Is It Good? Catwoman #19 Review

I was really enjoying Judd Winick’s run on Catwoman. It was exciting, a lot of fun, had very good character work, and it got me a bit in the emotional parts. It was one of the comics I looked forward to every month. However, nothing good lasts forever and since #0, Ann Nocenti has taken over and I left quickly. Question is though, after so many months away from it, is it good?

Catwoman #19 (DC Comics)

Following up on a plan in Justice League of America #3 (which hasn’t even come out yet), Steve Trevor is going to have Catwoman committed to Arkham Asylum after attempting to steal this rare artifact for them. Once there… I dunno… she’s suppose to learn something more about the Secret Society. I read this comic over a few times and honestly I’m not sure what the goal of sending her there was or if she even accomplished it.

Hey, Joe, shouldn’t those guys sign some paperwork before you commit her, or is this another one of those pay grade things?

Reading this comic makes me wish we had the Justice League of America issue they referenced because I’m totally lost here on the goal of this issue is. It does feel like Catwoman is there for a reason and has a goal, but the audience isn’t privy to that info and thus, we don’t know if it was accomplished. I mean, if Catwoman was sent inside Arkham to work against the Secret Society, she did an awful job since all she did was fight some guards, start sort of a riot, and then escaped the place. What was accomplished? What happened? Why did this whole plan matter?

Also, who the hell was that?!

The rest of the writing and plotting is pretty subpar. The dialogue and inner narration feels silly or out of character in some cases, especially with Catwoman’s opening narration. The comic feels padded out with an overextended fight scene and the bit where Catwoman escapes underground. The ending is also rather abrupt, like the story just reached a point and decided to randomly stop.

The artwork is decent; it flows well from panel to panel and everyone is drawn very well. Also, despite the fight scene with Vortex being more like filler, it was really exciting and intense. Occasionally though, the artwork has some moments where people do this weird Stalone impression with their lips and Catwoman’s entire body becomes extremely elastic.

All women can bend like that, right?

4.0

• The artwork and action is very good.

• Pretty much all of the writing and plotting.

Is It Good?

Nope. I don’t even know what to say about this comic. The writing has degraded so much that it doesn’t even feel remotely similarly to the comic I was reading last year. With so many writer changes going on with DC now, why doesn’t this comic get a new writer?