There’s a couple of things about the scoring on this book that I feel compelled to explain. First off, this was not written to be a deep and engaging story. It was written as a zany adventure starring Black Cat & Wolverine filled with verbal sparring and double entendres. For instance, Wolverine says “I so want to stab you repeatedly”, to which the Black Cat answers with “this is no time for flirting”. Because of its’ intent I rated the story higher than I would normally for a piece of fluff trying to be a serious book, as clearly this story was meant to be fluff.

Now as to the artwork, it could have been rated higher, but I much prefer the more common depiction of Black Cat over Joe Lisner’s version. I understand he wanted to put his own spin on things but she’s just far less sexy in this book and what is Black Cat without her sexy?

Also note that this graphic novel only covers three comic books and those are not double sized books or anything like that. So in order to fill pages the last 1/4 of the book are actually concept art sketches. Bleh.

All that being said, this book is an action-packed thrill ride – maybe that’s selling it a bit much – consisting of Wolverine and Black Cat forming a shakey alliance to survive a hunt put on by Kraven the Hunter — yeah I thought he was dead too. Oh and of course there’s the mandatory guest appearance by Spider-man. I was actually kind of let down by his appearance though because Black Cat didn’t flirt with him at all. This was during the time when he was married before the whole One More Day fiasco.

One other thing that did bug me about the story is that every time there was mortal danger Wolverine took the brunt of the attack. For instance, he’s pierced with multiple arrows and Black Cat escapes unscathed. There’s a huge explosion and only Wolverine is burnt. It kind of killed the credibility of the action scenes.

Spoiler

Well, Kraven is still dead (in the timeline of this book) and is actually a robot built by Arcade in an island version of Murderworld. Black Cat and Wolverine get hunted by Arcade’s thugs and eventually escape from the island after Wolverine gets eaten by a giant sea monster. No, really!

In their stolen helicopter Wolverine & Black Cat fly to New York where they hi-jack an elevator containing Arcade and his sexy love interest White Rabbit. They then fly their helicopter all the way to the Savage Land where our heroes then abandon Arcade & White Rabbit right in front of a stampeding tyrannosaurus rex. Really? Helicopters can fly that far on 1 tank of gas? I’d think it would be a bit hard to refuel a helicopter with an elevator dangling below it. But what do I know?

After that, Wolverine takes the Black Cat on a date in a Tux, it’s quite romantic.

All in all this is not a book to be taken too seriously, it’s just a silly but fun read.

Story
Artwork
Value
Can It Stand Alone
Cool Factor
Average