Writer Jed MacKay wraps up the final regular issue of one of the most satisfying Marvel series currently running in Black Cat #10. Super-thief Felicia Hardy is forced to team up with some very dangerous people, which will attract the interest...of some other, very dangerous people in an issue brought to the page by artist C.F. Villa and colorist Brian Reber. The series concludes with a flashy finish, leading to the big special-one shot finale that’s due in November. It’s disappointing seeing the series draw to a close, but it’s nice to know that it’s all going to wrap with a bang in November. 

Black Cat is on a rooftop with a guy who uses the power of an infinity stone to kidnap kids. She’s not happy about it, but she doesn’t exactly have a whole lot of options. Of course, things ARE going to get complicated. She’s going to be tracked down by a super-powered guy who loved a version of her in a parallel world. So things are going to get complicated...especially when Nick Fury drops by in a helicopter. It’s night. It’s midtown Manhattan. Cosmic powers are lurking in the shadows. Anything could happen. 

Jed MacKay’s run with Black Cat has been a lot of fun. In the final issue of her regular series, MacKay drags Felicia through a bewildering set of shadows with a pleasantly dizzying momentum and impressive emotional weight. The speed with which everything has happened in MacKay’s series almost runs the risk of feeling dissatisfying...but somehow, the mystery around the edges of Felicia Hardy continues to captivate straight through the end of her current series. Some of MacKay’s best work has been with Black Cat. A pity it has to come to an end.

Villa’s grasp of drama is brilliant in this issue. MacKay is offering Felicia a hell of a lot in the course of this issue. The dialogue alone would likely be enough to carry it, but Villa grants Hardy a breathtakingly vivid emotional reality in facial expressions that amplify the emotion. The action is sweepingly rendered as well. Villa uses dynamic perspectives that make mid-town Manhattan at night come alive, as Felicia desperately swings through it. Reber does a beautiful job of establishing the distinct mood of Manhattan at night with the ghostly radiance of the full moon overhead as the warm glow animates the city below. Emotion is given considerable depth in nuanced shades on Felicia’s face.

The first in-issue acknowledgment of the end of the current run of the series comes in the form of a note at the issue’s end by Felicia’s accomplice Dr. Boris Korpse. It’s a classy, stylish way of formally letting readers know what’s coming in Giant-Size Black Cat: Infinity Score in November. Black Cat has had a series end before in the era of MacKay. Hardy and MacKay have had a perfect working relationship. It’s sad to see it end.

Grade: A