Review: Catwoman Vol. 1: Dangerous Liaisons trade paperback (DC Comics)

Aside from the instant classic Ed Brubaker Catwoman run, among my favorites since that great revival was Genevieve Valentine’s DC You run, and that’s true even though Valentine’s tenure only lasted two volumes and one of those I didn’t read until seven years later. Selina Kyle as mob boss was neither quite a logical outgrowth of the character nor wholly without precedent (as the Batman: The Long Halloween books and Catwoman: When in Rome suggested she might very well be a mobster’s daughter), but it worked. A Selina Kyle neither on the side of angels nor senselessly cruel equaled a criminal often pulled in many directions, and it was riveting even if it didn’t seem really a Catwoman book.

So writer Tini Howard had me from the jump in that her Catwoman Vol. 1: Dangerous Liaisons returns us to Valentine’s world, even if that was an alternate continuity ago, picking up as if just a little while later. And arguably Howard improves on the previous premise in that Selina is knee-deep in organized crime but in a contrary role, taking it upon herself to make sure their corruption doesn’t spread too far. So we’ve got the wonderfully mundane politics of Gotham’s crime families but we also have Catwoman swinging from the rooftops, and that perhaps corrects an imbalance that plagued the DC You stories. And all of that improves on the sometimes generic superhero stories that the Catwoman series occasionally devolves into.

It did not quite feel to me like Howard had the rhythms down in this book; both the first four-part “Dangerous Liaisons” and the second two-part story each felt a smidgen long and over-narrated. There’s also a startling change of tone between the first and second stories; I was intrigued, but depending on your tastes, I wouldn’t be surprised if others were unamused. But in all there’s a lot of life to this book, not to mention Nico Leon’s gorgeous art, and I’m eager to see Howard get a lot of time to perfect this one.

[Review contains spoilers]

I re-read and read respectively Valentine’s Catwoman Vol. 6: Keeper of the Castle and Catwoman Vol. 7: Inheritance just before this, and I noted that both that run and Liaisons start from equally spurious premises — there, that Selina Kyle is all of the sudden the head of a Gotham crime family, and here that Selina is swiftly not so enamored of the children of Alleytown as she was just a volume ago.

[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]

In both cases, writers just starting on the series are tasked with setting up a new status quo as quickly as possible and moving on. This requires some suspension of belief on the reader’s part, though I thought the extent to which Howard portrayed Selina as done with, even scornful of, working with kids felt forced to me. (At the same time, one must wonder if putting Catwoman in a matronly role wasn’t itself a misappropriation of the character.)

But I love, for one, just how much Howard bases all of this in the familiar. We have Eiko Hasigawa, primarily, but Howard also manages to get a Batman: Heart of Hush reference in there, not to mention a Holly Robinson flashback¹ and Onyx Adams as a member of the supporting cast. That’s how I think it should be — Joelle Jones' Catwoman Vol. 1: Copycats had a nicely creepy locale in Villa Hermosa, but aside from Selina’s sister Maggie, the story felt very removed from Gotham proper, and it wasn’t hard to imagine another character in the title role. Here, Howard’s story is steeped in Bat-lore — even as there’s nary an actual Bat(man or otherwise) in sight until the very end — and that makes the story feel relevant but also uniquely Catwoman’s own.

I could do without Black Mask’s presence; so many writers since Brubaker have portrayed his rivalry with Catwoman (including Valentine in something of this same situation) that it’s long since become boring. Not to mention that Mask has become increasingly, cacklingly outlandish, to the point he hardly seems a threat to the reader, letting alone to the other characters in the book. The sequence in which Selina switches and then destroys Mask’s mask is creative, though here we get into the troublesome parts of multiple overlapping continuities in that I’m really not sure what the origin of Black Mask and his mask is any more. I was pleased to see him sidelined in the end, and I wouldn’t object to Black Mask staying in Federico Tomasso’s basement for a while and let Selina battle the actual mob bosses instead.

One perhaps wishes that stories recognizing gender disparities did not always have to be relegated to titles with “-woman” or “-girl” in the title, but at the same time, if not here then where? Howard sets up Selina among the mobsters' molls and exotic dancers, and among themes here is how careless the criminals are with their plans around women, never considering any could have the agency to use what they glean.

That’s valid subject matter, though I felt Howard hit the same point a couple of times (and in general there was more than one page of Selina narrating to herself that I thought could be trimmed). Too, Selina and Harley Quinn being stalked late in the book by a random man surely and unfortunately reflects real life, but I think Howard stretches the cogency of her point when the man is not only able to walk away from his car exploding but also to track Selina and Harley over a significant distance. At times the book’s allegories overwhelm its plot.

Road trip; roller derby; hijinks ensue. Turning to the final two issues of Liaison, one might be forgiven for thinking they’re reading the Harley Quinn title instead. It is such a jump from Howard and Leon’s moody, violent, dark-shadows-and-bright-purple introduction to the zany daylight conclusion (with art by Bengal) that I wonder if anyone worried this was the wrong way to go.

But I appreciate the gumption and the willingness to take the tonal risk (I’d be less sanguine about a whole Catwoman series like this). And Howard’s conception of Selina and Harley’s relationship is interesting — we just saw Stephanie Phillips write Selina as cold and dismissive of Harley in Harley Quinn Vol. 1: No Good Deed, and honestly it’s been so long since Gotham City Sirens that I really couldn’t tell you how Catwoman and Harley Quinn get along. In contrast, Howard’s got Harley as the “little spoon” as Selina holds her overnight, a friendship so romantic as to be platonic (or maybe vice versa). It is appropriate for characters with as complicated lives as Selina and Harley, and again, I don’t know how based any of this is in actual continuity, but I enjoyed it just the same.

2.5

Rating

And so, oh look, Catwoman Vol. 2: Cat International is next in my reading pile, and I’m glad for that. Catwoman Vol. 1: Dangerous Liaisons is fun, relevant, and surprising, and I’m eager to see where Tini Howard is going with all this.

[Includes original and variant covers, character sketches]

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1. Love, as I do, Tom King’s Batman run, the transformation of Holly from one-time bestie to pawn of Bane is a retcon I’m eager to see undone.  ↩︎