The Batmom

Catwoman 11

COVERGIRL: Favorite cover. No boobs, all emotion and weary strength. She’s tired and she’s struggling, but she’s still tough enough to carry a grown woman in her arms.

The only thing I don’t like is the word “Dollhouse,” which brings to mind Joss Whedon’s short-lived flashes-of-brilliant “Dollhouse,” which brings to mind Joss Whedon’s short-lived all-over-brilliant “Firefly,” which makes me sad. Although that brings to mind Nathan Fillion, and that makes me happy. So thanks, cover people!

INSIDE STORY: Catwoman and her thieving/snogging sidekick Spark team up with Detective Alvarez to bring down the Big Bad who’s been kidnapping street kids and street walkers.

What we know that Catwoman doesn’t: The Big Bad is harvesting their organs and turning their corpses into dolls.

What we also know that Catwoman doesn’t: Spark is working with the dirty cops of Gotham to take Catwoman down. He’s also working to get inside her catsuit.

Much action follows, between Spark and Catwoman and on the mean streets of Gotham. By issue’s end, the Big Bad has tranquilized and kidnapped a slew of kids and hookers, plus one Detective Alvarez.

Catwoman sums it up: “I lost the ones I was trying to help. And the one who was helping me. Yeah, I screwed this up royally.”

RAMBLE: FavoriteCoverFavoriteIssue. The lame boob-ish pose on page one might have dampened my enthusiasm were it not for the wham-bamming action pulling me quickly forward through the book.

Catwoman and her comic book are at their best when moved by passion and empathy, and as we’re starting to learn in tiny narrative bits, Selina has reason to empathize with lost people like the street children and whores being grabbed from the streets.

She’s driven, and it’s not her usual flippant pluck, it’s a deep-seated, passionate determination. The personal tensions — between thieving Catwoman and good cop Alvarez, between lonelyhearts Catwoman and hottie traitorous Spark — bring the narrative excitement up a coupla notches.

As for the Big Bad: Creeping me out like no other comic book villain has to date. Shivering in my shorts.

Actually my husband’s shorts. Actually my husband’s boxer shorts. A snazzy orange-and-brown plaid. And while we’re talking boxer shorts, remember that brief spot in sartorial history when we women donned them? Round about 1989.

Why did we stop? These things are comfy.

There. Having digressed myself out of the shivers, I can end.

Who the Hell are These People?

Catwoman: Selina, a hooker-esque thief with a heart of pawn-shop gold and a weakness for the Batman

Detective Carlos Alvarez: Good cop amid a dirty slew in the Gotham PD; he knows they're dirty, and he's in the odd position of wanting to stop Catwoman's thieving ways and also to save her from the bad cops

Spark: Catwoman’s new thieving partner; he’s working with the dirty Gotham PD to capture Catwoman

What the Hell is Going on?

Catwoman is trying to save a slew of hookers and street kids being kidnapped by a freaky someone who kills them and turns them into corpse-y playthings. She’s also being pursued by a handful of dirty Gotham police officers because she stole their dirty money.

CATching up: Catwoman 6, 7, 8

COVERGIRLS: I like all three! Hip Hip Hip Hooree!

#6 claims top spot, for it not only places Catwoman in the power position, but also visually transforms two Gotham personalities into one Gotham gargoyle. Genius, Guillem!

#7 and #8 mark the departure of Guillem and the arrival of Adriana Melo (pencils) and Mariah Benes (inks). Goodbye grey, hello #7! Your colors make me long for cotton candy and candied apples. #8’s all shattery-glassy action. Catwoman’s face — especially the screaming red lips — draws eyes down-doobie-do-down-down, in the same direction Catwoman is falling.

INSIDE STORY: Catwoman has the police’s dirty money and the dirty police have Catwoman. They can’t ID her — someone’s wiped computer systems clean of all evidence of her existence — but they can beat her. Or have evil giantess-for-hire Reach do it for them. If there are ways to talk about biting off ears without mentioning Mike Tyson, you can pretend I’m using them … NOW.

Catwoman pulls a Mike Tyson, biting off Reach’s ear before running out the open door being held by Detective Alvarez, conflicted in the face of his boss’s dirty copitude.

Catwoman’s old friend/new fence Gwen Altamont helps her break into automotive thievery, which is all fun and games and cars and cash until Detective Alvarez catches Catwoman. Who is immediately saved by yet another spark-shooting Gothamite with a one-syllable name, this time male and regular-sized: Spark. He’s cute and he likes to steal stuff.

Spark and Catwoman plan a heist involving the Penguin, but while performing recon they see a hooker being drugged and dragged. They save her and talk to her trick-turning buddies, who say the perp is doing this to women all over Gotham. Catwoman vows to save the streetwalkers, thereby turning a neat little trick herself: transforming from bad guy to good.

RAMBLE: Okay, I just read three issues of Catwoman and then wrote about them. Also, during this same time period, I folded laundry, washed 3 dishes, liked 17 FB status updates, wrote 1 FB status update, ate >afew chips, had a conversation about electronic devices in elementary schools, replied to a sad Tweet, and cut up two apples for two children who really just wanted to delay bedtime.

I got nothing left.

Go away.

Who the Hell are These People?

Catwoman: Selina, a hooker-esque thief with a heart of pawn-shop gold and a weakness for the Batman

The Batman: The Batman, alter ego Bruce Wayne

Gwen Altamont: Selina's old friend and new fence, introduced issue 4

Detective Alvarez: Clean cop who has recently realize his co-workers are dirty

Reach: Giant bad-guy for hire, can shoot electrical shocks from her fingertips

What the Hell is Going On?

Catwoman's long-time fence Lola is dead, so she's working with old friend Gwen Altamont. Gotham Detective Alvarez is pursuing a string of robberies he thinks he can link to Catwoman, but when he discovers the cops are crooked and Catwoman has hidden some of their stolen money, he grows conflicted. For a moment, and then returns to his mission: Capturing Catwoman. Batman shows up on occasion, sometimes to mack, sometimes to lecture.

Catwoman 5

COVERGIRL: Catwoman’s goggles brought to my mind some ’70s buggy horror B-movie that I watched in the '80s on Boston’s Channel 56, and which aired before or after one of the daily showings of Clash of the Titans. Really, I don’t remember watching any such bug movie but if it such a movie exists, Channel 56 played it in the '80s.

Also, this cover, while not doing much for me except bringing up fake teenaged memories, at the least doesn’t look like the last few.

INSIDE STORY: Catwoman defeats last issue’s Big Bad Reach but ends up surrounded by crooked cops with straight-barreled guns. Turns out the drug bust she busted up wasn’t a drug bust but a transfer of nearly half-a-million dirty dollars stolen by Gotham’s men in blue. They know she has it. They want it back.

Detective Alvarez, who spent last issue trying to convince his boss to let him pursue Catwoman, learns his boss and compatriots are laundering money that lawfully belongs in an evidence locker.

RAMBLE: Solid issue. Reach we hardly knew ye, but since we hardly knew ye, we don’t care so much that ye got yer arse kicked, probably out of Gotham forever.

Might Alvarez’ discovery lead to a working relationship between he and Catwoman? I hope so. A Cop/Catwoman partnership would make for meaty reading.