For Pride Month: Black Cat- The Gilded City

[tinygaylaura]

This arc is the pay off to more than one long running plot thread in the book and it is a very good pay off at that

So the Black Cat aka Felicia Hardy has been approached by her mentor and father-figure the Black Fox with a plan for a daring heist of the magical vaults of the Thieves Guild. Felicia has embarked on many adventures to steal or otherwise acquire the items the Fox has told her they will need to pull off this daring heist

However

When the time comes to pull this job there is a twist

As we learn that the Fox has a plan of his own

Involving a mystical monster called the Gilded Saint







What does the Fox have to trade?

Something he had Felicia steal right at the very start of this series of heists




The deed to Manhattan


Now while Felicia may be fine with theft she draws the line at sending an entire city full of innocent people into a skeleton monsters otherworldly prison. I like to hope we all would have second thoughts about that as well. And so she immediately attempts to void this deal. However she soon realises that there is nothing she can do to the Fox or herself that will change what is happening.

And she is also horrified and upset at the fact that the closest thing she has to a father has manipulated her in this way.

The Fox however is completely unmoved by her reaction. Fleeing from Felicia he remains perfectly willing to offer up the people of Manhattan if it means he may cheat death.

Felicia is not willing to make this trade, for herself or for the Fox. And so she seeks out the only people who might be able to help. The people who the Gilded Saint first made a deal with. The Thieves Guild, run by Odessa Drake. A woman who despises the Fox because she believes he was responsible for the death of her father which I am inclined to believe he was after seeing his despicable behaviour here.

Odessa is also both in love with Felicia and has a rivalry with her due to Felicia refusing to play by the Thieves Guild rules











This is such a great scene

It's why Odessa is in love with Felicia. Odessa's whole life has been one of rules and tradition and contracts. Felicia is a cat in every way. She does what she wishes and lives by no rules but her own and it captivates Odessa and makes her adore her.

Odessa agrees to help Felicia but says that she needs her promise that the Black Fox will be removed as a threat when this is over. Felicia agrees to this and so begins her plan: She has Odessa get the mystics of the Thieves Guild to send her into the magical vault where their treasure is contained and where the Gilded Saint lurks

The final part of the story picks up shortly after with Felicia confronting the Black Fox at a spot that was special to them when he first taught her the tricks of the trade

He remains unapologetic about his deeds. Felicia challenges him on the fact that the only reason he cut her in on the immortality deal was so that he could pretend he wasn't being entirely selfish and also reveals that she did two things in the vault

The first was that she renounced her part of the bargain. And the second was that she told the Gilded Saint that the Fox had a plan to cheat them before the deal was complete

The Fox is amused

He had no plan to cheat. Felicia knows this. But the Gilded Saint doesn't

And the in the Vaults, a timed explosive Felicia attached to the deed to Manhattan while she was in the vaults goes off, destroying it and the Gilded Saints claim to Manhattan, saving it from being dragged to the vaults...and leaving the Fox victim to the Saints wrath




And so Felicia sacrifices her surrogate father to save Manhattan. I love how the Fox's last words to her are an acknowledgement that he was beaten fair and square. He has lived his life by the con and the woman he trained has outsmarted him. If this is how he must meet his end he prefers this to the alternatives

Felicia, despite the way the Fox tricked her and what he did is heartbroken at having had to have made this choice. But there is a silver lining besides the fact that Manhattan is not trapped in the Saints dimension










I truly hope that we are going to see more of these two together in future issues of this series. And it is so satisfying that after years of all us having to go on be snippets of dialogue and little hints that Marvel has made it canon that the Black Cat is bisexual. The way this scene plays out is also extremely sweet and well written and honestly if we ever get that Black Cat movie that Sony keeps saying it will make some day I think this story arc would make a great plot for it and this scene would be the perfect scene to end on before the credits roll

Thankfully this isn't the last scene of the series though and we have more issues of the Black Cat to look forward to. I am very excited to see where the series goes next.

Comments

[zachbeacon]

I mean, DeFalco confirmed her as bi ages ago in Spider-Girl #47 but I know some people don't think MC2 counts despite having a better track record with 616 continuity than most 616 comics at the time...or since.

This particular relationship is doomed but then again, bad luck is her whole thing.

Speaking of luck, I always liked Black Fox but it was only a matter of time before his luck ran out. Its just a shame Felicia got put in that position and has to endure the guilt.

[shakalooloo]

Nah, the reason Foxy is smiling at the end is because he totally has a contingency plan in hand. No extra-natural prison has been built that can hold the Black Fox!

[cainofdreaming]

Or this was the plan all along. Why settle for immortality when you can steal a whole dimension's worth of loot?

[tripodeca113]

He'll challenge the Gilded Saint to a high risk poker game, and end up winning everything he owns.

[tinygaylaura]

I want this to happen now

[tinygaylaura]

It would not surprise me!

[tinygaylaura]

I'm hoping that they might make this relationship work :)

I did know about MC2 but because it's an alternate universe it's very easy for bigots to say that it wasn't the "Real" Felicia in that story and so it doesn't count for the 616 version. So it's good to see clear and unambiguous confirmation here that the 616 version of Felicia Hardy is a bisexual woman

[dan_ingram]

An excellent series without a doubt, but I instinctively try not to like it.

Because regardless of the (high) quality, I can't help but fear that everything will get flushed when Spencer or whomever the next Spider-writer will be gets a half baked story arc idea, and Cat gets pigeonholed into it.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I honestly feel like that's the bulk of Big 2 comics these days.

[stubbleupdate]

I'm now more into creators' runs on characters, rather than the characters themselves.

Aaron's Thor? Love it. Cates' Thor? No thanks.

Cate's Strange? Love it. Aaron's Strange? no thanks

Hicktastic Four. Put it into my veins. Slottastic four. Put it into the bin

[janegray]

"These days"?

The bullshit they pulled with Sandman was a long time ago. And I'm still salty.

[tinygaylaura]

Did they ever have Sandman go back to heroism or is he still a bad guy

[janegray]

Last I heard, he was still a bad guy. Though the silver lining is that more recent takes have him as a "principled" bad guy who won't cross certain lines.

[tinygaylaura]

That's good to hear at least

[tinygaylaura]

I hope nothing like that ever comes to pass and we never have to endure anything like the idiocy Dan Slott put the character through with his awful writing

[cygnia]

Is this the same Thieves' Guild that Candra was the head of?

[lilacsigil]

She was head of the New Orleans branch, this is the New York branch. I guess everyone has their own supernatural hook-up!

[dan_ingram]

Black Fox did allude to a break in the two guilds. Hopefully, we'll see what the deal is now that Black Cat is dating the boss lady.

[tinygaylaura]

Going to be wrist deep in the guilds....secrets

[silverhammerman]

Nice to get an unambiguous confirmation about a relatively major character, the X-books could learn a lot from this example. Though I do always worry that stuff like this is fated to slip between the cracks before too long, as it has with both Psylocke and Catwoman.

[tinygaylaura]

I mean Felicia is being featured in the Marvel Pride Month special this year so it thankfully seems that this is something that isn't going to just be swept under the rug and forgot

[jeyl]

Now ki-

Oh, they really did. :D

[tinygaylaura]

So satisfying after all the build up and sexual tension between them in this series!

[deh_tommy]

Just something for future reference, I think your image above the cut is too large (at least on my screen, don’t know about anyone else). Images above the cut have a maximum size of 400x300 (or is that 300x400? I get the two mixed up).

Thanks for the highlight! I’m not really that into Black Cat, but this looks surprisingly compelling.

[tinygaylaura]

Is there a way to resize an image on here

And yes this series is great! I love the Black Cat and its fantastic to see her getting such good writing again in her very own ongoing

[deh_tommy]

I don’t know how the Rich Text editor works, but on the HTML editor you can adjust the size of an image by putting width="xyz" and height="xyz" after the img src. Substituting [] for <>, that would look something like [img src="imagelinkhere.example" width="xyz" height="xyz"]whatever secret text you wanna insert here, if any[/a]. I could be wrong, but I believe that has to be done with ". Not “ or ”, that has to be " or else the image gets broken.

[icon_uk]

deh_tommy is correct about the limits for images above the cut.

You can easily edit size it with the Rich Text editing option.

Select the image to adjust and amend the Width / Height values. If you change one the other should adjust to keep the original proportions. 400x300 is the largest permitted.

[tinygaylaura]

I have done that now so I hope it now showing up correctly to the size limits!

[icon_uk]

Looks fine thanks!

[lilacsigil]

I really like this for Felicia - it's very in character for her to have a good time today and not worry about tomorrow (but have a contingency plan anyway) and Odessa is a great choice of partner for that kind of relationship. Also nice to see we are getting enough gay and bi characters that we're getting a variety of relationships now!

[stubbleupdate]

I can't read Black Fox without thinking about his spot in Irredeemable Ant Man

[shakalooloo]

Another successful mentorship!