Torunn Grønbekk was off to an excellent start with her second Catwoman arc by focusing on Selina Kyle’s relationship with her mother. Though Maria Kyle has featured in many one-off stories that explore Selina’s origin, none have actually devoted an entire storyline to fleshing out how she got along with her mother prior to her death. This was the second arc’s strongest emotional hook, with Catwoman #81 teasing more of this in its preview pages. Sadly, the issue itself leaves a lot to be desired.
At best, issue #81 is off to a strong start by showing Selina attending her mother’s funeral and realizing her sister is missing. She also becomes aware of the other life her mother led from the presence of the latter’s friends. Given that Grønbekk had already established a secret past between Maria Kyle and Carmine Falcone that hinted at something more between them, the funeral scene gave the impression more of Maria’s past would be fleshed out. Unfortunately, this is not what ends up happening, with Catwoman #81 missing its biggest opportunity for a more emotionally impactful story.
DC Comics
After the funeral scene, the bulk of the story focuses on Selina attending Carmine’s private costume party in Italy. Though Carmine is the common factor between the past and present, there isn’t much gluing the two stories together. The past storyline tells an untold story about Selina’s childhood, while the present storyline has her infiltrating Carmine’s private party for some undisclosed reason. At best, an earlier issue established that she’s “rebelling” against something, but how Carmine ties into that exactly isn’t clear.
The other thing that’s hurting the continuity between the two stories is the inclusion of a random reporter who doesn’t substantiate Selina’s character arc in any capacity. Other than his incompetence throwing a spanner into Selina’s carefully laid-out plans, he does little to move the story forward, but does a lot to distract from what really matters. Unless the reporter is later revealed to have some knowledge of Carmine’s past with Maria that ties into Selina’s present, there’s very little to justify his role in the story. This is especially true when his gimmick about being a sloppy reporter only worked once.
In addition to needlessly bringing back the reporter, Catwoman #81 also features a brief homoerotic scene between Selina and a masked woman that’s reminiscent of the costume party scene in Eyes Wide Shut, minus the actual sex. This scene also feels random and out of place in a story that features a young Selina mourning the loss of her mother. In fact, much of the party scene in Catwoman #81 feels random and unrelated to anything happening in the past storyline. Much of this page space could have been better spent answering some questions about Carmine’s relationship with Maria.
DC Comics
Since Catwoman #81 focuses on the aftermath of Maria’s death, there was definitely an opportunity to flesh out the circumstances that led to that. For fans already familiar with Catwoman’s post-Crisis origin, it’s already known that Selina’s mother ended her own life in a bathtub, seemingly as a consequence of no longer being able to endure her husband’s abuse. In fact, the cover for issue #81 confirms Maria’s suicide is still canon. However, since the flashback storyline already suggests Maria led a double life, it easily brings up the possibility that Maria’s death may not have been a suicide at all, and could have been murdered instead. The fact that Carmine is now a part of Maria’s past opens up that possibility even more.
All in all, Catwoman #81 is a pretty mixed issue. It broadens the mystery of Maria Kyle’s life, but the present storyline fails to capitalize on that by revealing more of that past through Selina’s own discovery. It almost seems nonsensical that Selina would even bother to infiltrate a party hosted by Carmine Falcone, if not to dig up answers on what truly happened to her mother.
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