Felicia Hardy goes to space, steals alien goo, saves Earth… very normal Tuesday
Felicia Hardy is a thief.
Usually, that means jewels. Priceless art. Secret technology. Occasionally something that absolutely belongs in a museum but looks much better in her apartment.
Black Cat #14 asks a much more important question:
Can Black Cat steal something from an alien temple on another planet and use it to help save Earth?
Apparently, yes.
And naturally, the Fantastic Four are the ones crazy enough to hire her.
Written by G. Willow Wilson, with art by Gleb Melnikov and colors by Brian Reber, “Mayday” throws Felicia directly into the Queen in Black chaos. Hela is now ruling the symbiotes, Knull is a god of light, and the dangerous Symbiote Intelligence has become part of the escalating war.
So Reed and Sue Richards need a thief.
Cue Felicia.
PROS
I love how completely Black Cat this mission remains despite suddenly becoming cosmic.
Sue explains that the rogue Supreme Intelligence has linked itself to the symbiotes and that the Fantastic Four need something called the Seeds of Intellect—biomass once used by the Kree to create the Supreme Intelligence—to potentially reset it.
Felicia’s job?
Travel to a remote Kree temple.
Steal them.
Come home.
Easy!
Except Reed gives her what appears to be a spacecraft purchased during the Cold War and tells her it has very few environmental controls.
Felicia Hardy has fought superheroes, mobsters and monsters, but apparently her greatest challenge is flying Spirit Airlines: Galactic Edition.
Her onboard computer—basically Reed Richards with even less social awareness—doesn’t help.
Felicia asks for a tutorial.
The ship responds with something close to:
Certainly.
You can practically hear Reed smiling somewhere.
The trip itself is wonderfully strange. Felicia dreams of what her life would look like without constant cosmic disasters—apparently involving simple things like picking Italian syrup flavors in the morning—before arriving at Cyllandra, a Kree library planet whose nameless moon contains the temple.
And this is where the issue really becomes a heist.
Rather than storming the place, Felicia sneaks inside, studies the priests and spots a young Kree attendant being ordered around.
Unfortunately, a heavily armed Kree guardian arrives, and Felicia goes from Mission: Impossible to RUN, CAT, RUN very quickly.
Her escape is genuinely fun because Gleb Melnikov makes everything feel frantic without becoming visually confusing. Felicia scoops up the alien Seeds of Intellect using her helmet, dodges energy blasts, fights her way free and reaches the spacecraft with alien goo smeared all over her suit and visor.
The ship basically congratulates her.
Felicia basically tells it to shut up.
Perfect partnership.
Then three Kree warships begin chasing her.
Of course they do.
The mission evolves from stealth heist into cosmic getaway chase, with Felicia realizing that returning peacefully to Reed and Sue is no longer an option. Instead, she has to improvise the drop herself while the Fantastic Four deal with the pursuing ships.
That leads into the big payoff: Felicia reaches the Symbiote Intelligence and releases the Seeds onto it.
Reed’s theory actually works.
Let’s mark the calendar.
Even better, the issue frames the entire adventure according to Felicia’s philosophy of a successful heist:
Make the plan. Execute the plan. Get out alive.
The first two?
Done.
That third one becomes slightly questionable.
CONS
For an issue built around stealing one of the most important objects in Kree civilization, the actual temple robbery feels almost too quick.
We get some fun sneaking, the young attendant, one intimidating guardian and then—boom—Felicia is running for the ship.
I would have happily spent another few pages watching Felicia navigate ridiculous alien security systems.
“Please enter your seventeen-dimensional biometric password.”
Felicia: steals the computer.
Problem solved.
The other slight drawback is that there’s a fair amount of cosmic terminology being thrown around. Supreme Intelligence, Seeds of Intellect, Cyllandra, Kree history, symbiote hive minds…
Poor Felicia probably deserves a glossary.
Or at least blueberry pancakes.
FINAL GRADE: B+ FOR BLACK CAT!!!
Black Cat #14 is exactly the kind of crossover tie-in I enjoy because it participates in the huge event without forgetting whose comic this is.
Yes, there are symbiotes.
Yes, there are Kree warships.
Yes, the fate of Earth is involved.
But ultimately this is still Felicia Hardy stealing something she absolutely should not be able to steal and surviving mostly through nerve, improvisation and refusal to die.
She saves the world.
Her ship crashes.
She lands somewhere surrounded by cows.
And Felicia’s response?
Basically: I survived. I’m still here. Somebody is getting punched later.
That feels right.
And then comes the tease:
NEXT: PETER PARKER!
Oh. THWIP!!!
Now that could be dangerous. 🐈⬛🕷️
Black Cat #14 is written by G. Willow Wilson, illustrated by Gleb Melnikov, colored by Brian Reber and lettered by VC’s Joe Caramagna.
