Black Cat #1

Black Cat #1

Marvel Comics 2020

Written by Jed MacKay

Illustrated by C.F. Villa

Coloured by Brian Reber

Lettered by Ferran Delgado

Feeling lucky? Knull’s attack on Earth interrupts the Black Cat’s latest heist, and if you know Felicia, you know that’s a problem. So the Cat and her crew aim to steal something of greatest value to both Knull and Earth’s hope of survival. You’ll have to pick up this issue to find out what! This issue guest-stars the X-Men! Captain America! And Doctor Strange! DO NOT MISS IT!!!

I am so tired of Marvel stopping and starting their series, so much so I almost didn’t pick this one up at all. What is the point of printing a Legacy # under the “current” issue anyway why not just keep letting the books continue? It’s not like you need a first issue as a reason for at least 5 variant covers anymore. This is why folks leave Marvel and DC ya know, the constant stopping and starting. Like I said I almost didn’t pick this one up but curiosity got the better of me and since the opening is exactly the kind of thing we should be seeing from Felicia. The rest of the issue is not billed as a tie-in and I doubt next issue is either but the gimmicks are never ending.

Jed does an amazing job writing this issue. I do like the way that it is being told the story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented extremely well. After the mishegas with Knull please tell me we’ll see stories that are like the opening! The character development that we see is really rather fun and interesting. Her own inner reflection upon seeing Captain America says a lot about Felicia Hardy at this point in time. Then of course there’s her trademark audacity and tenaciousness at the end all of which really makes me want to see more of her. The pacing here is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story alongside the twists & turns along the way creates the kind of thrillride that should come with Felicia’s adventures.

With the way that we see this being structured and the layers within the story begin to emerge it’s great that there is this whole world that she’s a part of that she doesn’t even realise is there. No she isn’t a cosmic kind of girl but that doesn’t mean she can’t hang with them. Plus with how we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow is amazing.

I love the interiors here and how the varying weights of the linework are utilised to create the detail work that we see is phenomenal. Now if we could just get to see more backgrounds actually being utilised throughout the book. Really I hate that nowadays backgrounds are not thought of or attempted and instead it’s all colour to express movement or action. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a strong eye for storytelling. The colour work is actually beautifully rendered here. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is exceptionally done.

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There are few books being done by Marvel that are being done smartly that don’t fit into this crazy new norm. The crazy new norm being any character not in the Avengers or X-Men or associated with some huge company crossover crap. Yes I said crap. I want excitement and thrills and Felicia is just the woman to bring this to us and I hope we’ll see these adventures going forward with this series.