For the first time since the DC All-in initiative began, Catwoman #88 has faltered a bit for me. I’m not the most comprehensive Catwoman fan, but after hinting at a sister for the past half-dozen issues, or so, we finally get a real glimpse at her. I’m left a little confused by the character, who she is, what she did, and what was done to her. The good news is this creative team also cooked up one of the most psychologically messed up relationships I can remember seeing in sometime and despite my lack of familiarity with Maggie Kyle, this issue is still juicy as all hell, while being significantly less action-heavy than last month.
But let’s talk about these opening pages for a second.
There’s a scene in 1989’s Road House where Marshall Teague’s character, Jimmy, has Patrick Swayze’s character, James (man that’s bad, how do they have the same name?) in a headlock and says something so far out of left field that when you’re watching it at home, you pause and rewind it to make sure that’s what he really said. By the third time, you put on subtitles just to be definitively sure, and he absolutely said it. There’s a moment in Catwoman #88 that I had to re-read four times or so just to make sure Maggie really said what I thought she said.
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A quick search online and a less quick revisit to the beginning of this volume and yeah. That is exactly what she said and exactly what she meant.
This issue is heavy because at every turn, a relationship gets explored in profound ways. Catwoman gets reunited with Holly and the way they’re bonded together is fascinating. It oscillates between a mother-daughter and sister-sister relationship but no matter what, the love is always felt and the trust is always there. Trying to get a read on them this issue was fun because of what they clearly mean to each other, even if the boundaries read a little blurry to me.
What didn’t read quite as blurry was the relationship between Black Mask and Katarina Belov, the real mastermind behind this gauntlet that Catwoman finds herself being forced through. I’m not going to pretend to be an expert in psycho-analysis, but I think even a coked-out Siggy Freud would go “wtf” to the two page sequence between to the two. It’s brilliant. It’s so weird and uncomfortable and angry the whole time with tension bubbling just under the surface. This scene easily steals the show for me this issue.
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Torun Grønbekk’s script here is cutting, minimizing Black Mask to an obsequious boy under the power of Katarina, who’s mimicking his own facade with a mask covering the burns on her own. But what Davide Gianfelice on art and Patricio Delpheche on colors are able to accomplish here is really impressive. The body language is just so pathetic and sniveling. It’s so much fun to watch him petulantly submit to her. Just good stuff all around.
We also get to explore Maggie’s relationship with Selena, Maggie’s with Slam, Selena’s with Falcone, Selena’s with Slam, and Selena’s with Katarina as well for good measure. It’s all interesting and and compelling, but nothing competes with that Roman/Katarina scene. I want to note too that, refreshingly, we don’t get an exploration of the relationship between Selena and Catwoman, which I’m personally a big fan of.
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Catwoman #88 fumbles out the gate to me as someone who really jumped on board with the All-In initiative back in 2024 but ultimately sticks the landing. I was thrown into the deep end of something so bizarre and horrible I wasn’t entirely sure I was understanding it correctly. Before long though, the neon-drenched story of deception, revenge, and love that made me a fan of this run reappears and carries you forward through the story, exploring the strange, interconnected relationships that make a huge expansive thing like the DC Universe feel as small as a neighborhood where you know everyone’s business and their name (even someone I didn’t really know, like Maggie Kyle).
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