Black Cat #3 // Review
The Marvel Universe’s greatest thief is offered everything that she could ever want, including the one thing that she can’t steal. Will she take the deal? She and everyone else will find out in the third issue of Black Cat. Writer Jed MacKay tells a story of ultimate power that is bound to the page by artist C.F. Villa. The action of Black Cat’s adventure slinks over to the side of the page as the emotional drama of her life takes center stage in an impressive peer into the deeper psychology of one of Marvel’s most fascinating characters. MacKay and Villa work their own kind of magic.
Felicia just embraced one of the greatest powers that a mortal could possibly connect with. One part of her is hovering in the air over Manhattan. The other part of her is having a conversation with Magic itself. It has taken the form of her old mentor. It’s there to make her an offer. She’s on a giant chessboard. Then she’s in a gallery watching her own childhood on an old tube T.V. Then she’s in a gallery. She’s being taken to these places because she’s being offered ultimate power. Dr. Strange looks on in horror. The only one who can stop her from taking ultimate power...is herself.
Stories of omnipotence tend to be really, really difficult to work with. Even someone who is extremely clever like Jim Starlin can fail miserably like he did with the laughably silly The Infinity Gauntlet mini-series. Against all odds, MacKay tells a very well-crafted tale of power and temptation that sheds kind of a breathtaking light on the inner workings of the mind of Black Cat. Cast in MacKay’s distinct wit and poetry, the This Is Your Life that is presented as an offer to Marvel’s greatest thief is great fun to read.
The stark contrast between demon battle in Manhattan and the realm of Magic is rather deftly put to page and panel by Villa, who conjures-up all manner of interesting little bits of narrative Magic. The battle panels give the feeling of immense power in combat, but the realm of Magic itself has its own kind of dramatic power. The drama can be intense. The composition of the scene in which Black Cat watches herself as a child is crushing. Villa does a brilliant job of rendering Felicia Hardy’s sad face as a child.
There’s little question that Felicia is going to do what she’s going to do. It’s interesting to see the tipping point which points her in the inevitable direction that she ultimately takes. It reveals a tremendous amount about her as a person. More so than anything else in MacKay’s impressive run with the Black Cat, this is a very intimate interlude with the title character. In a way, the entire series to this point has been leading to this one issue. In its own way, this is an impressive climax. It’ll be interesting to see where MacKay takes Felicia next.
