It’s been about a year and the long awaited King cut of Batman post-‘City of Bane’ is here, complete with the first comic canon introduction of Andrea Beaumont from the best Batman movie Mask of the Phantasm (don’t @ me.) While it’s impossible to tell where the story is going, as is par for the course in a King book, “Batman/Catwoman” does a decent job of individually setting the stage for the many plot threads to come and provides a few mysteries to serve as the bedrock of this mini.
And that’s where the praise of this book ends.
Cover by Clay MannWritten by Tom King
Illustrated by Clay Mann
Colored by Tomeu Morey
Lettered by Clayton CowlesAt last, Tom King returns to the rocky, romantic saga of Batman and Catwoman with his Heroes in Crisis collaborator, superstar artist Clay Mann!
Echoing plot points from King’s epic Batman run, this sweeping tale is told across three timelines: the past, when the Bat and the Cat first fell in love; the present, where their union is threatened by one of Batman’s lost loves; and the future, where the couple have a happy life and legacy-including their daughter Helena, the Batwoman. And as the story begins, after a long marriage, Bruce Wayne passes away-which frees Selina Kyle to settle an old score.
At every stage of their relationship, Bruce and Selina have an unwelcome chaperone: The Joker!
Oh, and that lost love of Bruce’s? It’s Andrea Beaumont-a.k.a. Phantasm. Just thought you’d want to know.
“Batman/Catwoman” is a confused mess of a book, feeling like the rough cut of a film by an amateur editor, the tape still visible where the scenes were spliced together, unable to keep a consistent timeline. The transitions are not clean nor do they use the page in clever ways to connect one to the other visually or via the dialog, which would allow for ambiguity in a timeline without feeling disjointed. The very first page provides an example of this, although that one acts more as an intro. Two pages later, not so much.
Is Bruce hallucinating Alfred or is it flashback? It’s hard to tell. I suspect the latter, as I don’t think Batman is bonking Andrea the night she comes to him about a missing kid while he’s also in a relationship with Catwoman, but the page, be it via the dialog or composition fails makes it clear and the book’s inability to keep a consistent timeline, starting here, or clearly establish when things happen relative to each other, makes for a frustrating read.
Why is Selena meeting up with the Joker and then posing like they’re on the cover of “Vogue?” What is up with Andrea and her missing kid? Why in the ever loving fuck do we keep cutting back to Old Selina and some guy I thought was Bruce but is Spoilers? I couldn’t tell you and that’s not because the answers are meant to be farther down the line or that the timeline obfuscation and ambiguity is purposeful, as in something like “House of X/Powers of X.” They’re not equivalent, as “HoX/PoX” was literally messing with time whereas here it’s three (maybe more) eras in their history, but the messiness of the presentation in “Batman/Catwoman” makes it feel like there’s something afoot when there isn’t. And if it is, what “Bat/Cat” #1 is trying to say by placing each slice of time next to each other is lost in the unclear composition.
Attempting to understand and connect to the book is a Sisyphean task, one which only leaves you frustrated, and it’s a bad sign when the solicit is clearer than the issue it is trying to sell.
A large part of this is also that none of the characters feel distinct. King has proven in previous books that he prefers rewriting character personalities to fit the narrative rather than the other way around and it shows here. Andrea is a sad mom with a sad past and an expression like a sour grape. Bruce is a sad husband with a sad past and an expression like a sour lemon. Joker is a smiley bad guy full of mystery. Catwoman is a smiley anti-hero full of mystery. While the narrative is doing its damnedest to tie these two groups together, you need something more than obvious visual tricks and repetitive dialog to make a reader care enough to not drop the series like a hot potato.
Continued belowAnd this is a constant criticism of King’s writing. Sometimes his penchant for staccato sentences, ever un-resolving and terse, is lyrical and reminiscent of a good playwright. Other times, or most of the time depending on who you ask, it’s maddening and unnatural, breaking any flow a piece might have, obfuscating any understanding of the surface level actions and motivations in favor of hinting at a deeper layer that is ultimately empty because the plain meaning is lost. Here, he’s clearly fighting against the things that got him in hot water at the end of his previous run but it’s not enough. He has only one nine panel grid, a nice restraint, but the dialog on another page which is almost a nine panel grid is Bendis levels of empty filler without the charm or the volume of talking.
The work is at war with itself, trying to tell too many stories at once, and the project suffers for it.
As far as visuals go, Mann’s artwork is fine, leaning heavily on the cheesecake in distracting ways — is there a single body shot of Selena that isn’t focused on T&A? I don’t think there is — and while I generally like Morey’s coloring, the choices feel off. They’re not dull and they’re not poorly rendered, quite the opposite in fact, but the moods they endeavor to generate somehow feel lifeless, almost rote in their sheen. This reads, in visual and tone, like Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel” to Richard Donner’s “Superman, though with a greater sense of color choice than the former.
We’ve seen better work from the two of them together on a far worse series but this isn’t bad work. It’s clear, it’s effective and it delivers on (I presume) the script in ways that reflect the symbolism and subtle setups King is going for; a Cat pulling back a bloody welcome mat when delivering news “about Bruce” comes to mind as an example. The problem is I just don’t care and the comic has not done nearly enough to make me care to put the pieces together.
And that’s the ultimate sin of this book. Thus far, it feels unnecessary in its existence beyond providing closure for a run cut short, which is not something to be dismissed easily. It’s not doing anything new, it’s just going through the motions and the motions were done to death 50 issues ago. So, until the story provides a reason to exist besides bringing in a fan favorite, it’s just a greatest hits of King’s Bat/Cat saga in a less enjoyable package and who wants to sit through 11 more $5 issues of that?
Final Verdict: 4.3 – A lifeless story is held together by a competent art team that aren’t bringing their A game. Only those heavily invested in King’s take on Batman should read this.
