Darwyn Cooke owns this issue. It begins with an action sequence: Catwoman breaking into Gotham PD to get a look at the autopsies on the dead streetwalkers. Cooke breaks each page into a dozen or two panels, sometimes splitting a horizontal frame, more often zooming in on one particular aspect of the action. All in his “cartoony” style. There’s never better movement in comic art than the first act of Catwoman #2. It’s a masterpiece.
And he doesn’t let up the rest of the issue ambition-wise. There’s Selina and Holly’s girl talk, done in art deco—to contrast the noir—and then the finale reveal. While Selina (and the reader) have heard about what the killer’s doing to the women and then read the reports, the finale shows the immediate aftermath, complete with the cops robbing the corpse.
Cooke’s superhero noir is a genre itself. Absolutely beautiful, superior work.
Ed Brubaker’s script is mostly successful. The Selina narration’s solid (and appropriately sparse at times), but he runs into a couple hiccups. First, obviously, Selina’s characterization of Batman in her narration is one of a dick—he’d care the women were dying, but they chose that life, didn’t they? Second, when Selina does decide she’ll be the one to stop the killings, it appears to only be after the finale and seeing the latest victim. The narration comes too late in the visuals.
Otherwise, the writing’s excellent. The issue has the lengthy action open, which slows down once Selina’s broken into the morgue, then the flashback to her and Holly’s conversation after last issue, then back to the present and the latest killing. Based on the initial pacing, they could’ve gotten away without having Selina arrive at the crime scene in time. The issue’d earned its two dollars and four bits by then, but Cooke and Brubaker somehow find time (and pages) to continue.
Though had they not paced it so well, that final narration fumble might’ve been avoided. But Catwoman’s inordinately rare faults being side effects of its great successes seems on par for the book.
It’s just too good for its own good.
How does noir work when the villain is a Clayface rip-off. I say rip-off because Catwoman is a Batman spin-off and Clayface is a Batman villain. Brubaker knew the similarity. It also gives Cooke something fantastic to draw. Selina in this gross pink muck–the leftover transformative flesh of the villain? Great stuff. Lots of movement in the art.
It’s a strange issue. It’s a good issue–though it’s certainly the least ambitious so far–but it’s also a strange issue. Selina doesn’t have as much narration as she had before and now she’s doing much different things. She’s the star of a Bronze Age Batman comic, where Batman dresses up as Matches Malone and investigates on the wharf.
Cooke mixes a lot of styles in this issue. Selina lives her non-costumed life in a more angular city, one with more art deco designs than when she’s got the costume on at night. But Cooke also finds this mixed style for Selina herself. She’s got the modern look, but he also goes for Silver Ago influences to make her more sympathetic.
In his ★★ review of Batman Returns, Roger Ebert said, “no matter how hard you try, superheroes and film noir don’t go together; the very essence of noir is that there are no more heroes.” I disagree about the film, but not all of the quote. I agree with the first part, not so much the second. Because it’s a closed vision of heroes.
One should never hope for too much from finales. Especially not from an extremely uneven anthology series like Wednesday Comics.
Azzarello writes Batman as a rube while Risso tries to ape Sin City as a Batman. Gibbons once again summarizes the action too much on Kamandi. Sook’s barely got anything to do.
Batman versus dogs, Azzarello’s inspired and Risso can’t even draw a cool Batmobile. Kamandi comes back a little; there’s a big battle scene, lots of panels. Arcudi misses a great Superman: The Movie homage on his dumb Superman strip.