Review by Ian Keogh

Over two previous volumes Black Cat has been working toward compiling the technology necessary to rob the mysterious vault maintained by the Guild, to whom all serious thieves must pay 10% of their proceeds. Most was acquired in On the Run, but one final part is required, leading to a clever con played on Tony Stark during a smartly written opening chapter contrasting the planning and the result.

New artist C.F. Villa would go on to draw more of MacKay’s run on Black Cat than any other artist, but his is a base level competency without a creative imagination to produce pages that you’ll want to stop and admire.

All Dressed Up has its moments, with Jed MacKay almost certainly a step ahead of all readers regarding the ongoing plot, which plays out sweetly and surprisingly, planning being all. However, at two chapters, an annual and a short story, this collection is hardly value for money, for which it would have to have been packaged with the similarly brief Queen in Black, which follows. If you have the money, the Black Cat Omnibus by Jed MacKay provides far better value by presenting a MacKay’s run in its entirety.

Consistent from the start is Black Cat employing two henchmen. Korpse is genius-level smart and surly, while Bruno is certainly smarter than the average hired muscle. Both are well versed in con tricks, and both shine in solo chapters in the longest story, respectively drawn by Juan Gedeon and Natacha Bustos, which ought to please anyone. MacKay combines comedy and danger delightfully as Spider-Man is co-opted into a plan to rob the Maggia. It’s a lot of fun in bite-sized chapters with Joey Vasquez handling the art nicely on the team-up sections. There’s a really sweet ending as well.

The consequences of what happens play out in another BlackCat/Spider-Man team-up with the Vulture the target and some great art from Patrick Gleason.

Entertaining? Yes. Value for money? Hmmmm.