| Black Cat #1: The Cat Out of The Bag |
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| Friday, 23 November 2007 | |
 Assassins and bounty hunters and little girls with strange powers, oh my… Black Cat takes us into the world of the Chronos organisation’s most lethal killer, Train Hearnet, and the people who find themselves caught up in his business. But is the life of a killer really the life for him..?1 - The Solitary Cat The underworld organisation Chronos controls a group of deadly assassins, each marked by a number on their neck. Number XIII is the Black Cat, Train Heartnet, and his latest job is to take down Lib Tyrant, the new Governor of Bracchio City - and a former gang lord who looks set to live up to his surname. Also in town is Sven Vollfied, a 'sweeper' (bounty hunter to you & me) with the power to see five minutes into the future, thanks to his "vision eye". When he forsees Lib's death he vows to stop it (mainly as it's his own job to capture Lib alive), bringing him face to face with Train...   2 - The Hesitant Cat Hanging out on his favourite rooftop, Train meets a yukata-wearing girl, and like him, she's carrying a gun. She's a sweeper, and she's taken on a job that every other sweeper in town won't touch - Preta Ghoul, a monster of a man with a huge price on his head. Sven, meanwhile, is settling for smaller jobs - just enough to pay for lunch, until a girl he rescues offers him a large wad of cash to save her kidnapped sister. The culprit is Torneo Rudman, an arms merchant - but the job isn' all it appears to be. Black Cat, meanwhile. acts on the feeling that his yukata-wearing friend could need some help...   3 - The Cat in the Dark Sven and Rinslet head for Torneo's vacation home, where they're sure that Rinslet's little sister is being held. When they arrive, the first thing the find is a trail of dead bodies - they're not the first to get here, and when they reach the room where Rinslet's sister is being held, they find Train already there, holding a gun to her head: the girl is Train's latest target. To add to their problems, Torneo's also there, and he's not about to let Eve go without a fight. Some quick thinking by Sven allow him & Rinslet to make a quick getaway, but without her sister - and by this stage he's realised that Rinslet hasn't been telling him the full truth. Later, Sven encounters Eve in a local park - throwing caution to the winds he tries to strike up a conversation with her, unaware she's gone AWOL from Torneo's mansion and that his goons are out looking for her...   4 - The Grinning Cat Eve is back in Torneo's tender care, and under extra security know that he knows she's caught the attention of others. She's beginning to realise what Torneo's created her to be, though, and may not be happy with the idea of being a living weapon. Meanwhile, Sven and Rinslet are doing what the can to get in to Torneo's mansion to get her back - Sven's tactics could be described as "unusual" (or downright daft, to be honest), but they get him the response he needs - a way in. Train is also on the case, and taking a much more direct approach which may well get him to Eve first. With Eve discovering her own free will for the first time, will she ever get the chance to use it..?   There’s a lot of ground covered in these opening episodes – maybe a little too much, as some of the scenes don’t seem entirely relevant to the main storyline, yet – but I’m pleased to say that come the end of episode four, it all made sense and I had a good idea of what was going on. Train has been brought up from a young age to do as Chronos tell him – and they’re not the sort of organisation who will tolerate any disobedience. Sven’s a true gentleman, sweeping aside, but that means he’s usually very short of cash. He’s also got a neat line in gadgets that come in very handy in his line of work. Rinslet is meant to be a master thief, but doesn’t really come across that way – there’s too much of a sense of fun about her, and she’s too quick to rely on others (witness her reliance on Sven to rescue Eve). Saya’s an enigma – standing on rooftops at night, taking her own morals to a job where many don’t have any, and somehow working her way into Train’s thoughts with very little effort, she’s one of those characters where you just want to see more of her. Put them all together, and you have a core cast that covers a wide range of personalities that each have their own appeal – and all likeable in their own way. That’s a good start. On the surface, these episodes mostly revolve around efforts to get Eve away from her ‘captor’, although there’s more going on than Rinslet initially leads Sven to believe. The “twists and turns” in the story aren’t really surprising in any way – they’re more there to provide a way for the various characters to come together than as ways to genuinely surprise you, and to set up a few good set-piece battles that let everyone show off their skills. The important stuff is running underneath the main action, and it’s about Train and the beginnings of a desire to break away from Chronos – a desire that’s been put there by his meetings with Saya. When I started the series, I’d been expecting a story about the unbeatable assassin and the people who were going to eventually bring him down – but that’s not what Black Cat seems to be about, and I was pleased to see that. The opening episodes of Black Cat introduce an interesting bunch of characters and give them a chance to show off a little, while giving you enough information to see where the story is going without really getting too meaty. There’s a reasonable amount of light comedy thrown in as well (usually around Sven’s permanent lack of cash) that helps to keep a fun atmosphere about the story. The end result is a show that’s going in an interesting direction and is simply fun to watch, and that makes it one that’s worth keeping an eye on. Watch the trailer for this volume  |
