The thing about being a giant, reality-defying cartoon monster in the Marvel Universe, Cartoon Cat reflected as he perched on the edge of a forty-story building in a way that completely ignored several fundamental principles of physics and center of gravity, was that subtlety became extremely important.
He'd spent the last three days—or what he assumed were three days, his sense of time had become somewhat fluid ever since becoming a cartoon character—exploring New York City from the shadows, the rooftops, and occasionally from inside the walls themselves when he felt like taking a shortcut through solid matter. He'd been learning the layout of this version of Manhattan, identifying landmarks he recognized from movies and comics, and generally trying to get his bearings in this universe that operated on a bizarre fusion of realistic consequences and comic book logic.
And he'd been thinking.
Specifically, he'd been thinking about his debut into public awareness three days ago, when he'd accidentally terrorized an entire city block just by existing in visible space. The screaming, the panic, the immediate police response—it had all been a bit much, honestly. Sure, he was a giant monster, but he was a friendly giant monster. Sort of. Mostly. He wasn't trying to hurt anyone, at least.
But the moment he'd spoken—the moment that cartoon voice had emerged from his too-wide grin—he'd seen the fear intensify in people's eyes. There was something fundamentally disturbing about a monster that talked, something that crossed a line between "weird thing I don't understand" and "actively malevolent entity that processes thought and intent."
Silent monsters were scary, sure, but they were scary in an animal way. A bear was frightening, but it was just a bear doing bear things. It didn't have malice, just instinct and hunger.
But a monster that talked? That communicated? That had intelligence and personality? That was a different kind of terrifying. That was the difference between encountering a wild animal and encountering a serial killer. One was dangerous; the other was evil.
And Cartoon Cat didn't want to be perceived as evil.
Creepy? Sure. Unsettling? Absolutely. Disturbing in a way that made people question the nature of reality? That was basically his whole aesthetic.
But evil? No. He just wanted to have fun, exist on his own terms, and maybe troll some superheroes along the way.
So he'd made a decision.
No more talking in front of people.
Instead, he would communicate exclusively through signs that he pulled from hammerspace. It was more mysterious, more in keeping with his horror aesthetic, and honestly? It was way funnier. There was something inherently comedic about a giant monster holding up signs like a cartoon character from the 1930s, like he was Wile E. Coyote trying to catch the Road Runner.
It upped the creep factor while simultaneously making him less overtly threatening. People wouldn't know what to make of him, which was exactly the point. Was he dangerous? Was he friendly? Was he even capable of speech, or was he some kind of animated entity that could only communicate through written messages?
The ambiguity was delicious.
Cartoon Cat pulled out a sign from behind his back—the motion was already becoming natural, reaching into that space that didn't exist and withdrawing objects that materialized purely because he needed them—and examined it.
The sign read: "BEING MYSTERIOUS IS FUN" in bold, friendly letters.
He nodded to himself—his head bobbing in that exaggerated cartoon way that covered more distance than human anatomy should allow—and dismissed the sign. It popped out of existence with that satisfying little cartoon sound effect, returning to whatever conceptual space hammerspace objects inhabited when they weren't being used.
Yes, the sign communication was definitely the way to go. It fit his aesthetic, served his purposes, and would probably confuse the hell out of any heroes or organizations that tried to analyze him.
Speaking of heroes...
Cartoon Cat's oversized eyes—those too-white, too-round orbs with pinprick pupils that suggested something fundamentally wrong with his existence—focused on the street far below. Even from forty stories up, his vision was sharp. Sharper than human, sharper than should be possible, operating on cartoon logic that said if he needed to see something, then he could see it regardless of distance or obstruction.
New York was alive with activity even at—he glanced at a clock on a nearby building, his neck stretching like taffy to get a better angle before snapping back to normal proportions—eleven PM on a Wednesday night. Cars flowed through streets, pedestrians hurried along sidewalks, the city pulsed with that constant energy that never quite died even in the small hours of the morning.
And somewhere in that urban sprawl, heroes were doing hero things. Spider-Man was probably swinging between buildings, stopping muggers and making quips. Daredevil was likely beating up criminals in Hell's Kitchen with his very specific brand of Catholic guilt and extreme violence. Jessica Jones was probably drinking and being miserable in her detective agency.
Cartoon Cat hadn't encountered any of them yet. He'd been keeping a low profile, sticking to shadows and rooftops, avoiding direct contact while he figured out his capabilities.
But he'd been testing those capabilities extensively.
And he'd discovered some fascinating things.
For instance, his toon force abilities were even more versatile than he'd initially realized. Yes, he could pull objects from hammerspace—anything he could imagine, apparently, as long as it fit the general cartoon aesthetic. Mallets, anvils, signs, ropes, ladders, even complex devices like phones and cameras, all rendered in that slightly-too-perfect cartoon style.
Yes, he could walk through walls, merge with shadows, survive falls and impacts that should reduce him to paste. His body operated on cartoon physics, which meant damage was temporary and usually comedic rather than genuinely harmful.
Yes, he could stretch and reshape his form, compressing down to squeeze through gaps or extending his limbs to impossible lengths. His anatomy was more suggestion than strict biology.
But he'd also discovered something completely unexpected, something that had happened accidentally two nights ago when he'd been practicing his movements on a rooftop.
He'd been experimenting with speed, trying to see how fast he could move when he really tried, when his body had suddenly blurred. Not just moved quickly, but actually created those anime-style motion lines, that distinctive visual effect where a character's movement was so fast it left trailing after-images.
And then—without consciously intending it, without any plan or thought—he'd struck a fighting pose he recognized instantly.
It was a Muay Thai stance, but not from any real martial art. It was from One Piece. Specifically, it was Sanji's fighting stance, one leg cocked back, ready to unleash a devastating kick.
The knowledge had just been there in his head. The muscle memory—or whatever passed for muscle memory in his cartoon body—had activated like he'd been training in that style for years.
Cartoon Cat had immediately tested it further, throwing a punch at the air, and his fist had extended on his arm like a rocket, the limb stretching out dozens of feet while maintaining structural integrity, exactly like Luffy's Gum-Gum Pistol attack from One Piece.
He could do anime moves.
He could do fucking anime moves.
His toon force apparently didn't limit him to just Western animation tropes. He had access to anime physics, anime attacks, anime logic. If he could imagine it from animated media—Eastern or Western, old or new—he could apparently replicate it.
He'd spent the last two days testing this discovery in private, on abandoned rooftops and in empty warehouses, and the results had been spectacular.
He could do Luffy's stretching attacks. He could create energy blasts by concentrating and making the appropriate hand gestures. He could move with the speed-blitz techniques from various fighting anime. He could even do that thing where anime characters created clones of themselves through sheer speed, leaving after-images that seemed temporarily solid.
The rules were loose and poorly defined, operating on cartoon logic rather than any consistent power system, but that was almost better. He wasn't limited by chakra reserves or Devil Fruit weaknesses or specific techniques. If it was animated and he could conceptualize it, he could do it.
It was, in a word, bullshit.
It was the most overpowered, ridiculous, utterly unfair combination of abilities possible.
And Cartoon Cat loved every reality-bending second of it.
He was pulled from his thoughts by a sound that his oversized cartoon ears—yes, he had ears now, he'd noticed them this morning, large and pointed and definitely feline, apparently his body was still settling into its final form—picked up with crystal clarity despite the distance and urban noise.
Fighting.
No, not just fighting. The distinctive thwip of web-shooters.
Spider-Man.
Cartoon Cat's permanent grin stretched slightly wider—which should have been impossible given that it was already stretched across most of his face, but cartoon logic said if he was more excited then his smile could be more excited, so it was.
This was it. This was his chance to interact with an actual hero, to test his abilities in a real situation, to make his proper debut into the Marvel Universe's superhuman community.
He stood up from his perch—a position that had him sitting on the very edge of the building with his legs dangling over a forty-story drop—and oriented himself toward the sound. His head rotated a full one hundred and eighty degrees like an owl, his body following a moment later with a twist that should have snapped his spine but instead just looked deeply unsettling.
There. About six blocks south, in an area that was more industrial, less populated. The sounds of combat were getting more intense. Spider-Man's quips—he could hear them now, that distinctive voice making jokes about someone's fashion choices—mixed with something else.
A deeper voice. Aggressive. Growling.
And then Cartoon Cat smelled it. A scent that his cartoon nose—which apparently had senses far beyond human capability—identified instantly from cultural knowledge and internet osmosis.
Symbiote.
"Oh shit," Cartoon Cat said to the empty rooftop, his cartoon voice making the profanity sound almost cheerful. Then he remembered his resolution about not talking in front of people, and clarified to himself: he wouldn't talk in front of people. Talking to himself when alone was fine. He wasn't that committed to the bit.
If there was a symbiote in play, that meant either Venom or one of the other symbiote characters from Marvel lore. And if Spider-Man was fighting it, things were probably going poorly. Symbiotes were bad news for Spider-Man specifically—they knew all his moves, could counter his spider-sense, and were generally his worst matchup.
This was perfect.
Cartoon Cat could save Spider-Man, establish himself as... not a hero, exactly, but at least not a villain. Someone who helped out when the mood struck. A chaotic neutral force that the heroes would have to accept as an occasional ally.
Plus, fighting a symbiote sounded fun. They were supposed to be weak to fire and sonic vibrations, which meant creative solutions rather than just punching harder. Cartoon Cat loved creative solutions.
He reached behind his back and pulled out a sign.
It read: "TIME TO BE A HERO (KIND OF) (NOT REALLY) (BUT SORT OF)"
He nodded to himself, dismissed the sign, and then did something he'd been practicing but hadn't yet tried at full speed.
He ran.
Not a normal run. Not even a cartoon run with the spinning legs and dust clouds.
An anime run.
His body leaned forward at an angle that should have sent him face-first into the rooftop. His arms extended behind him in that distinctive Naruto-style run that had been mocked and celebrated in equal measure across the internet. And then he moved.
The distance between buildings became irrelevant. He crossed the rooftop in a single blur of motion, hit the edge, and leaped.
The jump carried him across the gap between buildings—a gap of at least fifty feet—with ease. He didn't arc like a normal jump would require. He just sort of... traveled horizontally through the air, because cartoon characters could do that for a few seconds before gravity remembered to kick in.
He landed on the next rooftop with barely a sound—his cartoon body weighed almost nothing when it needed to, despite being eight-plus feet of solid mass—and immediately launched into another sprint.
Building to building, rooftop to rooftop, he covered the six blocks in less than thirty seconds, moving with speed that left cartoon motion lines in the air behind him and made the laws of physics cry in a corner.
He reached the industrial area—warehouses and storage facilities, minimal lighting, perfect place for a superhero fight—and immediately located the combatants.
Spider-Man was there, the red-and-blue suit unmistakable even in the dim lighting. He was younger than Cartoon Cat had expected—this was definitely Tom Holland's version, the high school kid, probably still early in his career. The suit looked a bit damaged, webbing torn in places, and Spider-Man himself was moving with less of his usual acrobatic flair and more desperate dodging.
Because he was fighting Venom.
And Venom was massive.
The symbiote had engulfed its host—Eddie Brock, presumably, though Cartoon Cat couldn't tell for sure from this distance—creating a hulking figure of living black biomass that stood at least seven feet tall and looked like it weighed three hundred pounds of pure muscle and alien aggression. The white spider symbol on the chest was clearly visible, as were the too-large eyes and the mouth full of far too many teeth arranged in a grin that rivaled Cartoon Cat's own permanent smile.
"Come on, Spider-Man," Venom's voice rumbled, that distinctive dual-tone quality of host and symbiote speaking together. "We just want to eat your brain. Why do you have to make this difficult?"
"Because I'm using it!" Spider-Man shot back, launching a web at Venom's face. "Also, gross! Who threatens to eat someone's brain? That's not normal villain behavior! That's weird villain behavior!"
The web hit Venom's face and was immediately absorbed into the biomass, doing nothing.
"We are not a villain," Venom growled, lunging forward with speed that seemed impossible for something that large. "We are the Lethal Protector!"
"Yeah, the whole 'eating brains' thing really undercuts that message!" Spider-Man barely dodged a swipe that would have taken his head off, flipping backward in a display of acrobatics that would make Olympic gymnasts weep with envy.
Cartoon Cat watched from the rooftop above, analyzing the fight with senses and perception that operated on cartoon logic. Spider-Man was fast and skilled, but he was tiring. Venom was relentless, and the symbiote's ability to shrug off damage and counter Spider-Man's usual tricks was wearing the hero down.
This would be a good time for a dramatic entrance.
Cartoon Cat stood up to his full height—which was currently about ten feet because he'd unconsciously made himself larger in anticipation of the fight, his body responding to his excitement by just sort of... expanding.
He took a breath he didn't need, prepared himself for his debut into the Marvel Universe's superhuman community, and jumped.
The leap carried him from the rooftop down to the ground between Spider-Man and Venom, a distance of about thirty feet that he covered in a single bound. He landed in a three-point superhero pose—one fist on the ground, one knee down, other leg extended, absolutely perfect form—with an impact that cracked the concrete and sent out a small shockwave of displaced air and cartoon physics.
Both combatants froze.
Spider-Man's eyes—or the white lenses of his mask—widened to comical proportions. "What the—"
Venom's face, or the approximation of a face that the symbiote created, contorted in confusion and aggression. "What is this? What are you?"
Cartoon Cat slowly stood to his full height, his too-long limbs unfolding in a way that seemed to take longer than physics should allow, his movements smooth and deliberate and deeply unsettling.
And then he reached behind his back and pulled out a sign.
The sign read: "HELLO! I'M HERE TO HELP!" with a little smiley face drawn next to the words.
The juxtaposition—the giant, creepy monster with the permanent too-wide grin holding a cheerful sign with a smiley face—was perfect. Exactly the vibe he was going for.
Spider-Man made a noise that might have been a laugh or a cry of despair. "Is that... are you communicating with signs? That's somehow the creepiest possible way to—you know what, never mind, I've seen weirder things this week."
Venom was less amused. "We don't care how it communicates. It's in our way. Move, or we'll go through you to get to the spider."
Cartoon Cat dismissed the first sign—pop, out of existence—and pulled out another one.
This sign read: "THAT'S RUDE. DIDN'T YOUR MOTHER TEACH YOU MANNERS?"
"WE ARE AN ALIEN SYMBIOTE," Venom roared. "WE DON'T HAVE A MOTHER."
Another sign: "THAT EXPLAINS SO MUCH ACTUALLY."
Spider-Man was definitely laughing now, even as he used the distraction to put more distance between himself and Venom. "Oh man, I like this guy. Thing. Person? What are you, exactly?"
Cartoon Cat turned to look at Spider-Man, his head rotating with that disturbing smoothness, and pulled out a new sign.
"I'M CARTOON CAT. NICE TO MEET YOU."
"Cartoon Cat," Spider-Man repeated. "Okay. Sure. That's a name. That's definitely a name you have. Are you here to—"
He didn't get to finish the question because Venom, apparently tired of being ignored and mocked by signs, lunged directly at Cartoon Cat.
"ENOUGH!" the symbiote roared, all pretense of conversation abandoned. A massive clawed hand—talons extended, each one capable of punching through steel—swung toward Cartoon Cat's head with force that would decapitate a normal person.
Cartoon Cat didn't dodge.
Instead, his body simply flattened.
One moment he was standing at full height, the next his entire form had compressed down to maybe two inches tall, like a piece of paper standing on its edge. Venom's claws passed through the space where his head had been, hitting nothing but air.
Cartoon Cat's flat form turned to face Venom—even in two dimensions, his permanent grin was visible—and then he popped back to full size with a sound effect that came from nowhere.
He reached behind his back and pulled out a new sign, holding it up for Venom to see.
"MISSED."
Venom snarled, and the sound was pure animal rage. "STOP WITH THE SIGNS!"
Another sign: "NO :)"
The emoticon face on the sign somehow made it worse.
Spider-Man was laughing openly now, even as he webbed up to a better vantage point on a nearby warehouse wall. "Oh man, Venom, you're getting trolled by sign language! This is the best day!"
Venom's response was to launch several tendrils of symbiote biomass at Cartoon Cat, the black organic material extending like whips or spears, each one sharp enough to impale concrete.
Cartoon Cat pulled out a comically oversized mallet from hammerspace—because if he was going to fight, he might as well commit to the bit—and swung.
The mallet—which was approximately the size of a small car, rendered in perfect cartoon style with a wooden handle and metal head that had a little star-shine effect on it—connected with the symbiote tendrils with a sound that was part BONK and part CRASH and entirely too loud for the actual physics involved.
The tendrils didn't just stop or recoil. They went flying, whipped back by the impact with such force that Venom himself stumbled backward, his attack literally knocked aside by cartoon physics overriding biological physics.
"What—" Venom started.
Cartoon Cat didn't give him time to finish. He dropped the mallet—which vanished with a pop the moment it left his hands—and moved.
Anime speed. His body blurred, creating after-images, covering the distance between himself and Venom in a fraction of a second. One moment he was fifteen feet away, the next he was in Venom's personal space, winding up for a punch.
But not just any punch.
Cartoon Cat pulled his right arm back, and his fist ignited.
Actual flames. Real fire, burning on his cartoon glove without consuming it, wreathing his entire forearm in orange and red that lit up the dim industrial area.
And then he punched, his arm extending like Luffy's Gum-Gum attack, stretching to impossible length while maintaining the burning fist, and he shouted—wait, no, he wasn't supposed to talk, but the attack required a shout, so instead he pulled out a sign with his other hand that read "GUM-GUM RED HAWK!" in bold letters.
The flaming, stretching punch connected with Venom's chest with an impact that created a shockwave of displaced air and cartoon physics and actual heat from the flames.
Venom screamed.
The symbiote recoiled from the fire like it was acid, the biomass rippling and pulling back from the point of impact. The flames didn't burn in the normal way—they had that cartoon quality to them, animated fire that was somehow more and less than real fire simultaneously—but they clearly hurt.
Because symbiotes were weak to fire.
And Cartoon Cat had just punched Venom with a flaming fist while his arm stretched twenty feet.
"FIRE!" Venom howled, stumbling backward, the symbiote visibly distressed. "IT HAS FIRE!"
Spider-Man was staring from his position on the wall. "Did you just... did you just do a One Piece attack? Did this giant cat monster just do a Luffy move? Am I hallucinating? Is there gas leaking somewhere?"
Cartoon Cat's arm snapped back to normal length—the fire extinguishing instantly, because he didn't need it anymore and cartoon fire only existed as long as it was funny or useful—and he pulled out another sign.
"FIGHTING IS MORE FUN WITH STYLE."
Venom was recovering now, the symbiote's healing factor kicking in, the burns on its chest already knitting closed. But there was wariness in its stance now, a recognition that this strange cartoon entity was a legitimate threat.
"What are you?" Venom demanded again, and this time there was less aggression and more genuine confusion in the dual-toned voice.
Cartoon Cat pulled out a sign: "YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE."
Then immediately pulled out another sign: "JUST KIDDING. I'M ACTUALLY PRETTY FRIENDLY."
Then a third sign: "WELL, FRIENDLY-ISH."
Then a fourth: "OKAY I'M NEUTRAL BUT I DON'T LIKE BULLIES."
The rapid-fire signs—each one appearing and disappearing in quick succession—created a bizarre comedy routine in the middle of what had been a serious fight.
Spider-Man was absolutely losing it now, his laughter echoing off the warehouse walls. "Oh my God, the signs just keep coming! It's like a cartoon bit! Because you're Cartoon Cat! I get it now!"
Venom was less entertained. With a roar that shook the windows of nearby buildings, the symbiote launched an all-out assault. Tendrils erupted from its body in all directions—dozens of them, maybe hundreds, a forest of sharp biomass all aimed at Cartoon Cat from every angle simultaneously.
It was an attack that should have been impossible to dodge, a omnidirectional assault that covered every escape route.
Cartoon Cat reached behind his back and pulled out a rope.
Not a normal rope. A cartoon rope. The kind that Bugs Bunny or Roadrunner might use, rendered in simple lines but somehow more real than real rope.
And then he did something that should have been impossible.
He spun.
Not a normal spin. An anime spin. His entire body became a blur of rotation, the rope extending outward as he spun, and suddenly he was a whirling dervish of cartoon physics and toon force, the rope moving so fast it became a solid barrier of motion.
The symbiote tendrils hit the spinning rope and were deflected, each one knocked aside by the cartoon logic that said if he was spinning fast enough, he was functionally invincible to attacks from that angle.
The spin accelerated, faster and faster, until Cartoon Cat was moving so quickly he wasn't even visible anymore—just a black and white blur with a rope, creating a small tornado of displaced air and cartoon physics.
And then he jumped, still spinning, launching himself directly at Venom while maintaining the rotation.
He hit the symbiote like a drill, the spinning impact driving Venom backward, the rope somehow tangling around the symbiote's limbs, binding them together.
They crashed into a warehouse wall—or rather, through a warehouse wall, because the combined momentum of a spinning cartoon cat and a symbiote-enhanced human was more than corrugated metal could withstand.
Inside the warehouse, Cartoon Cat stopped spinning, the sudden cessation of rotation releasing all that built-up angular momentum in a way that should have made him dizzy but didn't because cartoon characters didn't get dizzy unless it was funny.
Venom was tangled in the cartoon rope, struggling against bindings that shouldn't have been able to hold something that strong but did because toon force said they did.
"LET US GO!" Venom roared, the symbiote's biomass trying to absorb or break the rope and finding it impossible—the rope existed on cartoon logic, not physical logic, and couldn't be broken by conventional means.
Cartoon Cat pulled out a sign: "SAY PLEASE."
"WE WILL NEVER—"
The sign changed. Cartoon Cat just sort of... altered the text on it without putting it away or pulling out a new one, the words shifting like they were being erased and rewritten in real-time.
"SAY PLEASE OR I'LL USE MORE FIRE."
Venom froze. The symbiote's body language shifted from aggressive to calculating. Fire was its weakness. Fire could actually harm it, possibly even kill it if applied extensively enough.
And this bizarre cartoon entity could apparently create fire at will.
There was a long moment of tense silence.
Then, in a voice that sounded like it was being dragged over broken glass and through gritted teeth: "Please."
Spider-Man, who had followed them into the warehouse and was now perched on a roof beam above, made a sound like a kettle whistling. "OH MY GOD, Venom just said please! To a sign! This is the greatest thing I've ever witnessed!"
Cartoon Cat's permanent grin somehow conveyed satisfaction despite being physically incapable of changing expression.
He pulled out a new sign: "GOOD BOY. NOW PROMISE TO STOP TRYING TO EAT SPIDER-MAN'S BRAIN."
"We... need sustenance," Venom growled, but with less aggression now. More like it was explaining rather than threatening. "The symbiote must feed. Spider-Man's brain has the chemicals we need."
Another sign: "HAVE YOU TRIED CHOCOLATE?"
There was a pause.
"What?" Venom asked.
The sign changed: "CHOCOLATE HAS PHENETHYLAMINE. SAME CHEMICAL YOU'RE CRAVING. JUST EAT CHOCOLATE INSTEAD OF BRAINS."
Spider-Man dropped from his perch, landing nearby with that casual grace that made parkour look easy. "Wait, is that actually true? Can Venom just eat chocolate instead of, you know, people?"
Cartoon Cat nodded—his whole body bobbing in an exaggerated motion—and pulled out a new sign.
"ALSO CHICKENS. CHICKEN BRAINS HAVE THE CHEMICALS TOO. GO TO KFC INSTEAD OF COMMITTING CANNIBALISM."
Venom stared at the sign.
Then at Spider-Man.
Then back at the sign.
"We... did not know this," the symbiote admitted, sounding genuinely confused. "We thought we needed human brains specifically."
"Dude," Spider-Man said, and his voice carried a mix of exasperation and relief, "you've been terrorizing people because you didn't know about chocolate? That's the saddest villain origin story I've ever heard!"
Cartoon Cat pulled out another sign, this one with actual sympathy in the text: "COMMUNICATION IS IMPORTANT. ALSO GOOGLE EXISTS. YOU SHOULD USE IT."
The rope binding Venom suddenly disappeared—pop, back to hammerspace—and the symbiote stumbled forward, free but clearly not sure what to do with that freedom.
"So we can just... eat chocolate?" Venom asked, and there was something almost vulnerable in the question. "And we won't need to harm people?"
Cartoon Cat nodded and pulled out a final sign: "YES. GO FORTH AND EAT SNICKERS BARS INSTEAD OF COMMITTING FELONIES."
There was a long, awkward moment where Venom just stood there, processing this information. The symbiote's body language shifted from aggressive to confused to something that might have been embarrassed.
"We... may have overreacted to our situation," Venom finally said.
"You think?" Spider-Man replied, but his tone was more amused than angry now.
Venom turned to leave, moving toward the hole in the warehouse wall, then paused and looked back at Cartoon Cat.
"What are you?" the symbiote asked one more time, but with curiosity now rather than hostility.
Cartoon Cat pulled out his final sign of the encounter.
It read: "I'M CARTOON CAT. I'M NEW HERE. LET'S BE FRIENDS. :)"
And then, before Venom could respond, Cartoon Cat did something he'd been saving.
He channeled Popeye.
His arms—those long, too-thin cartoon arms—suddenly inflated. Muscles bulged from nowhere, his biceps swelling to ridiculous proportions, becoming massive spheres of cartoon muscle that looked completely absurd on his lanky frame. His forearms thickened, his hands became massive, and for a moment he looked like someone had grafted bodybuilder arms onto a stick figure.
The transformation was accompanied by that distinctive Popeye music—which came from nowhere, just ambient soundtrack that reality provided because the moment required it.
Cartoon Cat flexed, the cartoon muscles rippling in a way that violated several laws of biology, and struck a pose that would make professional bodybuilders weep.
Then, just as quickly, the muscles deflated with a sound like air leaving a balloon, and his arms returned to their normal proportions.
Spider-Man was on the ground, literally rolling with laughter, his hands clutching his stomach. "I can't—I can't breathe—that was—oh my God!"
Even Venom seemed taken aback, the symbiote's face frozen in an expression of complete bewilderment.
Cartoon Cat pulled out one last sign: "I CONTAIN MULTITUDES."
And then he stepped backward into a shadow and disappeared, his body merging with the darkness like it was a doorway to somewhere else, leaving behind only the fading sound of cartoon music and the memory of the most bizarre fight either Spider-Man or Venom had ever experienced.
He emerged from a shadow on a rooftop six blocks away, his body reforming from the darkness with that distinctive animation-style materialization.
Cartoon Cat stood there for a moment, processing what had just happened.
He'd fought Venom using anime attacks, cartoon mallets, toon force rope, and Popeye muscles.
He'd communicated entirely through signs.
He'd turned a serious confrontation into a comedy routine.
He'd potentially prevented future conflicts by informing Venom about chocolate.
And he'd established himself as... something. Not a hero. Not a villain. Just Cartoon Cat, a bizarre entity that existed outside normal categories.
He pulled out a sign for his own benefit, even though no one was around to see it.
The sign read: "THAT WAS AWESOME."
He dismissed it and pulled out another: "I LOVE BEING A CARTOON CHARACTER."
Somewhere in the distance, he could hear Spider-Man trying to explain to someone—probably calling someone, maybe Happy or Tony Stark—about the giant cartoon cat that had just saved him from Venom using One Piece attacks and sign language.
This was going to spread. The story would get out. Heroes would start hearing about Cartoon Cat, the mysterious entity that helped Spider-Man, that fought with cartoon logic and anime physics.
His legend was beginning.
And Cartoon Cat, standing on that rooftop under the too-blue cartoon sky of the Marvel Universe, couldn't wait to see what happened next.
He reached behind his back and pulled out a chocolate bar from hammerspace—because apparently he could do that now, could just have food appear from nowhere—unwrapped it, and took a bite.
It tasted like cartoon chocolate. Which tasted like real chocolate but somehow more, the flavor enhanced by toon force to be exactly as good as chocolate should taste in an ideal world.
"Yeah," he said to the empty rooftop, his cartoon voice making the word sound cheerful and slightly unhinged. "I'm gonna like it here."
And somewhere in the city below, Venom was discovering that chocolate really did satisfy the symbiote's cravings, Spider-Man was trying to file a report about the strangest team-up of his career, and the Marvel Universe was about to learn that it had a new player in the game.
A player who fought with mallets and signs and anime attacks.
A player who was overpowered, ridiculous, and absolutely committed to having fun.
A player named Cartoon Cat.
And the game had only just begun.