the gyro-stabilizers for Miles, and on getting some footage to sell. He runs into Robbie, and says he's on his way in to sell some film of Black Cat to Jameson. Robbie tells him that Jameson won't want it, as he's seen too much of her lately. He points to a monitor, which shows Jameson, in the car with Black Cat, under the headline "Publisher Caught with Kitten in Lap on Wedding Anniversary." Peter is left to muse if Black Cat's bad luck was being targeted at him or at Jameson.

Dissolve to another monitor showing the same headline, which then changes to a close-up photo of Black Cat. Off-screen, the electronically distorted voice of THE MASTER PLANNER sounds: "Bad luck, Black Cat. I was thinking of taking a chance on you. But The Master Planner doesn't bet on losers."

The above is closely based on the episode "A Day in the Life" by Mike Fasolo.

"Spider-Man Commentary: Black Cats and Crossed Paths" 

Next: "S02E05 "What Dreams May Come""