Catwoman #30 // Review

Selina Kyle is being shifted around by forces that she isn’t happy with. There are others who are out to get her as she seeks an old acquaintance who has been turned into art somewhere in Gotham. Writer Ram V plays with some elegantly poetic, little plot points in his uniquely pleasant hard-boiled detective noir on the pages of Catwoman #30. Artist Fernando Blanco continues to keep the heavy shading of Catwoman’s world suitably dark, aided as he is by the color work of Jordie Bellaire. V and Blanco put together an interesting investigation in the shadows of Gotham City.

Selina has saved the life of Edward Nigma. It’s not like he deserved to have his life saved, but it isn’t like he deserved to die either. Selina knows that Nigma knows something he’s not saying. She’s going to have to get some information out of him in a makeshift hospital room in the middle of a warehouse before she can locate Poison Ivy. As it turns out, she has been turned into a piece of art that’s going on display at an event attended by the upper edge of Gotham’s twisted villainy. Meanwhile, Oswald Cobblepot seems to be in over his head with a hired gun. 

V is sculpting an interesting life for Selina. She’s got a lot going on. The journey to return to rulership over her own little corner of Gotham City may have felt a bit rushed, but it’s very, very cool to see her in charge in her own neighborhood as she deals with problems that might be bigger than she is. V also manages to make Nigma seem a lot more interesting than he has been over the decades since he was introduced. In only a few pages, V makes Nigma seem interesting enough to carry his own book. That’s quite an impressive bit of storytelling for a guy who has a lot of other ground to cover in this issue.

Blanco’s lack of detail feels particularly missing this issue. Finer details wash away in heavy inkwork shadows that still manage to pull together a really vivid visual signature. The finer points of human emotion may be lost to Blanco this issue, but the action feels beautifully percussive whenever action breaks out across the page. Bellaire’s colors add just the right amount of mood to the page. What Blanco has left flat, Bellaire has been able to breathe the life of depth into, with delicate chromatic fluctuations. 

With Catwoman stumbling through action as quickly as she is, she isn’t allowed a whole lot of time to establish a firm grounding. She’s clearly in charge here, but there isn’t enough stable ground in her life to keep all of the crazy action in perspective. She goes from a warehouse hospital to a shady place elsewhere in Gotham before heading off to an extravagantly sinister get-together for Gotham’s wealthiest sociopaths. Any one of those places would seem a lot more interesting if she could settle into place for a few panels.

Grade: B