Black Cat #1: Step On A Crack, Break Your Mama’s Back…

Felicia Hardy’s back on the scene, and  in her very own brand new solo series, and she’s back with a vengeance! Written by G. Willow Wilson, art by Gleb Melkinov, and cover art by the one and only Adam Hughes, and the team is tasked to see if she’s got nine lives! The team is taking Felicia off of the super-thief scene, and making her Midtown’s HOTTEST new superhero! Does she got what it takes to be a superhero? Can this Black Cat change their stripes?! The only way you’ll find out is by reading, so let’s get on with the show!

G. Willow Wilson and Gleb Melnikov start this story out in the Night Nurse’s lobby, with the narration being in the first person. It’s fun to see Felicia in someplace that’s not breaking into someplace, because she’s a super thief, and that seems to be the modus operandi for most writers who tackle this character. It’s also the go-to for Catwoman scribes too, but that’s a different story altogether. Wilson’s story is brisk and fast paced. Her voice for Felicia is funny, but she seems to have missed the charisma that was very prevalent from MacKay’s run gave us. It wasn’t a total miss, but Wilson has a lot of ground to make up in the upcoming chapters.

Wilson brings in Spider-Man rogue the Lizard, but it looks like the big bad for the series is Tombstone, with Sandman as his henchman. It’s nice to see Wilson use the rogues from the Spider-Man universe, tying her into the franchise that she was originally created, but tying her into the larger Marvel universe, like MacKay did during his run. He really elevated what kind of character she is, and made her adventures a tad more fun. Whether it’s stealing something from Dr. Strange, and the hilarious snakes, or chillin’ with the Black Fox, it was a lot of fun. This issue lost a lot of the charm that the last two series had.

One of the biggest pet peeve from the story was having Felicia breaking the fourth wall from time to time. It’s something that annoys me. It annoyed me in the ’80s, when John Byrne had She-Hulk do it. I understand why creators do it, as it adds levity to the story, and helps with the humor, but it’s just an annoying tic that draws me out of the story. Gleb Melnikov is on art duties here, and it’s not a good match for the character. Melnikov has a very distinctive art style, but it doesn’t mesh well with Felicia. Sometimes an artist can take a mediocre story and make it better, unfortunately Melnikov’s art doesn’t help out here. I’m not going to give up on this book yet, but the team needs to deliver something better here.