Catwoman # 81 // Review
It was figve weeks after her mother’s death. Selina Kyle was being asked to go to her mother's funeral. She was being looked after at Seagate in Gotham. A very antiseptic place. No flavor. No personality. And she was being asked to dress in all black. To head out to see her mother. One last time. To see her mother's funeral service. And everyone there was wearing black as well. A very stark moment. Something might've clicked somewhere in the back of her mind. Some sort of a deeper understanding that might've had some strange connection with the death of her mother. SHe’s going to find out a bit more about her own past in Catwoman # 81. Writer Torunn Grønbekk continues a largely dramatic exploration into the history of Catwoman with artist Danilo Beyruth and artist/colorist Patricio Delpeche.
She's going to a party. A big fancy and decade and ball involving people being used. The the type of thing you might expect from the Marquis de Sade. Gotham City’s greatest burglar isn’t there to enjoy the decadent life of a modern libertine, though. She’s there for something far more valuable. She’s there for a very valuable pearl and she’s not going to leave the party without it. If she’s going to be able to locate it, she IS going to have to fit into the rest of the festivities in a place that may seem refined, but is actually quite deadly and brutal in very many ways.
Grønbekk has a subtle and nuanced approach to the drama that saunters across the page with a stately posture. Grønbekk is angling into Selina’s background with a sharp sense of execution throughout the issue. It kind of feels like an idea that Grønbekk had for a story that she retrofitted to become a Catwoman story. There isn’t quite enough of Selina in it to feel quite distinctly her. That being said, the drama that Grønbekk is bringing to the page IS a lot of fun. It would just be nice to have it feel more like time spent with Selina and not a bunch of tedious European libertines.
Similarly, the art is held at a distance. It's appealing on one level. But it lacks that kind of a dynamic field that could really make it visually captivating. The opulence in the decadence are drawn into the panel in an interesting way. But it lacks a feeling of death and immensity. Ideally a situation like this for Selena would involve her being in a very dangerous place. That's also very refined and ornate. We're not really getting that with the art here. This is not to say that it doesn't have its appeal. The drama is very definitely present on the page. It just lacks a stylishness about it that would turn it into anything more than an abstract pattern on the page. So much of it feels like it's merely there to support the drama. It really needs to interact with the script a little bit more in order for it to feel truly interesting.
Kyle's background has been explored from 1 million different directions over the years. It's interesting to see someone moving into her very early history. And there are really fascinating aspects of her personality and aspects of her origin that are explored here in really fun ways. The problem is that they're so lost in a larger picture that seems so caught up in details that aren't all that eager to be interesting. And so largely it feels like a story of it is only tolerating the readers when it could be embracing them.
