One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to keep on top of my comic book reading (I know I know, it should be “eat more vegetables” and “take that Javascript class” but I like resolutions I know I’ll keep) so this week I’m doubling up: see below for a review of Catwoman #7 and The Batman Who Laughs #2.
Catwoman #7
I can’t help but be a little bummed that Joelle Jones turned over the art to other artists this week (her work is so very pretty) but 1) after six issues of art and story she deserves a break, and 2) Elena Casagrande and Fernando Blanco (with John Kalisz on colors) did a good job. I think I can tell that one of them did the art on the double page spread (the one with the title and credits) and another did the art where you first see (spoilers) the explosions, and I like the double page spread a little better, but it’s all good work.
This is definitely a prologue of an issue: we see Catwoman do some shopping, someone new comes to town, and sends a message, which Catwoman gets. The rest of the pages (around 20 this time) are action shots, so it’s light on the words. I’m looking forward to seeing what the newcomer’s plan is.
The cover (“You want me to steal what?“) is a little misleading: nobody asks Catwoman to steal anything. Yet.
(I thought the underlying theme of “dudes, don’t be dismissive of women” wasn’t subtle, but I agree with the message.)
The Batman Who Laughs #2
“The thing is, he seems to have fallen from a height that’s not possible given the stature of the surrounding buildings.”
“Hey, welcome to Tuesday in Gotham City.”
Last issue we found out that Bruce Wayne was found dead, except the Batman we know is alive and well. (Until he’s poisoned, anyway.) And there’s now two other Batmen in the city: the Batman Who Laughs, from the nightmare multiverse, and the Grim Knight, a Bruce from a darker reality than ours. As the Batman Who Laughs puts it “He’s us if Joe Chill dropped the gun in the alley and we picked it up.”
The Batman Who Laughs also explains in this issue where our Bruce fits, in the scheme of all the other multiverses. It explains why the Bruce Waynes who show up dead all seem to have had a better life than our Bruce. It’s not a happy thought, and the Batman Who Laughs could be making it up, but it makes a lot of sense.
And all this is happening while Bruce is fighting off the effects of the Joker Toxin and every setback pushes him thaaaaat much closer to the edge. Somebody’s bound to give him that last little nudge, and I think this issue might be the one that does it.
And I haven’t been reading any other Bat books lately, but I think there may be some continuity I’m missing because of that, due to who appears on the last page.
The art by Jock is excellent of course, lots of hard edges and silhouettes, eyes appearing out of the dark and violent motion, it matches the tone of the book perfectly. There’s a fight scene at one point that doesn’t mess around, so brace yourself for some literal hack and slash stuff.
(Unrelated note: I like the fighting style Bruce uses this issue, and what it’s called, though I might have called it a modified Captain Kirk Two-fisted Whammy, but that’s just me.)