Catwoman (2002) #12

Cw12 Ah, the days when the first part of an arc was really the first part of an arc. This issue opens with Selina—as Catwoman—chasing a kid through the streets of Gotham. He’s in Alleytown, a frankly gorgeous but rundown and dangerous neighborhood in Gotham. Artist Cameron Stewart busts ass on the scenery, so much so it’s like they should’ve just set the arc in Paris. But, no, it’s in Gotham. And we see more traditional Gotham towards the end of the issue when Slam’s out getting wasted and telling Holly how much he luvs Selina.

But Alleytown is this architecturally distinct neighborhood where Selina—in her narration—describes spending some time as a youth. At first, it seems like writer Ed Brubaker is going to delay revealing the connection, but as things progress, we eventually get the backstory. Selina’s trying to figure out what’s going on with a rash of pickpocketing–there’s something very strange about Leslie Thompkins and Selina ratting out Leslie’s pickpocket—a Black kid on a skateboard–to the cops, especially since Catwoman is all about how the cops are dirty. The kid still manages to get away, thanks to some quick thinking on his part, so Selina has to go investigating while in costume.

With help from Leslie and (an off-page) Bruce Wayne, Selina is converting an old church into the new East End Community Center, where kids can learn from famous artists for free, amongst other activities, and stay out of the streets and out of trouble. Selina’s using the diamonds she stole in the last arc, though—as always—Bruce spends more on batarangs than she did on getting this community center set up. Even though he’s not in the comic, it’s another reminder that Batman’s a dick.

It’s a good issue—Stewart has a lot of fun toggling between the action and the talking, especially once he gets to juxtapose a Slam fight scene and a Selina fight scene. Selina meets an old friend—while the cliffhanger is Holly meeting another old friend—only Selina’s old friend is actually a villain out to get her. Brubaker wastes no time on that reveal, with the flashback covering Selina’s youth in Alleytown and her old friend Sylvia, who exited Selina’s life sometime before Batman: Year One. Only Sylvia’s working with a mystery big bad (it’s not a mystery to me, either thanks to distant memory or just the teasers about the next big bad in previous issues, not to mention the Secret Files).

And it’s all set up. It’s Brubaker arranging the pieces on the board to play with in the rest of the arc. There’s the community center, Sylvia, the pickpockets, Holly’s mystery guest star, and Slam being in love with Selina; we’re in for a big, character-driven arc.

And I think I just remembered something terrible will happen before it’s over. Something really terrible.

I can’t wait, but also… it’s going to be rough.

Catwoman (2002) #11

Cw11 Presumably, regular writer Ed Brubaker needed someone to cover for him so he could work on Catwoman Secret Files, so Steven Grant fills in on the writing here–Brad Rader’s on pencils, with new-to-the-series Mark Lipka and Dan Davis on inks.

It’s an outstanding issue for Rader. The issue’s entirely action, with Catwoman breaking into a mansion and defeating its elaborate security systems so she can steal a cat statue. There’s a bookend about an FBI agent and his partner setting up the robbery victim—a female gangster—so they could also catch Catwoman. The bookend’s terrible, but it’s an okay sort of terrible.

The issue’s just filler. There’s no reason to read it outside being a Catwoman reader, not even for other Catwoman canon. There’s a nothing-burger previous relationship between Catwoman and one of the people in the mansion, there’s not great fighting, but Rader’s sense of action pacing for Catwoman escaping the traps is phenomenal. It’d be a great action comic if there were any stakes whatsoever, but Grant writes Catwoman as a carefree adventurer. It seems like thin characterization until Grant gets to the FBI agent who’s narrating. The ending’s silly and desperate.

At times, the issue feels like they’re doing a Batman: The Animated Series Presents Catwoman special—just change the costume—but then the overwrought FBI stuff makes it feel more like it’s just a not skeevy rendition of a Jim Balent issue.

Worth the twenty bits? Maybe not. But it’s nice to see Rader developing even when the story and the vibe are middling.

Catwoman Secret Files and Origins (2002) #1

Cwsf I sort of forgot about Secret Files. Especially this Catwoman one, even though I do remember Holly’s resurrection explanation being covered in it. Like I remember wanting to see how writer Ed Brubaker would address it. Now to decide if I want to spoil the reveal.

But first, the feature story, with Michael Avon Oeming pencils and Mike Manley inks. Brubaker cuts between some hoods reminiscing about their encounters with Catwoman over the years and Holly telling girlfriend Karon about it. It’s initially a cute idea, but then it gets a little weird because Karon doesn’t know Selina is Catwoman, so it’s basically Holly lying to her girlfriend while the hoods just rate Catwoman’s hotness through various outfits. Oeming doesn’t do cheesecake, but the hoods fill in the male gaze with their dialogue.

For a 2002 comic, it’s distressingly progressive but hasn’t aged great.

Oeming and Manley’s art is okay—they do better with Holly and Karon’s section—while the rest seems like a riff on “Batman: The Animated Series.”

Then there’s a Slam Bradley short—Brubaker wrote all the stories in this issue, which is almost a mistake. Like, he’s got different artists on each story, and only the Slam one really fits the regular Catwoman Cooke-inspired vibe (Cameron Stewart does the art), and maybe it should’ve been the other way around.

The Slam story also ages poorly. And not just because of Stewart. Brubaker writes it first-person from Slam’s perspective, and it’s all about him thinking about how men used to be men, and now they’re all on their smartphones or something. Selina is hanging out with him and helps out during fight scenes, but she’s utterly pointless to the story. It implies their relationship is further along than the regular series has gotten. Like, they’re at the hanging out and not talking stage of their romantically-charged friendship.

I think in the main book they’ve had like one case together.

It’s okay but doesn’t have one clamoring for a Slam Bradley solo book.

Then comes the Holly resurrection story. It’s two pages, with lovely Eric Shanower art, but it’s cheesecake. The style’s a Love and Rockets riff, only Holly and Selina aren’t the Locas, and Shanower’s not Jaimie. It’d be better if it were a more direct homage. Instead, it just treats Holly like she’s Maggie and Selina like she’s Penny Century—and Shanower’s cheesecake approach draws further attention to the first story’s tell don’t show male gaze.

It’s a miss. Even before getting into the story itself. But would it be a miss if I didn’t see what Brubaker and Shanower were doing without acknowledging? Probably? Like, it too suggests the regular book emphasizes really good Selina and Holly scenes, but… for the most part, it doesn’t. Catwoman is doing great, but its Secret Files tries to draw attention to what it doesn’t do.

Very weird.

Then comes the Black Mask story, establishing him as the series’s next villain. It’s Brubaker doing first-person narration again—more successful than Slam’s, but now an exhausted device—while Black Mask muses about how he’s got to deal with Catwoman. We once again see his slick lawyer sidekick, who’s down with evil but not Black Mask’s penchant for gruesome torture.

Stewart does the art again, and it’s fine. It’s just an extended Catwoman scene they didn’t have time to do in Black Mask’s reveal issue; they actually could’ve taken the last two pages from this one and tacked it on to that reveal, and it’d have been fine.

As someone who likes the idea of Secret Files well enough—don’t get me started on the Who’s Who entries—the Catwoman one is a disappointment. None of the stories accurately get the main series’s tone, which—thanks to Stewart doing some of the art—is clearly Brubaker’s problem, not the artist’s. It’s an even stranger miss taking Brubaker’s successful done-in-one fill-ins; he’s had a really good one on Catwoman already. You’d think he’d do great with an eight-pager focusing on a side character.

Nope.

It does have some historical value in the history of comic book objectification of women, but mainly as an example of a cop-out. A multi-tiered cop-out.

Anyway.

Can’t wait to get back to the series.

Catwoman (2002) #10

Cw10 This issue opens with Selina narrating—remember, she hasn’t been narrating lately, so it took until the second or so page before I realized it was her (and she wasn’t talking about her sister, whose name I thought was Rebecca—it’s Maggie). There’s a girl named Rebecca (in flashback) who went bad; real Bonnie & Clyde stuff. Including what seems like moralizing but won’t be. Writer Ed Brubaker’s going to get back on the ball with narration as the issue progresses, and, luckily, the next scene is a winner.

Socialite (or whatever) Selina Kyle pays local philanthropist Bruce Wayne a visit to talk about her “resurrection,” including mentions of New York City (was she in New York before this series?), but mostly it’s charming flirt banter. Brubaker writes the two with easy but unfulfilled chemistry–obviously, it’s better with the masks on—and penciler Brad Rader very quickly establishes the issue’s visual tone.

Rader and inker Rick Burchett deliver a great issue–none of the previous arc’s too (literal) cartoonish panels. The story’s a mix of flashbacks, including courtroom testimony, talking heads, and heist. See, Selina grew up with that girl in the opening flashback; now that woman is on death row, and today’s her last appeal. It turns into this exceptional (and exceptionally efficient) story for Selina. Brubaker also addresses the idea of real people in the superhero world, just as it seems a little strange Catwoman would be helpless in this situation.

Then there’s a delightful bookend with the Bruce Wayne scene.

It’s not the best issue in the series—though it’s Rader and Burchett’s best issue for art—but it showcases what makes Catwoman so special. Not just Brubaker and Rader’s attention to the characters but the (no pun) clawing humanity at the series’s foundations. It’s wild.

It’s also a done-in-one, so no hints at what’s to come, but I can’t wait, especially with Rader and Burchett having worked out the kinks.

War Story: Nightingale (2002)

War Story Nightingale As a Garth Ennis war comic, I’m not sure Nightingale is the best War Story. As a War Story, it’s the best comic. Ennis’s script gets out of the way and lets David Lloyd’s art do its terrible magic. Because Nightingale is a nightmare, not just because it takes place on rough, cold waters in World War II, giving Lloyd all sorts of opportunities for literal stomach-churning art of the water. Ennis also digs in on it with the script, the words making the imagery all the more unsettling.

To get the clarification out of the way—it’s either the best or second best War Story (so far). Ennis’s script is so straightforward it’s almost loose. This story’s narrator is the first officer of a British warship, the Nightingale. She’s on convoy protection duty, and, until now, the ship’s had extraordinary luck. We know the luck will run out because the story opens with the ship at the bottom of the sea, the first officer narrating from beyond the grave.

Now, it’s never a horror comic. There’s never the slightest supernatural hint, but Lloyd’s dark, turgid panels create this disquieting effect, even as the first officer may be narrating a dream, not reality. Ennis doesn’t imply any hopefulness exactly, just potential for a metaphoric sinking. When the first officer returns home on leave, he has a nightmare, for instance. There’s a particularly phenomenal sequence of panels showing downed ship after downed ship cluttering the ocean floor. It is a nightmare, one Lloyd and Ennis do a stunning job conveying.

Things start going wrong for the ship when they’re ordered to abandon the commercial freighters during a mission. The admiralty has heard a German super-ship is out of port, and the protocol is scattering the convoy will make it harder on the Germans. Except that plan just leads to the Germans picking off the freighters and their civilian crews as the Nightingale’s crew just listens to the distress calls.

The crew then becomes convinced they’re cursed for their dereliction of duty despite it being ordered (and double-ordered) from on high.

Ennis keeps the script very simple; he’s got far more unexplained jargon than usual, with the first officer’s narration at times hurried and erratic. The memories are too rapid, the narration in a race to keep up with Lloyd’s panels as they flash forward; beautiful pacing in the panels, just breathtaking work from Lloyd. He’s the reason Nightingale’s so spectacular; another artist, same script, it’d have been successful, though nowhere near as much. Lloyd’s rough, queasy art makes Ennis’s—not in a bad way—obvious narrative hit harder and, frankly, more viciously. Nightingale’s not mean exactly, but it’s definitely hostile.

And absolutely first-rate war comics. It’s easily the most formally ambitious of the War Story issues, making its success even more accomplished.

Catwoman (2002) #9

Catwoman 9 The finale proves way too much for penciler Brad Rader and inker Rick Burchett. It doesn’t look like a Batman: The Animated Series comic; it looks like a generic riff on one. Rader and Burchett rush through every character who isn’t Catwoman or Slam, which is kind of nice, I suppose. They were the leads of this arc, though this issue doesn’t have any time for anything but Catwoman’s complicated scheme to clear Holly’s name.

Oh, Holly and her girlfriend Karon are better illustrated than the norm. However, the dirty cops, who aren’t actually interchangeable, are where the artists really rush. And guest star Crispus Allen, who opens the issue talking on his phone to Montoya over at Gotham Central; they really should’ve had him break the fourth wall to announce the new series.

Anyway.

Selina’s plan involves getting Allen on her side, tricking a mob boss, using Slam as bait for the dirty cops, and so on. It’s a very tell, don’t show conclusion, with Rader getting some of the composition right until the big fight scene, and then he whiffs it. Burchett’s inks don’t help anyway, but it’s all composition problems.

And Allen being so front and center in the issue, he makes Slam and Selina feel like the guest stars.

It’s a pretty good resolution issue, but there’s nothing special about it, which is unfortunate. It’s unclear if writer Ed Brubaker’s in a hurry or just out of time (since he spent the first issue of the arc on a Holly done-in-one); the pacing’s fine for a talky triple-cross story or whatever; it’s the plotting where Brubaker falls short.

The last page reveals a secret villain, promising they’ll be back some time. But, even as the villain decides Catwoman needs to be dealt with… it just feels like another way to move the book’s focus away from Selina.

Also, I don’t know if they do anything with the stolen diamonds from last issue. Maybe they give them to Leslie off-page.

Again, it’s adequate. But I was definitely expecting more.

War Story: Screaming Eagles (2002)

War Story Screaming Eagles The cynic in me—combined with Dave Gibbons doing the art, the protagonist sergeant not getting a name until the finish, and the soldiers being in Easy Company—makes me wonder if Screaming Eagles didn’t start as a Sgt. Rock special. At least at some level. It’d be Sgt. Rock Gone Wild, so maybe it didn’t last long as one, but….

The issue’s the least of the three War Story entries so far, mostly because of Gibbons. Dave Gibbons can draw, of course, but he doesn’t bring any personality to the comic. There’s technical prowess but not achievement. And he seems to miss drawing a balled-up fist when he really needed to draw a balled-up fist. But I guess no one is going to tell Dave Gibbons to do the panel over again. Not in 2002, not for a Vertigo special.

Anyway.

Screaming Eagles is set in Europe’s last days of the war. Before V-E Day, but individual German units are surrendering, and the officers feel comfortable sunbathing and letting the enlisted men haul the proverbial water. The Easy Company sergeant gets the order to secure a country house—behind enemy lines—for a general’s visit. He requests fresh men. His lieutenant tells him to take the three other original remaining members of Easy Company who landed before D-Day. Four out of 140. The sergeant would rather not. The lieutenant tells him to stop being such a wimp and goes back to his sunbath.

On the way, the men have an accident with a surrendering German general, who initially refuses to surrender to an enlisted man. The sergeant convinces him otherwise.

When they arrive at the house, they find it full of loot. The German generals have been stocking it with stolen cash, art, cars, food, and wine. Lots of wine.

Assessing the situation, the sergeant decides when they report back—days late—it’ll be because the Jeep was damaged, the radio broken, and they had to walk back behind enemy lines. The men are surprised their hard-nosed sergeant’s got a scheme, but he insists—they’re the last four of Easy Company, and they’re going to get a couple actual vacation days.

So they get drunk and eat well, with things looking up even more when one of the men meets a German farm girl thrilled at the idea of a (consensual) Roman orgy. She even has three friends who are down.

The soldiers enjoy the briefest respite before they have to return to the bullshit, punctuated with the sergeant finally having enough downtime to be verbose and monologue about what’s wrong with the military. Not even what’s wrong with the war (the Nazis need killing), just the bullshit of the rules and regulations designed to hide those responsible from accountability and so on. It’s a great monologue. It might even be more powerful from Sgt. Rock, and it’s enough to get Screaming Eagles through.

Writer Garth Ennis opens and closes with text set in the present, talking about an unnamed WWII veteran and how he’s coped. It’s Unforgiven to the point I expected the sergeant to look like Clint Eastwood, not Joe Rock. Unfortunately, Ennis tries too hard with the text, which doesn’t really matter since nothing he can do compares to Gibbons’s lack of personality on the art.

Screaming Eagles gets an unenthusiastic pass; it ought to be a lot better. Though also maybe not; cut out the seriousness and the sergeant’s splash page flashbacks to his men dying, and it’s a sixties Army comedy. And no one was going to say (or maybe even realize) having Gibbons was working against the piece.

Catwoman (2002) #8

Cw8 Batman doesn’t appear in this issue, but he really ought to be here somewhere. What with the cops moving a bunch of heroin through the city to make a deal with the Russians. One would think the Darkknight Detective would give a shit. But he apparently does not. It’s hilarious how bad Batman is at his job.

Anyway.

Enough about useless white men and on to the awesome ones.

Writer Ed Brubaker, penciler Brad Rader, and (sometimes) inker Rick Burchett do incredible work in this issue. The pace is phenomenal, starting with the cops pestering local businesses in the East End to put up Holly’s wanted poster. It leads to Karon, Holly’s girlfriend, calling the apartment to check on her, which wakes Slam, who’s on the couch (with a kitty), getting some shut-eye before he and Selina execute their plan.

The way Brubaker plots their plan is capital–it has different moving parts for each of them; Slam confronting a cop (which still hasn’t paid off) while Selina gets some information from a fence. Meanwhile, the cops (and their mobbed-up bosses) talk about their big deal for the night. Nothing can go wrong. We don’t see them setting up the deal; we don’t hear Selina’s plan to foil them (which Slam swears he doesn’t think is the worst idea, just not a good one because he doesn’t realize Selina’s the GOAT). Brubaker’s revealing the cops’ brash dealings in (for a comic) real-time, while Selina’s messing with them, but we don’t know to what end.

It’s brilliantly executed, heist-y stuff. Rader’s page layouts and visual pacing are exceptional; even at his best, nothing indicated he would do anything this good on the book. And Burchett, inking on his own (Cameron Stewart assisted last issue), only occasionally makes it look way too much like “Batman: The Animated Series.” It’s usually during the action sequences, so the lack of detail isn’t particularly painful.

And Burchett’s inks on the open’s outstanding; Slam and Selina are figuring out their team-up dynamics, and it’s gorgeous art. Fun, but serious.

Great heist-y cliffhanger, a sparing return of Selina’s narration, and some B plot building on the Mister Big… Brubaker balances it all beautifully. Catwoman already got great fast, but this issue’s sublimely raising the bar even more.

Catwoman (2002) #7

Cw7 Last issue ended with Holly, on assignment from Selina (but maybe a little too gung ho), shot by dirty cops. This issue opens with them approaching; luckily, Selina gets there in time. Selina rushes Holly to Leslie Thompkins’s clinic and reveals she knew Holly was a recovering addict this whole time.

As Leslie gets to operating, Selina takes the scant information she’s got—Holly was trailing an undercover narc before seeing some cops kill him—and heads over to Slam Bradley’s. Meanwhile, very special uncredited guest star Crispus Allen shows up at the dirty precinct to help out in the murder investigation, not suspecting he’s after some fellow officers.

Most of the issue is Selina and Slam bantering and getting the skinny from his contact at the precinct. Writer Ed Brubaker wastes no time getting to the meat of the corruption; the precinct has taken over the local drug trade, shooting down anyone who gets in their way. It’s good exposition stuff, tough capes noir, with some really nice layouts from penciller Brad Rader.

The other big change this issue is the narration. There isn’t any. Brubaker’s not narrating from Selina’s perspective (or Holly’s, like last issue). And with Selina wearing her mask most of the time, there’s less potential insight into her emotions. The issue’s very quick—Selina wakes Slam up at four in the morning or thereabouts, and the cliffhanger is the morning news—something the art doesn’t convey.

The art this issue’s a tad disappointing. Rader has Rick Burchett and Cameron Stewart inking; Burchett makes it all look like an issue of Batman: The Animated Series, with Stewart presumably the one who gives Slam some visual character. It’s too bad, though it’s worst at the open and improves throughout.

It’s a compelling story, slightly bland visuals or not, and Brubaker’s plotting is impressive. I was expecting another first act for the arc since last issue was a Holly “fill-in,” but no, he’s full speed ahead on the story. And already writing Slam and Selina great together.

Catwoman (2002) #6

Cw6 Still newish penciller Brad Rader (his second issue) leans a little too heavily into the Silver Age romance comic homage, but otherwise, it’s a near-perfect comic. Writer Ed Brubaker figures out how to give the story the done-in-one feel while still kicking off a new story arc. So it’s part one of four, but really (presumably) part zero of three.

It’s a prologue from Holly’s perspective. She’s out working for Selina, an East End Peculiar, trying to get some information on a new dealer while reconnecting with people she hasn’t seen in a while. Brubaker sets some of it up with the first scene, which has Holly filling out an email personality test. Her choices on that test come up throughout the issue, whether introducing the romantic interest, filling in some details of Holly’s story post-whenever she last appeared in a Catwoman comic, or addressing Holly’s addiction recovery.

She still hasn’t told Selina about her relatively recent sobriety and how she tried to avoid triggers, which Selina is now asking her to seek out. Lots of excellent character development for Holly, with her self-reflection arc causing her to make some ill-advised, daring choices to get the issue to a dramatic conclusion and set up the story arc with a good cliffhanger.

Brubaker, Rader, inker Cameron Stewart, colorist Matt Hollingsworth (who’s got to show shitty Gotham during the day), and letterer Willie Schubert (the narration is Holly’s journal—in her head presumably—and the lettering conveys personality) knock it out of the park.

The comic’s from the relatively short period between ubiquitous email (or enough you can turn it into a plot point) and smartphones. Lots of Holly’s day is frustratingly boring in a way a smartphone would help. In addition to everything else, it’s historically fascinating–just an all-around excellent book.