Catwoman #27 // Review
Selina is trying to clean-up the neighborhood she grew up in. It might seem like a modest goal, but there are some very powerful people with a very delicate balance of power in Selina's little corner of Gotham City. She's entering a world of danger, but she's doing it in style as writer Ram V continues an engrossing run with Selina in fast-moving issue slicing through the page under the power of Fernando Blanco's art. V and Blanco articulate the action well in an installment that increases tensions between Catwoman and the world to which she has returned.
There's been a robbery. Car stereos were stolen. Catwoman's claw marks were seen at the scene of the crime, but it wasn't her. She didn't break-in for hubcaps and car stereos. She went in for something more valuable: information. She and her gang of strays are getting ready to take down a significant delivery of narcotics. They're going to make some very powerful enemies in the process. She's making friends too. GCPD is bound to be happy with the drug bust, but what happens when her allies are at odds with each other? Catwoman knows what she's doing, but it might not be enough as politics in Gotham might just be a bit beyond her control.
Slightly more than the first half of the issue is the drug heist. The second half of the chapter is consumed with the politics that come out of that heist. The momentum from the heist's action in the first half carries over into the intensity of the drama in the second half. Too bad it's all about underworld politics and territorial dominance. Ram V has constructed a thoroughly enjoyable script out of elements that have been around in crime fiction for well over a hundred years and have been the subject of political intrigues going back to Shakespeare and beyond. It's fun stuff, but it echoes so much of what's already gone in the world of political thrillers.
It isn't easy to jump right into a complicated drug heist right at the beginning of an issue. Ram V doesn't exactly make it easy. There are a lot of moving parts that Catwoman is orchestrating. A less adept artist might have had tremendous difficulty with it. Blanco's sense of action, motion, and impact tilts, slashes, and pinches the action into place without losing the aggression to the heist's complexity. The gloopiness of Blanco's heavy inks aren't perfectly suited to close-up drama, but the larger movements of an issue like this are beautifully rendered.
It's difficult to quantify every element of an issue that makes it work. At times, something as simple as a good opening splash page can set the tone. With a high-angle shot of Catwoman crouching atop the glowing neon of the issue's title high above the alleyway where the action starts, Blanco commits a gorgeously simply visual to this issue that does a brilliant job of drawing the reader into another satisfying encounter with Catwoman.
Grade: A-
