At least if it was really, really bad I would at least be consciously putting it off but I just flat-out forgot this thing even existed. A story about a prison break should never ever be like that.

Catwoman #19 is the first issue of this serious to tie into the ongoing Justice League of America series. Strangely though, it ties into issue #3 of Justice League of America, which won’t be released until May! It’s pretty strange to see an editor’s note telling you to check a comic that’s not available yet to get more info. It’s even stranger that this isn’t the only comic I reviewed today that did this. Issue #19 of Red Hood told me I should read issue #20 if I want answers.

The JLA have a plan to attract the attention of the Secret Society and use Catwoman as a spy within the organization. All they have to do is publicly catch Catwoman to prove she’s a baddie and all Catwoman needs to do is escape her prison in a jiffy so that the Secret Society of Super Villains knows she’s not only a threat to the JLA but a brilliant escape artist.

It’s a pretty good concept for a comic book! Probably the best story idea that’s come up in Nocenti’s run. Where did it go wrong? First off, if you want to impress people with your escaping abilities you should probably pick a prison that’s not so often referred to as a “revolving door”. There’s someone breaking out of Arkham all the time. How’s that supposed to impress the Secret Society of Super Villains? Secondly, the artwork in the book is abysmal. It took 3 artists and 3 inkers to get it done and Catwoman never looks well. The style of her outfit changes, Arkham looks the least crowded and threatening it ever has (it’s one of the most atmospheric settings in all of comics, come on), and sometimes the prose don’t match up with the imagery at all. One page in particular describes a secret chamber in disgusting details like there being rust and teeth marks all over the walls yet what we see is the most beautiful marble stairway you’ll find in any comic book this month.

And as for the portion of the book where Catwoman is actually locked up? I have so many questions from the way the asylum handles her processing to who her roommates are, it’s all bizzare. To begin, let’s look at who she’s sharing a cellblock with: Vortex (I have no idea) and Black Mask. It’s here that we learn that the New 52 Catwoman and Black Mask have never even heard of each other. Quite the change from the Pre-52 status quo in which Catwoman actually killed Roman Sionis. When it comes to Black Mask’s portrayal– he’s got the mask on… but in every other instance of him showing up in the New 52 the mask is exactly what gave him his mind control powers so why would they let him have it? Is it supposed to be a fake mask? A placebo to keep him calm?

Why did they put Selina Kyle in a straight jacket but leave her suit, goggles, and razor sharp gloves on? Wouldn’t the Arkham employees search her over before admitting her to the asylum? Wouldn’t Dr. Arkham himself wonder about it? Didn’t anybody think it was weird that the Justice League of America was dropping off a criminal that was already wearing a straight jacket?

If the only thing stopping the inmate Vortex (he has a super power that pushes energy out or pulls it in…or something) from bringing down the entire building with his powers is the taking of pills, wouldn’t the asylum make damn sure he took them instead of trusting he takes the medicine on his own?

It’s not a very impressive escape when all you had to do was ask the inmate on your right where the secret exit is and then ask the inmate to your left to use his super power to knock down all the walls.

It’s a good concept but really it’s just a side-story to the real tale which will be in JLA #3 and JLA #4 so there’s really no point in reading this. It could’ve been a very thrilling episode but it’s poorly executed with an overly simple escape, awful dialogue (“Cured? I’d rather be dead. I like to steal. It’s fun.”, “Smashing you two gives me great pleasure.”) and weak and inconsistent artwork. I have no idea how this comic book continues to exist. It’s sad to see such a great character bastardized month after month after month.

SCORE: 3/10

The post New 52 – Catwoman #19 review appeared first on Batman News.

With so many reviews to do today I honestly don’t know why I went with Catwoman first. Maybe to get it all over with? Maybe because last month’s issue was actually bearable so I was feeling hopeful? Who knows. Either way, the first thing I was greeted with was shoddy lettering and a terrible Batman monologue as our hero roamed the vacant halls of the Gotham Museum.

The paintings. they’re gone. There’s nothing left but empty outlines…from where the sun didn’t shine. Iconic bits of gotham, they gave me peace. Catwoman, This is your heist, isn’t it? You knew I loved them. You wanted to draw me out of my cave? You got it. They weren’t yours. They belonged us, to the people of Gotham. I want them back.

Note the lowercase “g” in Gotham and the missing word “to” in “They belonged to us.” — not that either of these changes would’ve really improved this narration in any dramatic way but still…come on. Two mistakes like that on page one? At least the art wasn’t too bad on this page. I thought that it at least looked cool when I opened the comic up.

This is supposedly the Catwoman tie-in issue to this month’s REQUIEM event. How exactly does Catwoman fit into all of this? It doesn’t. I… I don’t think Ann Nocenti got the Damian memo! Batman is really, really mopey the entire issue and cries a lot over the missing paintings. What are the paintings of? It appears to be Arkham Asylum….yeah. We never get a good view of them except for when Catwoman is rolling them up but, really? Arkham Asylum paintings? Batman wouldn’t care about paintings of Arkham Asylum. He’s transferred his grief to the loss of the paintings. Grief over what? It’s not clear. There’s no outright mention of Batman Inc. #8 or Batman #17. It’s like nobody told Ann what Batman was going to be mad about so the closest thing we get is a dissolve to a shot of Damian, Batgirl, Alfred, and Nightwing tumbling through space while Batman sputters “Put them [the paintings] back, please.”

I know this is going to sound coarse, but Batman’s portrayed as a whiny bitch in this issue. The dialogue is bad, the art has its moments but there are some really awful facial expressions and Catwoman’s whip all too often looks like a ribbon, and did I mention Batman has no balls? That’s ludicrous! His balls are one of his most important character traits. In fact, that’s why Batman wears a cape. Did you know? It’s to muffle the sound of his giant clanking steel balls during stealth missions. True story!

The only good moment in the entire book was just the small laugh I got out of seeing Batman try to fix Catwoman’s pancaked helmet by punching it in the opposite direction and then putting the crumpled remains back over her head. That was kind of amusing. Way out of character for Batman, but I cracked a smile. Other than that it’s just this goofy story about Batman wanting some paintings back but it’s not really about the paintings he just wants to feel like he’s recovered something, anything that’s been lost (I made it sound way deeper than it is) from his life. But the thing is that Batman wouldn’t approach Catwoman going “Pweeease! Come onnnnnnn! What? You don’t have the paintings anymore? Ohhhhhh… Can you go find them for me? Please!” He’s the Batman. If he was really transferring such powerful emotions into the loss of the paintings I think he would be breaking heads all over Gotham to try and find them not submitting to Catwoman in defeat.

As for the more Catwoman-centric stuff. We do get a brief glimpse at what’s going on between Gwen and Penguin, which is a plot that’s failed to really get started for about 6 issues or so now. Oh, and then there’s a demon. Yeah, we’re bringing demons back into the story after how well that went with the ARGUS heist.

This comic is really like a 3/10 or so, but this is Batman News. You can’t make Batman look like a bitch and not get a 1/10 here. Batman doesn’t cry in Catwoman’s arms (he got an ass-out hug, by the way. Why is Catwoman giving him an ass-out hug in such an emotional scene? That was horribly depicted by Sandoval) or beg others to help him on such minuscule assignments. And the fact that this thing references Joker and Death of the Family more than anything that happened in Batman Inc. is false advertising and a lot of folks picking this up for the Damian tie-in are going to be very disappointed. But most of all I hate it because Batman looks like a wimp and I can’t abide that.

SCORE: 1/10

The post New 52 – Catwoman #18 review appeared first on Batman News.

It’s a step down in quality from Volume 1 to Volume 2 for Catwoman, but if you’ve seen the recent issues by Ann Nocenti then Judd Winick’s final arc will read like the works of Bill Shakespeare.

Content

Volume 2 collects issues #7-12, wrapping up the last of Judd Winick and Guillem March’s year-long run on the series. Adriana Melo drew most of the issues here with March only illustarting two of the comics in the collection. It’s been almost 7 months since this arc ended and I must say that I hardly remember it. When I opened this book up again I had this moment of “Oh yeah, it’s the story where Catwoman had the sidekick and we tried to tie into some things from Tony Daniel’s Detective Comics.” No feeling of excitement for the chance to read the tale again or sense of dread of having to thumb through something terrible. Just “Oh yeah…that’s what this was.” So it’s a pretty middle-of-the-road book. It’s saving grace is that it’s really cheap if you fetch it from Amazon.

Catwoman has taken to stealing cars and she has a new fence after the tragic death of her old one in the previous volume. The inclusion of a guy with electric super powers sounds like a pretty awful idea, but surprisingly this new guy, Spark, never became annoying. Yeah, the moments of him zapping everyone felt really out of place but as a character himself he was alright. He added some interesting elements to the story. Still kind of funny that a guy with the ability to produce electricity would only be a small-time thief, but again, I stress that you look past his meta-human abilities and simply view him as a complicated and mysterious ally and love interest.

We don’t get much face-time with the fence and even today at issue #17 I don’t have a good grasp on her character. The new grand theft auto jobs she and Catwoman are running, however, are a lot of fun to read and Melo draws them well. Melo does a pretty great job of matching the style of March’s previous run except for the faces. Catwoman has some awfully ugly looking faces in this comic that I made fun of quite a bit in earlier reviews. Colorists Morey and Reber give volumes 1 and 2 a consistent look but the latter half of the comic’s colors get a bit nasty looking. It’s not exactly pleasing to the eye, but the places that look so sickly are actually supposed to be gross so I think we should tip our hats to them, really. We start off vibrant and clean and then toward the end it’s like the pages become grimy. You see, the fun GTA missions vanish and we’re treated to a rather lame Court of Owls crossover that detracts from our main plot and then we get into a creepy serial killer thing that ties into the Faces of Death TPB from Detective Comics. You don’t need to have read that book though so don’t worry. You’ll be fine going into this whether you’ve read Detective or even Catwoman volume 1 for that matter. It’s a pretty easy TPB to jump into. The only problem is that the story is overlong, Dollhouse is a lame villain, and it seems kind of clear that Winick was phoning it in  near the end when he was going to be leaving the series. The ending is far from satisfying.

Supplemental Material

There are some really great cover sketches by Guillem March that weren’t used. I actually liked some of these originals a lot better than the finished product. You’ll find these drawings across six pages at the end of the book. There isn’t any commentary by March, but the numerous step-by-step images give you a good idea of the evolution of these covers. After that there’s a couple pages of early character designs for Dollhouse and Spark as well as a shrunken down image of Capullo’s talon design for Catwoman #9.

Value

$14.99 isn’t too shabby but not quite good enough for me. I would buy this book for the $8.56 Amazon price though. It seems to be worth that much to me. I mean $8.56 wouldn’t even buy you 3 issues of Catwoman on the day of release so getting six issues for that price is a steal.

Overall

There are fun parts and there are parts that are kind of lame, but I think the fast pace, frequent action, and very affordable price tag can win you over. It’s not a must-read, but it’s not something that you’ll be angry with yourself for spending $8.56 on if you enjoyed the first volume of Catwoman. However, if you didn’t like Winick’s first arc you definitely won’t care for this. By the way, if you want to read a really good comic with a dollhouse theme, check out Sandman, Vol. 2: The Doll’s House. Holy crap is that amazing! I haven’t read that book in about 10 years and I still remember it. This on the other hand, I forgot about within 7 months.

SCORE: 6/10

The post Catwoman, Vol. 2: Dollhouse review appeared first on Batman News.

What can I say? It’s a drastic improvement over previous issues because this comic actually made sense. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it interesting or memorable in any way, but at least I didn’t feel like slamming my head in a car door a few pages into it.

Nocenti’s quirky style is still there and Selina doesn’t feel like Selina but the painting heist she and Gwen are trying to pull is a nice change of pace from the bizarre demon possession storyline from last month. It’s the kind of situation that better fits this title as I’m sure you can imagine. Nocenti also does a pretty nice job of tying the past 3 or 4 issues together. She brings Milo back, Alvarez returns and now he has a partner, the Joker mishap is referenced, and we’re even tying into John Layman’s Detective Comics a bit. Heck, it also connects itself directly to the short story from Young Romance #1!

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The post New 52 – Catwoman #17 review appeared first on Batman News.

It’s never a good sign when the tagline on the comic’s cover is misspelled, “Assualt” on A.R.G.U.S indeed.

So let me get this straight: Ann Nocenti was the writer on Green Arrow and her run was widely hated by fans and critics and the book tanked at a time when the character was gaining popularity on the TV show Arrow. Rather than being swept aside entirely, she’s pulled off that book only to be given Catwoman, an even bigger character, and she’s also been put in charge of a brand new series, Katana. This leads me to believe that Nocenti is a really nice person that the folks at DC love being around because the quality of the writing stinks.

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The post New 52 – Catwoman #16 review appeared first on Batman News.

It’s either so bad it’s good or it’s just really, really bad and should be avoided at all costs.

This is SO not the kind of comic I enjoy reading. It is SO weirdly drawn and every bit of dialogue sounds like it’s written by an old person trying SO hard to sound young. And it emphasizes the word “SO”.

Look, I made it like 5 pages into this book and had to take a break. then I made it to page 12 and had to take another break. And I created my own Clockwork Orange-esque contraption to help me through the pages that remained. If that Mayan calendar BS is true and this is the last comic I ever get to read…I’m gonna be pissed.

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The post New 52 – Catwoman #15 review appeared first on Batman News.

It’s Thanksgiving so I’m making these reviews short this week. So we’re getting straight to the point:

Is Catwoman #14 any good? Yeah.

Really? Because you said the last two issues were complete crap and book was probably worth dropping. 

Yeah, I know what I said and I stand by that. Issue #0 and issue #13 were absolutely terrible but this actually wasn’t so bad. Yes, the action and the overall story behind it doesn’t make much sense but the actual conversation that Catwoman and Joker has is interesting. Nocenti really does a good job of capturing the Joker’s voice (Catwoman still doesn’t sound like Catwoman to me though) and he says some very funny and very creepy things here. What makes Joker’s Catwoman intervention so interesting is that Nocenti uses it to address some problems that occurred in Winick’s run. Namely, how Catwoman hasn’t felt very independent. She’s had to be saved by Spark or Batman a bit too frequently. It’s a good point.

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The post New 52 – Catwoman #14 review appeared first on Batman News.

Unlike with issue #0, I didn’t walk away from this comic angry. Instead I feel very, very confused. I know I risk sounding like an idiot here, but I have no idea what I just read.

Those who follow me on Twitter know that I’ve been battling insomnia for a week or so and ramble on with food tips (put potato chips on a sandwich) and movie recommendations (everyone should see Bubba Ho-Tep) at 4 and 5 in the morning, but I don’t think that I can blame my lack of sleep for how poorly I grasp what happened in issue #13 of Catwoman.

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The post New 52 – Catwoman #13 review appeared first on Batman News.

I always jot down notes while reading a comic that I’m going to review and then I expand on those for the full article. But not this time. I’m so infuriated that I’m just going to post the notes that I made and then a closing statement. Here’s are my notes taken while reading Catwoman #0:

• Point out that Ann Nocenti has taken over as the new writer and this is her first issue so fans can give a new creative team a chance.
• Three cheers for vagueness! Hip hip! (hurray) They finally did a Zero issue that didn’t specify a time, thus taking out the continuity headache all the other Zeroes have caused. Awesome.
• Melo’s art seems better than usual…like she’s stopped being a fill-in for March and is standing proud as her own artist. Selina looks good.
• Well it looks like they’re really taking Batman: Year One out of continuity for sure now.
• This pacing is kind of erratic…I don’t think it was necessary to touch on this many points in Selina’s life. They could’ve just picked one important moment in her life and focused on that to tell a strong one-and-done story rather than squeeze everything into 20 pages.
• This is awfully wordy for not much happening. –You were getting bored at the halfway point.
• Man, Selina Kyle sure does cry A LOT. It doesn’t really seem in character for her.

And that’s where the notes stopped. When I turned the next page and saw what they were doing with Catwoman’s origin I moaned. Out loud. I really did. I groaned “Noooooo.” tossed the book down and walked away for a bit. It took a while for me to come back and finish the issue, honestly. I haven’t been this infuriated by a comic in some time.

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The post New 52 – Catwoman #0 review appeared first on Batman News.

Well, it’s over. Winick’s run is at an end. Overall I liked the work he did on Catwoman but this wasn’t a very satisfying end to his tenure. I was pretty bored to be honest. I already listed many of my complaints in the last issue’s review as to why the story was falling apart and the mess that was made there is swept away very quickly and conveniently here. I wish this was as fun and exciting as the earlier issues Winick gave us but it’s not.

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