Catwoman #16 // Review
Selina Kyle enters The Year of the Villain uncertain of whether or not she wants to be one in a pleasantly disjointed issue of extremes. Maybe she’s a hero. Perhaps not. Maybe she’s in total control, or maybe she’s a prisoner. Joëlle Jones returns as writer/artist auteur in a spooky, little pair of moods that illustrate the strange dichotomy of her life. Jones seems to be opening the current and of the series in a slow-sweeping motion that might feel a bit too gradual to build momentum into a totally satisfying story. Still, she’s definitely found the right dramatic contrast to make for a strikingly good journey with Catwoman.
The issue opens at Lazarus Pit, and Catwoman has upset the wrong person leaving her wounded. She crawls uneasily in a subterranean space filled with shadows. Her mask and costume are tattered. A cat has come to join her. Three pages later, it’s several weeks earlier, and Selina Kyle is on the trail of someone. She drives around in a convertible, eventually making it to a child’s birthday party. There are adults there with whom Kyle would like a few words. A whip is involved. Somewhere in the midst of it, Lex Luthor is mentioning mysterious things to Catwoman. He’s offering her a choice.
Jones’ juxtaposition of the two personas of Kyle/Catwoman is balanced against the offer from Luthor that also addresses the hero/villain dichotomy within her. Contrasting the success of Kyle’s hunt/interrogation against her capture/near death in the company of a cat lends the book a very freshly thematic mood. Unlike many of the crossover issues in the Year of the Villain, the shared moments in this issue feel like very organic, like little puzzle pieces. They feel as disjointed as the other two major scenes in the installment. Still, that disjointedness works quite well in the context of the story and actually helps to embellish on the dichotomous theme of the issue. Whether in charge or at death’s door, Luthor is giving Catwoman a choice between heroism and villainy.
The contrasting scenes wouldn’t have anywhere near the impact that they do were it not for Jones’ cunning sense of layout and composition. The stylistic parallels in narrative delivery between pit and party echo each other. There are great kinetics in violent aggression of the interrogation in a basement. While a piñata is being batted around upstairs. The reverse echo of that has a beautifully moody cat looking on at a very still and silent moment for Catwoman as she struggles her way through the dark torpor of Lazarus Pit.
Joelle Jones manages to heroically dive into the series once more after a two-month hiatus in writing the comic and absence as an artist that stretches much further back than that. The story feels fresh and interesting even if it consists of old tropes from crime dramas echoing out of every significant medium going back to Dashiell Hammett and beyond. Jones wields the heroic crime drama medium with great finesse.
