An old flame of Bruce’s asks for his help in finding her runaway son - but will the Bat and the Cat find the kid before the shadows of Gotham claim him? Also, in the future, old lady Selina, recently widowed, visits an elderly man - but why and who is he?
I thought Tom King’s Batman run was meant to be 100 issues long but it ended instead after issue #85. Maybe DC thought closing on the City of Bane storyline was a better finale? At any rate, what was probably the final arc of those 100 issues is being released as this 12 issue series, Batman/Catwoman (the remainder would’ve been stuff like annuals and shorts).
And this first issue isn’t bad but there’s not a whole lot here that’ll blow your hair back. Bat and Cat are doing generic superhero-y stuff, the missing child case ain’t exactly gripping, and the future storyline is mostly banal old people dialogue. King picks up where he left off with Bat and Cat continuing to smooch on rooftops while Cat and Joker chat some more.
Too many first issues tend to be essentially sizzle reels for what’s to come so I’m glad there’s a somewhat self-contained story here, as well as table-setting for later issues. The reveal of the old man’s identity at the end is interesting and a possibly new villain for this story is teased as someone unseen digging in the Wayne graveyard unearths a metal skull mask and shroud.
It’s not clear why there’s this massive time jump between the present and the future, or why the missing kid should impact Selina so much that she’d carry that with her for decades, but it’s a first issue so I’m sure we’ll find out later. And it’s not a badly written issue either - I don’t think King can write badly when it comes to Batman.
Clay Mann has produced career-best artwork in his previous collabs with King, both on Batman and Heroes in Crisis, and his art looks great here, though it’s not among his most stunning pages. Joker looks dapper in his Dick Tracy-esque getup, and the comic looks as polished and cool and you’d expect for a tentpole title like this.
The title page has a cute advent calendar-type design: Wayne Manor with 12 windows, for 12 issues, with the first window lit up and each issue lighting up a different window as we go along. It matches the Christmas framing, as well as the release date, and maybe hints at the villain’s background - a kind of Ghost of Christmas Past, returning to haunt Bruce and Selina?
Batman/Catwoman #1 isn’t the most impressive beginning but, as a huge fan of his Batman run, I’m glad that we’re getting another Tom King/Batman book, and I’m hoping it’ll develop into something more memorable over the course of this series.
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