It starts with her in a circle of light in an otherwise featureless void, where she is promptly joined by the magic, taking the form of the Black Fox. It's got a sales pitch to make, and it chose her teacher, rather than her mother, her father, Spider-Man, either member of her crew, or anyone else. Could be because the Fox has a certain amount of status with her, or could be foreshadowing that she can't trust the Black Fox. Because the magic is trying to get what it wants here, by acting like it's giving Felicia what she wants. There's also a bit where's he's talking and circling her, and he's under his own, separate spotlight. He's got his own goals, and they don't necessarily align, or even overlap the Cat's.
After a brief check on what's happening in the world, they start their descent. It takes them across a chessboard, while the magic insists it just wants to run free, without being constrained by rules. Not a bad sales pitch to make to a thief. Only some of the pieces are identifiable, but it looks like Bruno and Iron Man are on one side, and Spider-Man and Odessa (and probably some Thieves' Guild lackeys) are on the other. I know one of the upcoming solicitations says Spidey's not happy with what Felicia's been up to, but the placement of Iron Man on what might pass for Felicia's side is curious. Unless it's simply because she was able to use his resources. And there's the fact they both walk straight across the board in one go. Which is restricted to either rooks or queens. Powerful pieces, but neither one is what you have to protect or capture to win. Not sure what the king would be in this case.
The path continues further down, and by this point, we can see that beneath the path is fire. Right at the moment the magic shares enough power that Felicia can carve up 5 symbiote dragons in one swipe. Is it salvation, offering exactly what she needs to save her and her crew from an ugly end, or is he leading her into Hell? The earth is, in a sense, burning right then. But there's also the question of what exactly the magic would do if it were given free reign. It might decide that fire is pretty groovy.
And just like that, Felicia and the Fox are in another odd little room, decorated in what I assume is 1960s style. It's got the mock-up of Warhol's Marilyn Monroe painting up, the TV's a distinctly archaic model, and Felicia's chair looks like something out of a period spy flick. Which is an odd choice. Compared to when Felicia first appeared in comics, setting her childhood (and the memory they watch is from that time) in the 1960s probably works chronologically, but it would put her in at least her 50s now. Unless it's some sort of notion of the slick cat burglar character being of that time.
Or it's really about the Fox, since he certainly could have been active then. Felicia's caught up in both the Fox' game and the magic's, but they both want her to think it's her play. That she's the one who really wants this power, or that she really wants to rob the Thieves' Guild master vault. This whole issue, it's the magic, dressed up as Fox, that leads the way. From one setting to another, one part of its pitch to the next.
Two other points. One, the way Villa draws the room, it seems like the furnishings occupy only a small part. The walls, the ceiling, and the tiled floor are all featureless, empty. Maybe saying she hasn't really expanded her life much. She has a few friends, maybe, if her crew counts. A mother she mostly keeps at arms length. A succession of brief flings or failed attempts at more meaningful relationships. Taking measure of a life in terms of emotional connections, Felicia doesn't have much.
Or, it's just so nothing distracts from the sales pitch, which at that point involves reminding Felicia of how little she's been able to do at times. She couldn't keep her father out of prison, could only break him out to let him die at home. And Doctor Octopus once tore her up really badly when she tried to help Spider-Man. On cue, out in the real world, she gets more aggressive, actively taunting the dragons to try harder, even as she stomps on the neck of one.
I wasn't sure why the shift from the TV presentation to the paintings, but maybe, since he also used the TV to show her what was going on outside, this was a way to cut her off from that. Keep her focused on his pitch, and not on how gleefully she's wiping out dragons, or how freaked out her crew and Dr. Strange are. There's also the sense that a painting is more permanent than a television show. Felicia could turn a TV off, but the painting suggests these are things she's always going to remember. Villa draws the painting as larger than Felicia, and she's shown looking up at both the Kingpin and Venom ones. They loom large. All these rejections, screw-ups, defeats, humiliations? They're going to stick with her.
But hey! Maybe this helpful source of old magic can give her the chance to do something about it! It's not like all these shitty guys that made her feel inadequate! The magic's really not doing a bad job here. Feeding her worst impulses by portraying itself as unfairly hampered by the rules of magic. Making her feel like she isn't good enough as she is, and reminding her of times she failed to drive it home. Ignoring her making Iron Man look a chump, or taking out Sabretooth by herself, or the fact that every time something she's tried hasn't worked out, she pulled herself back together and tried something else.
It makes her angry, defensive, impatient, and that's when he makes his real offer, done up as a game show. Because this is all just a game to the magic, finding the way to get her to, as he put it earlier, 'say yes.' he even makes an entire audience of himself, although they oddly remain silently. I'd expect them to either encourage Felicia to take the deal, or encourage the Fox to offer her everything behind the doors. Which it could, but my acting like each thing on offer is its own discrete prize, it makes the magic seem so much more generous. It's going to give her what's behind all three doors, not just one. What a pal!
What's behind the doors? Well, the power to destroy all those people he just reminded her beat her up or made a fool of her in the past. Wealth, respect, her father alive and back with her mother again. Villa draws Felicia's mother leaning her head fondly on her father's shoulder, but both of them are looking proudly at Felicia. Finally, all those past loves back with her, and her on a throne no less. I confess I don't know who the brunette on the right is, in front of Flash and the Puma. I'm also curious at the implications of Odessa being there. Does that mean Felicia knows Odessa's in love with her, that this whole thing is more than just a power play by the New York branch of the Thieves' Guild?
And while he does refer to some of them leaving her, it's after he says, 'Every heart you've broken, healed.' Again, trying to make her feel like a failure, but one that this magic can fix. And the doors, and the versions of her behind them, are all much bigger than Felicia herself. Bigger, better versions of herself, hers for the taking.
Of course, it ultimately doesn't work. For all that the magic appeals to the rule-breaker in her by talking about how constrained it is by rules, everything it offers is based on the magic putting its own rules in place. That Felicia has enough power to kill Venom or Wilson Fisk, or bring her father back from the dead, or make people love her. Felicia doesn't let other people restrict her, but by the same token, she's not all that interested in locking other people up.
I still think the magic misreads her in that it thinks she just wants all this stuff handed to her. The Black Cat's whole thing is taking what she wants from people who think no one can take stuff from them. What's the point if it's just handed to her by an ancient source of magic? But I'm not sure that perception lines up with the text, beyond her refusal to use magic in matters of the heart. Maybe in the sense she demands enough power to protect her friends before she'll even really listen to the pitch.
I do like that the Cat seems to have managed to keep a little of that power even after rejecting the offer. The magic offered, and she held onto it, or stole it on the way out the door.
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