Read, Review, Bid Adieu: CATWOMAN #1 & #2

CATWOMAN #1 & #2
Publisher: DC Comics
Published: August/September 1993
My copy of Catwoman #1 on Ebay
My copy of Catwoman #2 on Ebay

Having just done my review of Vampirella #1, I spied a familiar name in the credits which has inspired the particular tangent for my scattershot approach to reviewing and re-evaluating my collection.

That name would belong to a fellow called Jim Balent, who just happens to be the pencil jockey for these two issues of Catwoman.

You know, having reviewed Drama, Vampirella and now Catwoman, I'm afraid I might be giving readers the wrong impression, i.e. that I only buy comic books wherein the chief protagonist is a massively-breasted woman whose costume looks like it was assembled from three postage stamps and a piece of string.

Let me assure you, nothing could be further from the truth (although I'm sure hoping I don't still have that copy of Syphons illustrated by Mark Beachum lurking around somewhere...those who have seen his work will know exactly what I mean).
Anyway, after this review, I'm going to call a halt to my 'Bad Girls' cycle for the time being, and make a point of trying to review something with no scantily clad women in it.

As promised, I am starting to review some stuff that I have from 'The Big Two' (and before you ask, no, that's not a reference to Catwoman's chesticular endowments, thank you very much!), having done indies up until now.

You know, one of the more unsettling aspects of this project is noting how much time has moved on since my fanboy heyday. As I type this, I'm looking at the back cover of Catwoman #1, upon which there is an advert for Mortal Kombat (the first one). Now, we can all chuckle at how outdated Mortal Kombat would appear to
today's gameplaying generation with their wireless controls, motion sensors, kinect etc., but that's neither here nor there. Mortal Kombat was a classic in its' day (although I much prefered Street Fighter II if I'm being honest), but what is shocking about this full page advert is the fact that there is no internet url on it whatsoever!

That makes me feel old...was 1993 really that long ago? At least we will be able to tell our grandchildren stories about how 'I was there' when the Internet rose to prominence (let's avoid the temptation to indulge in any Al 'I invented the internet!' Gore-esque claims though, yes?), but God only knows what form the internet will take by that time. It will probably make broadband look like 8 tracks or Betamax.

So, Catwoman then. DC pulled a clever ploy with this one in getting a woman to write it (Jo Duffy) so as to pre-emptively head off any accusations that Balent's artistic predilections for depicting the female form might attract.
The interior pages of these books are just as effective a time capsule as the ads on the back. Here we have a DC Universe where you've recently had the Death Of Superman (I'll admit it, I bought it, it was crap, I got rid of it) and now you have a crippled Bruce Wayne and Bane is the most feared villain in all of Gotham. Speaking of Bane, I know the 'Batman and Robin' movie was bad from whichever angle you chose to look at it, but seriously, what the f~@*?!! Boy oh boy did that suck...

It's a difficult job to do a book about a villain, which is what Catwoman nominally is, but on the other hand, of all of the Bat-villains, Catwoman is probably the one most inherently capable of being saved or redeemed. She just needs a good seeing-to from Batman is my theory, but alas they never seem to be quite able to get it together.

Thus, Duffy indulges in a bit of moral relavitism which allows Catwoman to be as deliciously naughty as she ever was, yet still take on villains more evil than herself, thus paradoxically placing her not so much upon the side of right, but sat on the fence between good and bad. Like Robin Hood, she robs from the rich and gives to the needy.

The current storyline has her working (by extension) for Bane's mob, which means she's the target for a deadly hitman with a bone to pick with Bane.

All told, it's quite good, but not so good that I picked up the third issue. Again, obviously there were other priorities in my comic book buying budget. Given that this is a DC book, I'm sure my local Forbidden Planet in Milton Keynes would have stocked it, so it wouldn't be a case of me not being able to get it, but instead simply choosing not to get it.

I'm rather odd in that I love Batman, think he has the best rogues gallery in all of comicdom (better than Spider-Man even!), yet I've never really collected the comics unless they were being written/drawn by a creator whose work I was collecting. I guess the reality was never quite as good as my theory?

In closing, I'd just like to say that my favourite Catwoman is Lee Meriwether. Miaow! They don't make 'em like they used to...