Marvel's Spider-Man's Black Cat Chases Her Tail Thanks To Glitch
A recent playthrough of Marvel’s Spider-Man saw Black Cat running in circles due to a glitch. Insomniac’s take on the mythos of Marvel’s iconic web-slinging hero features appearances from many of Peter Parker’s friends, enemies, and love interests - including Marvel's Spider-Man's version of the infamous Felicia Hardy and her feline-themed alter-ego, the Black Cat. In a similar vein to DC's Catwoman, Black Cat started as an enemy of Spider-Man, but soon found herself attracted to the wise-cracking hero and eventually became a partner in his never-ending battle against the forces of evil in New York - though she would often relapse back into a life of crime as their relationship soured.
As Marvel’s Spider-Man sees Peter Parker well into his career as a crime-fighter, his complex relationship with Black Cat is established as part of the game’s backstory, even as Mary Jane Watson serves as his primary love interest. Though Felica doesn’t appear in the main plot, a side quest has her call Spidey and task him with locating several Black Cat-themed dolls as part of a plan to retrieve her old gear from NYPD’s evidence locker. She would finally show up in the flesh in the Marvel’s Spider-Man: The City That Never Sleeps DLC, where Peter discovers that she is now working for the mobster Hammerhead. This naturally leads to a chase between the former lovers through the streets of Manhattan not unlike the ones featured in Black Cat’s subplot from the 2004 Spider-Man 2 tie-in game.
This is where things took a turn toward the usual for Reddit user ElijahChahine, who shared a brief gameplay clip of the chase between Spider-Man and Black Cat on r/SpidermanPS4 (via Game Rant). At some point, Spidey catches up to Felicia near a busy city street, only to find the cat-burglar inexplicably running in circles due to a glitch. Peter watches his ex-girlfriend run around in confusion for a while before ElijahChahine pushes the Triangle Button at the prompt above Black Cat’s head to trigger the cutscene that leads into the next part of the mission. Other Marvel’s Spider-Man players in the comment section have since made plenty of jokes referencing CW’s The Flash show and playing into Felicia’s cat motif by saying that she has “the zoomies” - a common phenomenon among cat owners that sees their pets suddenly start to run around the room.
While Marvel’s Spider-Man and its 2020 spin-off Spider-Man: Miles Morales are highly polished titles, fans have still spotted plenty of glitches within both superhero sandbox games. For the 2018 original, these include portals resembling the ones conjured by Doctor Strange suddenly emerging in the middle of a fight and Peter even phasing through the water into an inverted dimension similar to the Sorcerer Supreme’s mirror world. Meanwhile, Miles has found himself transformed into all kinds of everyday objects, such as bricks and street lamps. One Spider-Man: Miles Morales glitch even saw the young superhero stuck wandering the streets of Harlem in his civilian clothes, unable to access any of his web-swinging abilities or even advance the plot.
Thankfully ElijahChahine’s recently-discovered Black Cat glitch wasn’t anything game-breaking, as they simply had to perform a button-press to resume the mission at hand. However, it’s pretty funny to see a normally competent criminal like Black Cat running around for no particular reason, even as Spider-Man is in the process of chasing her down in Marvel’s Spider-Man.
Source: ElijahChahine/Reddit (via Game Rant)