Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Catwoman #83


I did not expect to like this comic so much. I mean it stars a girl character, and I'm terribly misogynistic in my superhero preferences. But it's one of the Blackest Night one-issue revivals, and I'm buying all the others, so why not. Turns out, it's kind of delightful. Tony Bedard's script offers everything I found lacking in Johns' writing on Blackest Night: Flash #2. The guy doesn't take this shit too seriously! Several references to Black Mask torturing Catwoman's brother-in-law & then forcing the wife, Catwoman's sister, to eat hubby's eyeballs! Still fun!

Couple things don't totally work for me. I don't care for the font used on Catwoman's internal monologue & I prefer bold text for emphasis rather than the underlining used here. That's just me being picky. Not a huge fan of the art - looks a little too digital for my taste - but it's okay. The first few pages of Selina fighting Black Lantern Black Mask are cool, I like the panel layouts & coloring. The eyeball-scalpel scenes are tasty. The "animal crackers" Harley Quinn panel is righteous. Solid Hughes cover.

Straightforward plot - a few references to older stories I haven't read, but Bedard provides all the necessary details. Black Mask is now a born-again Black Lantern & gunning for Catwoman, who put the bullet in his head. Mask goes after Selina's sister, who's been institutionalized after the aforementioned eyeball incident. Selina gets by with a little help from her Gotham City Sirens friends, Poison Ivy & Harley Quinn. It's Bedard's tone that carries the book, though. The Blackest Night concept is pretty straight camp to begin with, and Bedard doesn't shy away from it. This isn't a must-buy or anything close, but for my money, it's a solid 7/10. I laughed a little. The zombie thing works best with an edge of ridiculous comedy. This one has a scalpel.

p.s. The DC website shows entirely different creative credits for this issue: "Written by Fabian Nicieza; Art by Julian Lopez and Bit; cover by Guillem March." I went with the credits listed inside the comic.

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