And here’s how you do a comic book. I was wondering when Catwoman was going to click and level up, and it’s this issue. It’s not just Darwyn Cooke’s pencils, though he’s got dozens of great panels in the issue. Pretty much everything except Selina fighting Clayface Y2K’s muck is great. The muck stuff is fine, but it’s gross, and it’s just muck. Worse, it’s pink flesh muck. Icky bad.

The issue starts with Selina confronting the killer and hearing some of his origin story. U.S. soldier, battlefield injury, weird experiment, dumped as a monster on the streets of Gotham by the U.S. Army. Tracks. She thinks she can talk him down and get him some help from that dickhead Batman (who does end up cameoing and is a complete piece of shit, gloriously rendered in a forties nod from Cooke and inker Mike Allred). She’s not entirely wrong, but she’s not right enough not to have a big supervillain fight. Except she’s Catwoman, and she’s not ready to fight fleshy muck monsters.

Writer Ed Brubaker does an exceptional job writing the fight scene. It’s a character development micro-arc for Selina as she realizes the new responsibilities she’s taking on; there’s doubt, regret, turmoil, all in rapid-fire as the fight progresses. Brubaker captures these snapshots into Selina’s experience through the text, tied to the visuals, and it’s phenomenal stuff. I knew Catwoman was going to get good, but I didn’t think it would get this good this fast.

Especially when the epilogue involves setting up the series proper, with Holly becoming a Kyle Investigations operative and Leslie Tompkins firmly established in the supporting cast. Except Brubaker writes it as a contrast to dickhead Batman, who doesn’t care about sex workers getting murdered and thinks writing Leslie a check fixes all the problems with the poors.

Only then Cooke (and Allred and colorist Matt Hollingsworth) turn the final splash page into this Batman visual homage deep cut. It’s so good.

This opening arc has got to be a killer trade.

There’s a lot of great Darwyn Cooke “good girl” art in this issue as Selina goes undercover to find the john who’s been killing all the girls, which I suppose could kick off an interesting discussion of how male gaze works in a non-realistic styles like Cooke’s. But it doesn’t make for a great issue. There’s a terrific opening with Selina visiting Leslie Thompkins, but after a dream sequence for Leslie.

Like three pages. Beautiful art, with Cooke doing a Will Eisner Spirit nod. It has absolutely nothing to do with the comic itself. It’s just padding. Selina’s visiting Leslie to get Oracle’s digits; Batman doesn’t give Selina his white friends’ phone numbers. It’d be something if they wrote Batman—or even could imagine writing him—as more thoughtful than a sixteen-year-old rich kid.

Oracle comes through—off-page—and Selina and Holly go undercover to interrogate the used car dealer who sold the killer his car. Selina gets to wear the costume; Holly gets to walk the Cooke “good girl” runway. Again, great art. But not a particularly good mystery development. It’s a fun, mischievous scene but has to basically hold up the comic because afterward, it’s just a chase scene.

The bad guy gets past Selina, and to pass the level in the video game, she has to search three different warehouses before he kills again. Writer Ed Brubaker intercuts Selina’s mission with the killer and his date flirting and being sweet when really we know he’s going to disintegrate the girl.

The art’s neat, and some of the dialogue’s excellent; plus, Leslie and Selina are cool pals, but it’s like half an issue with clutter to make up the rest. It’s Darwyn Cooke art, so the issue’s definitely worthwhile; it’s just not a great installment in the arc. Brubaker doesn’t have much narration from Selina this issue either. The whole thing’s a little off.

But very pretty.

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.

I’ve meant to go back and reread Brubaker’s Catwoman for literal decades now. The last time I tried, I started the post about Catwoman #1 pointing out it proves Ebert’s “no masks in noir” rule from his Batman Returns review wrong.

I’ll never be able to top that one, though it’s impossible not to think of Catwoman in those terms. With Darwyn Cooke and Mike Allred’s brisk, expressive art, Matt Hollingsworth’s lush but dark palette, Catwoman’s a visual feast. Especially once Selina gets back in “the outfit” and goes for an evening constitutional, hanging out on giant heads from a Schumacher Batman only fit to the Gothic city. It’s dark but not depressed; there are moments of such sincere joy in the comic. Not just for the reader but for Selina. She’s been struggling to get her groove back, and she’s finally got the right idea.

The comic’s got full narration from Selina, with Brubaker toggling between first and second person. When Selina’s feeling good about herself, it’s first person. When she’s tearing herself down, it’s second person. Batman ethics and morals have aged terribly, even in the last twenty years—I didn’t even realize I’m starting Catwoman again on its twentieth anniversary—so Selina feeling bad for thinking her friends—poor people, marginalized people—are actually worth it no matter what Batman says… yikes. Batman does show up, and Brubaker (and Cooke) give him the swashbuckler, Zorro feel, not the fascist Frank Miller one, which is good.

But still. Yikes. Find a better role model, Selina.

And she sort of does. She’s been seeing Leslie Thompkins for talk therapy. However, Selina’s been hiding her Catwoman side even though Batman already told Leslie, so she’s known the whole time, which seems professionally questionable. Be careful, Dr. Thompkins; it’s a slippery slope ending it faking the death of the first female Robin or whatever.

The opening has a hook—someone’s killing sex workers and terrifying them before doing so—and the soft cliffhanger gets Selina into the know. She’s been hiding out in the Narrows or whatever it’s called, most people thinking she’s dead, fallen from high society, and not wanting to return to the Jim Balent days of Catwoman. It’s an earnest, speedy character development issue. Not too much backlog, but some panels showing off Cooke’s ability to mix Catwomen of all vintages and costumes; Selina’s trying to move forward and do some good.

It’s such a great first issue. It’s nice. It’s never not tough, never not potentially rough, but it’s also so damn nice.