In comics, it seems that any quality artist can get a book published regardless of their, more often than not, lack of writing ability because they can at least draw real good and that’s the main sticking point with publishers as big as DC. That’s the only explanation for the countless books I see both written and drawn by great artists who can’t write a coherent comic to save their lives. Case in point: Cliff Chiang’s Catwoman: Lonely City, which is a complete mess, story-wise, but, hey, it looks great! That’s enough, right… ? Nope!
Selina’s in her 50s and has been released from Blackgate Prison after serving a ten year sentence. She returns to a Gotham drastically changed: Harvey Dent has conquered his evil Two-Face persona to inexplicably become an authoritarian mayor with Batcops patrolling everywhere. Batman is dead, along with Alfred and Dick, and masks in general are outlawed (unless they’re Batcops). Dent is running for re-election against Babs Gordon. And Selina is going to try to break into the Batcave to find out the secret of “Orpheus”, Bruce’s puzzling last words to Selina before he died.
Here’s the biggest problem with the book: at no point is it ever clear what Selina’s trying to do or why. I’ll just cut straight to the climax of the story to highlight this: “Orpheus” is a compound that Bruce created that mixes the Lazarus Pit chemicals with Venom to create a magical resurrection potion that gives the resurrected person temporary superpowers - for a single week only. And then they dies! Bruce wanted Selina to resurrect him so that he could come back for a week to… do what? How many decades has Batman been waging war on crime in Gotham - what’s a single week going to do?!
Selina’s decision not to do this is meant to be a powerful moment - except we don’t discover what the whole point of it was until the very end, right before she makes that decision, so there’s no build-up or drama. It’s simply a case of showing you something and then immediately taking it away. Such incompetent storytelling.
Along the way, to pad out this unnecessarily overlong story, Selina steals a Green Lantern ring for no reason, one of the (way too many) supporting characters gets a prototype Halo-esque cat helmet that goes nowhere, and there’s a whole song and dance about stealing Clayface’s DNA from Arkham so Jason Blood can use it in one scene to pretend to be the new commissioner, even though it’s for just two Batcops and Selina and co. could easily deal with them by themselves rather than try to convince them with a disguise - which doesn’t even work anyway so it’s a waste of time!
This is part of DC’s Black Label line which just means they print the swears uncensored and show a little blood because it definitely doesn’t stand for sophisticated adult writing.
The flashbacks to “Fool’s Night” (basically just another version of that stupid Joker War thing that ran in the main Batman title recently) were similarly baffling. How does Batman die again? Oh right, because he needed to for the story and conveniently hand Selina a special Batarang and murmur the mysterious word for contrivance’s sake.
Why didn’t Selina break out of Blackgate at any time of the ten years she was there? Dent is unsurprisingly evil. It’s unconvincing that a super authoritarian Dent would be a massive hit with voters (in case you weren’t sure which politician Dent is meant to be, he has a Steve Bannon-lookalike advisor called Steve). The politics is laughably simplistic - it’s fascism vs liberalism! Gee, I wonder which side will win. Why does the Batcave break-in have to tie in with election day?
And how is it nobody has been able to find the Batcave until Selina does - they have guards patrolling Wayne Manor’s grounds, so they clearly have an inkling of where it might be, and the grounds are finite, so maybe just excavate that area? I mean, the entrance is this massive yawning chasm - they should find that pretty quick! They wouldn’t need this immensely convoluted plan to have Selina serve a ten year prison sentence, allow her to steal the magic Batarang that would activate with her DNA and lead her to the Batcave proper. Good lord…
Speaking of unconvincing, Selina hooking up with Riddler? Ugh. And why does Riddler’s daughter Edie want to be Catwoman again? Oh right, bad writing again. Killer Croc is similarly rehabilitated to be extra cutesy in this one which was also eye-rollingly weak. Why does everyone in Gotham suddenly wear cartoon cat masks to stand up to Dent? And if there are so many, why does he think he’ll be re-elected when the electorate clearly hate him?
The problems are endless with this book. Even the small moments here and there are convenient choices that further underline how bad the writing is. Like when Selina puts the magic Batarang into the slot and then drops 40 feet - landing on her feet, not breaking her legs. She’s an older woman with bad knees (which was established earlier) - that drop should’ve killed her! How does Riddler know what time Batman’s parents were shot? And Chiang demonstrates his familiarity with computers by having Selina make it to a screen on the Batcomputer that says “Sever all connections?” and a big red Return button - because it’s just that simple, kids, especially for computers as complex as Batman’s.
Nonsense - so much nonsense - aside, the comic is really boring to read. I not only never knew what was happening or why, I just didn’t care. It goes on and on and never accomplishes anything or shows you anything that even remotely entertains.
Cliff Chiang is a great artist but, like most great artists who try writing their own comics, he reveals himself to be a base amateur when it comes to putting together an even half-decent script. This is why some creators write comics and others draw them, and rarely do the twain come together in one person well.
Catwoman: Lonely City is pretty to look at but it’s also a garbled, dull mish-mash of confusing rubbish from start to finish. Definitely not worth the effort, guys.
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