REVIEW: ‘Hellcat,’ Issue #3

With Patsy’s confrontation with Hedy ending with a hail of bullets from local law enforcement cutting her down, things looked bad for our hero. But this isn’t the first time Patsy has been to the hereafter. It seems her relationship with death may be just as confusing as the rest of her life has been lately in Hellcat #3, published by Marvel Comics, written by Christopher Cantwell, art by Alex Lins, colors by KJ Diaz, and letters by Ariana Maher.

Patsy Walker, it seems, is full of surprises. While death is rarely permanent in her line of work, she seems to bounce back faster than most. And while most heroes get plenty of second chances where death is concerned, most don’t get just to decide to walk out of Hell of their own accord as Patsy does in Hellcat #3‘s opening pages. How one can just swing open such doors serves as a compelling hook that Cantwell uses to bring a new twist to an already intriguing tale. What makes it more enticing, though, is how Patsy seems unsure of why she can do it.

While Patsy’s brief jaunt to the land of fire and brimstone serves as a perplexing start to this book’s story, things don’t get any clearer as she departs from the bewildered Hedy and some worse for-wear police officers. While we get our first hints at why Grantham was murdered, the question of who did the deed remains as obtuse as ever. As with so many great mysteries, Cantwell delivers a new question with every answer.

While the situation continues to unravel in the present, Hellcat #3 sees some significant reveals come from the ever-present flashbacks that continue to share the book’s pages. An innocuous night sees Grantham taking photos of Patsy during one of their dates brings some startling revelations that had me shocked. This reveal, while surprising and interesting in its own right, is helped tremendously in its impact thanks to the book’s artwork. While Lins’ lines and Diaz’s colors bring this revelatory moment to life wonderfully in its own right, how the panel stands in such stark contrast to almost every other image in the series drives home the moment’s significance all the more.

The other area where Hellcat #3‘s flashbacks focus is young Patsy’s relationship with her father. While he was shown to have left her and her mother when Patsy was still a child previously, this issue offers an attempted reconciliation between the two when her father visits her. The climax of this sequence lands incredibly, thanks mainly to Maher’s lettering. How the letterer allows Patsy’s response to her father to run wild over the page enhances the volume of the moment in a way that truly highlights what fantastic lettering can do for a book.

Hellcat #3 continues to craft an intriguing mystery while building a deeply personal story for its protagonist. The complex narrative, deep emotions, and gorgeously assembled visuals continue to make it one of my most looked-forward-to books each month.

Hellcat #3 is available now wherever comics are sold.