What I Bought 6/4/2021

I went to my dad's over the weekend for his birthday, so expect reviews of older movies over the next couple of weeks. For now, here's two comics from last week. One I was expecting to find, the other I wasn't. It's really a toss-up between the two stores in the nearest town what I'll find at either one, and their schedules don't lend themselves to visiting both in one trip. So I pick the one I can get to that time, and take what I can get.

Jenny Zero #2, by Dave Dwonch and Brockton McKinney (writers), Magenta King (artist), Dam (color artist), Dave Dwonch (letterer) - Hopefully all those people were already dead when she started stomping around.

The issue switches between the time of Jenny's father's death and the present. In the past, he dies, and Jenny struggles to cope. Avoids his funeral, and comments he'd probably rather have his dog there than her. Gets introduced to all the neat weapons the A.S.P. make from the bodies of the monsters by her uncle. Which takes on a different light when we and Jenny know that he's always known she could do the size-changing thing like her dad, and kept it from her. All of those scenes have a soft lavender coloring to the surroundings. Not sure the specific significance of that color choice. I would say it's a matter of viewing things through rose-colored glasses, but most of the memories are not that great.

In the present, Jenny defeats the monsters, and confronts her uncle about lying to her. Then she and her friend Dana go hang out in a hotel until Jenny decides to seek out someone who can help her. I suspect we're going to find out Dana was assigned to her as sort of a handler when they first met. Given one flashback is with Jenny's uncle, who lied to her and guided her to fight, and the other is Jenny meeting Dana and basically sticking by her side ever since. Plus, not sure how a hotel heiress is able to get access to a secret monster-fighting agency, even if she is the big hero's friend. I'm sure Jenny won't see that as yet another shocking betrayal.

 

Jenny's personality seems to be the brash person who actually just runs from difficult stuff. Or she prefers to process in solitude. You could read it either way. The flashbacks show she really didn't want to be at the funeral services for her dad, and after the battle, she goes and hides out in a hotel with Dana. She says she hates hiding out, but it seems to be a default response. But if everyone always has a camera aimed at her, maybe that's the only response. Nobody does that to me, and I can still barely think on important stuff around others.

Black Cat #7, by Jed MacKay (writer), Michael Dowling (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - Aw, Larraz even made sure her sack of loot has a big old dollar sign on it. That's a nice touch.

Felicia tracks down the Black Fox and tells him how she's undone his plan for immortality. So we see in flashback how she was sent into the Vault, requested her immortality be removed, and warned the Saint that Fox intends to renege on the deal. Which he doesn't, but the little explosive Felicia attached to the deed to Manhattan says differently. Rights to the city lost, the Saint emerges and drags the Fox back into the Vaults, just slowly enough for a tearful farewell.

It works. MacKay uses the tracking chip he established was on the deed in issue 4 to explain how Felicia can find it again in such an enormous space. Dowling makes the Vaults resemble Arizona, or maybe some early 20th Century artists' version of the surface of Venus or Titan. Some mountains, vast plains, red skies with no visible sun. Felicia reminds us that she has limits to what she's comfortable doing, and the Fox remains someone willing to do anything to survive. Just as he would betray others, or play on Spider-Man's sympathy for an old man, he'd sacrifice an entire city of people for immortality. But he can still respect the student outwitting the teacher.

Oh, and at the very end, Felicia and Odessa make out. Congratulations to those two crazy kids. I'm curious if MacKay will actually do something with it. I'm not talking about a date issue - although I'm not saying I'm opposed to that, we got one for Felicia and Batroc - but at least the occasional acknowledgement. One of them stopping by to see the other, or scenes of one of them waking up at the other's home. So it's more than just a one-time, "Yes, Felicia's bisexual. Diversity!" thing. Felicia says straight up she doesn't think this is something with a future, and Odessa says it can't possibly work, but that doesn't mean it ends immediately. Let them have some fun with each other.

 

Anyway, the next arc is Felicia getting tangled up in acquiring Infinity Stones, which are now people, apparently? Not promising, but MacKay and Villa made the King in Black tie-ins better than I had any hope of them being. They can make something out of this.