Felicia Hardy needs a vacation. As she heads to some R&R, Felicia is arrested by the White Fox! Find out how she gets out of this ordeal in Black Cat Annual #1 by Marvel Comics!

BLACK CAT ANNUAL #1

Writer: Jed MacKay
Artist: Joey Vazquez
Colorist: Brian Reber
Letterer: Ferran Delgado
Editor: Nick Lowe
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: June 30th, 2021

Previously in Black Cat: Felicia Hardy is the greatest Cat Burglar, Black Cat! With her crew, she pulls off the greatest of capers but lately things have been difficult. And it gets even worse when she is stopped in South Korea for faking her credentials!

BLACKMAIL

Black Cat Annual #1 starts with the Black Cat and her crew being arrested by the White Fox. Felicia is given a choice: help South Korea with a mission or go to jail. The Black Cat agrees to help but White Fox needs a bit of assurance and injects Felicia with a bomb. Black Cat then works with the infamous Tiger Division, a group of Korean superheroes. Their task is to figure out how the Choi Faction has taken control of Taegukgi. Taegukgi is powerful enough to take out entire cities and they need Black Cat to understand how these criminals work.

Tiger Division will distract Taegukgi while Black Cat and White Fox infiltrate the Choi Faction. When they arrive, they just find dead bodies stacked in a pile. The people who killed them are called Maidens, a mercenary death cult. After fighting through them, they happen upon Mongdal, a body thief. Mongdal can’t be killed while in control of Taegukgi’s body or else he may remain there, but Black Cat stole White Fox’s nano-bomb and planted it into Mongdal’s head! Once again, the cat burglar saves the day!

STORY IS EVERYWHERE

I really like Black Cat as a character. She is compelling and I always like a good caper story. Unfortunately, you can’t set up a good heist type story in a short one-shot. Black Cat Annual #1 gives us a story with a cast of characters that are not explored and a heist that is never really explained. The planning sequence was short and even entering the building felt extremely rushed. The big fight between Tiger Division and Taegukgi didn’t explore the characters very well nor do I feel any attachments to the brutal nature of the fight. Mongdal seems like a compelling villain for this story but only had a moment to monologue. These story ideas are great but simply could not be done in the number of pages we got.

For me, the art saved the issue. Watching the Black Cat and White Fox fighting claws out and killing their enemies was engaging and vivid to look at. Mongdal has a unique look to him, and I think could be a complicated character. The look of disgust on his face when he thought he had the upper hand will remain in my mind and probably haunt my dreams. Through the art, I could picture his trauma and how he became who he was. Great work here.

BOTTOM LINE: IT NEEDED MORE PAGES

At the end of the day, this is a really solid story that just didn’t get the space it needed. We could have taken Black Cat Annual #1 and turned it into a 40 page issue or even a six-part miniseries and had a lot more success. But we didn’t, so we were left hanging and not getting the content this story deserves. 3.5 out of 5 for Black Cat Annual #1.

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