Comic books can make you feel all sorts of emotions, and that’s part of the beauty of the art form. While I do appreciate when a comic can make me sad, angry, or hopeful depending on the situation and what characters are trying to bring out that emotion out of me, I think I love it the most when a comic book makes me actually laugh out loud. As an aspiring comedian I’m always greatly impressed when a bunch of ink blotches and words on paper get a chuckle out of me, and that’s definitely part of the the reason I’ve always gravitated more towards books like Spider-man, TMNT, and others like it. So consider this the first edition of “Jake’s Gag Bag” a series of posts where I visit a moment in comic books that actually got a good laugh out of me. I’ll also be explaining the whos and whys that got us to this moment and what series that contains the laughable moment.
In 2012 Mark Waid had been on a rampage with Daredevil, he had been writing the character in a way I felt hadn’t been done in a long, long time. He made Daredevil fun, don’t get me wrong the dark elements where still there but for most of the series he brought along a fun silver age adventure feel instead of just the classic brooding “my life is darkness” feeling previous creators had done. Right before issue eight Waid had hopped on Amazing Spider-man #677 to start out a two part Crossover between the two series where Spider-man was feeling down about all the lovebirds in the air runs and then runs into Felecia Hardy AKA Black Cat. Shortly after their run in Felecia is arrested for a crime she did not commit and Spidey decides to turn to Matt Murdock for some legal help.
While they figure out the best approach to the situation, Black Cat escapes custody and then the three of them team up to try and find who framed her. Along the way sparks start to fly and a bunch of flirting between Daredevil and Black Cat starts to happen which as I’m sure you could guess Spider-man was not a fan of.
After doing some investigation work and finding a trail to who’s causing them all the trouble they seemingly split ways Spider-man goes one way, and Black Cat, and Daredevil go another direction. Right Before spider-man really takes off he catches this moment between Daredevil and Black Cat, creating one of my favorite panels involving Spider-man. It’s just a classic Spidey moment of him making a joke for his self to lighten the emotional blow of his buddy kissing his ex, something a lot of people can relate to.
I won’t spoil the ending for you; you’ll have to track those issues down to see how it all plays out! Collected in Amazing Spider-man #677, and Daredevil Volume 3 #8.