Review: Black Cat #12

Where there is Tony Stark, you can bet your bottom dollar there will be a suit of armour kicking around.Â Throw in Felicia Hardy, on the con and you can bet your bottom dollar that something is getting stolen.Â This issue then has the comic book clash of these two distinct quirks of the respective characters as a stolen Iron Black Cat armour goes speed against the repulsors of Iron Man’s; though why anyone would chose to repulse Felicia is way beyond me!

With a Covid caused delay coming to the Black Cat series, this book feels more final than it really should.Â All the parts of the Cat’s and Fox’s big plan are now in their thieving hands; Felicia also gets to hangout with Odessa before having her moment.Â If there wasn’t an over hanging “big job’ in play you would be concerned for the future of this book.Â On the other hand, Marvel have been known to cancel fantastic books from lower tier female characters before (Mockingbird anyone?). I am hoping that this isn’t the case here, as panel for panel, Black Cat has been the funnest, most enjoyable book from Marvel over the last year!

A lot of the books charm lies directly at the feet of writer Jed MacKay whose writing has been a breath of fresh air against the turgid weight of event books, tie-ins to event books and mediocre re-telling of classic stories.Â In Black Cat, MacKay has the perfect foil to brag about the freedom a non mainstream character can have.Â Back when this book started, I wrote that it was the Cat book that DC wishes Catwoman was.Â Over time, I realise that this statement is unfair to MacKay who has worked hard not only on Felicia but also on her gang of cohorts.Â Dialogue is fun, breezy and flirty, with self-awareness comments about red hair adding to the still quite annoyed Cat.Â Casting my mind back over the thirteen issues, I can’t remember MacKay putting a paw wrong. He even managed to utilise a well used trope here, in a way that was surprising!

The art for this issue is provided by C.F.Villa.Â As this is the action part of this two-part mini arc, things move at quite some pace.Â This means that Villa’s pencils have to up for that level of chaos.Â For the most part they do.Â I imagine it’s hard to draw sexy suits of armour whilst also keeping the Cat motif and style in play.Â I did miss the kind of curves that has previously graced this book, but there is more to Felicia than curves.Â Villa keeps the action frenetic right throughout the book.Â The colors by Brian Reber suffers the same sort of blurring that affects so many Marvel books.Â I am not sure if this is a process thing or an editorial thing, but it does affect the pencil lines.Â Letters are provided by Ferran Delgado who gets to have fun with Iron Man speech bubbles and Black Cat inner monologuing.Â I was a tad confused by the Midnight Sons font used for the location information though.

I can not say enough good things about this book.Â I love it! Every issue is like a throwback to when comics were enjoyable and not every story or character had to have some sort of societal impact! Entertainment can just be fun; and this book, thanks to Jed MacKay and his team,Â is pure entertainment.

Writing – 5 Stars
Art – 5 Stars
Colors – 4.5 Stars

Overall – 4.5 Stars

Written by; Jed MacKay
Art by; C.F. Villa
Colors by; Brian Reber
Letters by; Ferran Delgado
Covers by; J. Scott Campbell & Sabine Rich, Skan
Published by; Marvel Entertainment

Author Profile

Johnny "The Machine" Hughes

I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow

Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network