In the very first issue of G. Willow Wilson and Gleb Melnikov’s Black Cat, Felicia Hardy declared that she was going to be a superhero. Obviously, this was easier said than done, as Black Cat #2 details her very first attempt to walk on the side of the angels. Slight spoiler alert: it involves a vampire, a pair of gangsters trying to make it big, and Felicia venturing into Hell’s Kitchen, which Marvel fans know is the domain of a certain Man Without Fear.
Despite all of this, Felicia keeps to her new routine, while still remaining the skilled thief we’ve all come to know and love. Wilson may be putting her on the hero’s path, but she also makes it clear that Felicia probably isn’t going to help save the world from an alien invasion or fight Doctor Doom. “Nobody is coming to save us, so we have to look out for each other,” she says toward the end of the book, which is a statement I feel is needed now more than ever.
Wilson also hasn’t lost her touch for witty dialogue, which Black Cat #2 is liberally peppered with. After Felicia makes her declaration to be a superhero, she winds up in the gym, where she calls her trainer’s workout a “violation of the Geneva Convention.” When she gets word about the vampire situation, she asks if they’re hot vampires. When Daredevil drops by, her inner monologue reads: “He looked beautiful.”
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Melnikov continues to have a great sense of motion when illustrating Black Cat #2, which comes in handy during the fight scenes. Felicia once again moves with the grace of a gymnast, while also utilizing a new set of weapons that would make Moon Knight jealous. The vampire she encounters looks like your typical vampire: swallow skin, glowing red eyes, and a sense of fashion that went out of date a long time ago. He’s also followed by what I can only describe as little red bats, who surround their prey and let out a horrible “Skree!” sound; Joe Caramagna makes it even more horrible by depicting the “Skrees” as jagged red slashes.
Other characters find their own unique visual language under Melnikov’s pencils. The Sandman is a mass of grains that slowly rises panel by panel until he forms into a humanoid shape. Tombstone is almost always seen in shadows, his pale white skin and razor sharp teeth sticking out courtesy of Brian Reber’s color art. In perhaps one of the best visual representations of social media, Melnikov even gets to draw a multitude of emojis rising up into the sky, particularly the heart-shaped ones. Every page had me going: “This is a good-looking book.”
Black Cat #2 continues to be witty and well-illustrated, as it shows Felicia Hardy attempting to put her own stamp on the superheroic life. She definitely has her work cut out for her, especially considering the villains who are scheming to take her out & the final pages which promise yet another wrinkle in her heroic journey.
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