Catwoman #11 Review

Getaway or Get Away?

Written by: Joelle Jones
Art by: Fernando Blanco, Hugo Petrus, John Kalisz, and Saida Temofonte
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: May 8, 2019

Catwoman is still trying to get her own identity going since leaving Batman and Gotham behind.  While I think that the spinning wheels nature of the book may all lead back to that as well, at least after the last couple of issues, Catwoman is back doing what she does best...stealing things!  Yea, we still have the Creel stuff going on in the background, but it's the heists and capers I want.  Do I get more of the good stuff?  Let's find out...



The issue opens where we left off with the last issue's cliffhanger...Catwoman in hot pursuit of the armored car that Carlos got himself stuck in.  It's an extended chase scene that is pretty cinematic and while I was pretty into it, having Selina break through the windshield is cool and all, but you do have to suspend your disbelief a bit to make it work.  Then again, she did take down a bunch of Flashes and beat Talia in a sword fight on her home turf so I guess this is pretty minor!  What isn't minor is that halfway through this issue there is not much else going on except a red carpet premiere that is only there to set up a set piece for Selina to crash into.

  

This book has been hampered by pacing problems since the start, but also a lack of any real story or character progression as well.  Most of the times, the things that happen, just bring up more questions and without any real character work, things don't hit the way they are supposed to.  That continues with the Creels as they show up on the lookout for Selina.  Raina is a good villain, but I'm not even sure why she is still riding around in her Limo after everything that went down and her son's political career seems out of place after that too...but here we are.  This issue pushes that even further and I am starting to really wish we could just call it quits on the whole Creel family angle in this book and focus solely on Selina.

Speaking of her, we head back to her right where we left her and it's a scene that feels like an amalgam of the Blues Brothers and Heat until it isn't.  I mean, there are guns a blazing in one panel while the red carpet crowd continues smiling and taking pictures a few feet away.  They get more upset at Selina and Carlos running by and the guards seem to be playing hide and seek between panels.  Luckily, Selina hits one with a shoe, but the others are still within arms reach but do nothing.  Selina and Carlos do get away I guess and the issue does end with a pretty cool cliffhanger, it's just getting to it with a straight face that's the chore here.  

There are plenty of pages here for so little to happen.  I really thought we would see how Carlos got in the armored car and why or at least have something (anything!) happen with all of that.  We get a chase, a crash and that's it.  Where is James, the art forger from the last issue?  At least show us that he is still hanging around in the book or better yet, give us some more character moments so we actually get to know him!  Still, the biggest problem is this book has nothing for Catwoman to do or at least nothing interesting.  At least we got that extended red carpet scene...WHY????

The art was okay, but the change between artists was a bit jarring.  Overall, though, everything looked fine.

Bits and Pieces:

I really want to like this book, but there is nothing of note going on with the story and most of the characters are either forgettable or just forgotten.  It feels like this is a placeholder until Catwoman has bigger and better things to do and because of that, I can't recommend to anyone who isn't grabbing it for the Artgerm covers.

5.0/10