Friday, October 01, 2021

What I Bought 9/29/2021

Like last week, I hoped to find more than one comic I was looking for. Like last week, I was reminded hope is a dangerous thing. It might not drive a man insane, but it can make failure hurt all the worse.

Black Cat #10, by Jed MacKay (writer), C.F. Villa (artist), Brian Reber (colorist), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - Gravity, everyone's least favorite fundamental force.

Speaking of characters doomed to disappointment, here's the Black Cat! She seems to have the teleporting child abductor Quantum on board, but now she's in the crosshairs of Nighthawk. The Squadron Supreme one, not the Defenders one. Who remembers that other world where the Squadron were the Earth's big heroes (aka Jason Aaron's Heroes Reborn), and wants to use the people Felicia's gathered to bring it back. 

Look, if I wanted to read about a world like that, I could just buy DC comics.

Fortunately, and I can't believe I'm saying this, Nick Fury shows up in an attack heli to shoot at everyone. Well, not so much an attack heli as a helicopter with a single guy with a rifle shooting out the side. Maybe the Democrats actually cut defense spending? Felicia makes a break for it, but is only saved when Odessa texts Fury a photo of one of her people aiming a rocket launcher at him. Honestly, I feel like Fury wouldn't tail off that easily, but eh, it's nice to see Felicia and Odessa are still in some weird state of helpful antagonism.

It's more and more apparent Felicia's in this for herself, not the job she told Star about. Which is good. I'd hoped Felicia would have enough sense not to work for Doctor Doom. And really, why would Doom need anyone's help to cure someone of cancer? The only reason Doom has not already cured cancer is he is too busy protecting Earth from super-cancer.

Also nice to see Felicia reject the notion of Nighthawk's supposedly better world because her mother is dead there. I like that among his little info-dump on how close they were, she's smart enough to smell someone trying to sell her something and pick out that little detail.

Villa's lines seem rougher in this issue than normal. They make Felicia look more ragged than usual, so I don't know if that's deliberate, to show how this whole thing she's trying to carry off is bringing too much heat and wearing her down, or if Villa is just feeling pressed for time. I assume Giant-Size Black Cat will have more than 20 pages, so even with a skip month in between it and this issue, it could cause a time crunch. Although I wouldn't put it past Marvel to call something "giant-size" and just have it be the same number of pages as a regular issue. Try to shape reality through the power of belief.

No comments: