What I Bought 1/20/2021 - Part 2

When I went to bed last night, the forecast was we might get half an inch of snow this morning. By the time I got up, they were saying it could be 3 inches. Wonderful, although this is easily the most snow we've had this winter, so I shouldn't complain. But I did anyway.

Black Cat #2, by Jed MacKay (writer), C.F. Villa (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - It's pretty impressive if she can control her hair so it doesn't set off any of the tripbeams.

Eager to get back to her regularly scheduled stealing, Felicia's gonna go rescue Dr. Strange from a big ball of symbiotes acting as his prison. Which involves her wearing a version of the Anti-Venom outfit to protect her long enough to follow Strange's ghost dog into the ball, slap another of the suits on Stephen and get him out. Then it's time for an escape in the old Spider-mobile across the rooftops while being pursued by dragons. 

Sadly, the Spider-mobile does not survive, and it's looks like they're caught. Felicia brought along something the dog assured her would give Strange enough oomph to end this, but the doctor is out. As in, cold. Unconscious, and Dr. Korpse isn't having any luck waking him up, as he is a, 'blowing-things-up doctor!' So Felicia decides to use it, "it" being a piece of wood from something magical from Asgard. We've seen Felicia's luck powers bail her out against a sorcerer, now we get to see her on the other side of things.

For being a tie-in to a thing I don't care about, MacKay, Villa, and Reber are doing about as well with it as I could hope. Keep the heist focused approach. Make it wild and take advantage of the fictional setting. Give Felicia opportunities to think about how much she hates symbiotes generally, and Eddie Brock specifically, based on her long history with both. I mean, I've enjoyed the first two issues of this, which I wouldn't have bet on going in.

 

The page where Felicia gets herself and Strange out of the prison, the first panel is a circular one in the upper left where they're still outside. The eye gets drawn right to the panel of them breaking clear, and then the panels just go down the page along the curve of the circular panel as Felicia and Strange fall. Like they're descending past the gooball prison. It's too bad her Anti-Venom look wasn't more interesting, but the precedent's set on those being basically palette-swapped versions of a character's normal look. Not too much you can do there. Villa added a little cat face in the center of the chest, but somehow the way it's shaped reminds of one of those creepy hairless cats.