Writer / Penciller / Colourist / Letterer: Cliff Chiang / HC / DC Comics (Black Label)
Collects: Catwoman Lonely City #1-#4.
The Pitch: Ten years ago, the massacre known as Fools' Night claimed the lives of Batman, the Joker, Nightwing, and Commissioner Gordon...and sent Selina Kyle, the Catwoman, to prison. A decade later, Gotham has grown up-it's put away costumed heroism and villainy as childish things. The new Gotham is cleaner, safer...and a lot less free, under the watchful eye of Mayor Harvey Dent and his Batcops. It's into this new city that Selina Kyle returns, a changed woman...with her mind on that one last big score: the secrets hidden inside the Batcave! She doesn't need the money-she just needs to know...who is 'Orpheus'? Visionary creator Cliff Chiang (Wonder Woman, Paper Girls) writes, draws, colours, and letters the story of a world without Batman, where one woman's wounds threaten to tear apart an entire city! It's an unmissable artistic statement that will change the way you see Gotham's heroes and villains forever!
It's safe to say that DC's Black Label imprint could easily be renamed 'Bat Label', such is the breadth and width of the shadow the Dark Knight casts over the catalogue. It feels like more than half of the comics released through Black Label have come from Gotham, although this is changing. But then, so much of DC's current universe has its roots in Batman, it is simply a symptom of a wider issue. Holy Bat-fatigue! But this overlooks something... that a lot of these books are good. Catwoman: Lonely City sets its stall as a superior spin-off. From the beginning, one gets the sense that this is a labour of love for Chiang, who serves as the entire creative team. Taking one of the better crime subgenres – the ageing criminal released from incarceration to a changed world and deciding to pull the fabled 'one last job' – and invigorates it with a jolt of superhero electricity.
The older protagonist in the youth-orientated market
The book is to be celebrated for several reasons: First, it's the fact that in a shifting comics landscape that's intent on replacing its older states persons with younger variants, Chiang has engaged an older protagonist. This roots the book in a maturity of outlook that extends beyond and reinforces the 'for mature readers' tag so many of us are familiar with. Second is the fact that it uses a well-known dramatic device for comics – the one we'll call The Dark Knight Returns trope – and takes it apart, rebuilding it for a different audience. In short, it adds time and age to its central character and allows all the things that time and age do to work their magic. But because we're nearly 40 years on, instead of the reactionary anger and trauma of DKR, we have a more measured response. Selina takes on board the invasive, tech-heavy culture she lives in, rolling with the oppression that surrounds her, and rather than seeking to impose law and order (the way Bruce would have), she instead embraces another mantra beloved by Batman fans: “We've always been criminals” and sets out to be just that once more. By the end, Chiang allows this to become Selina's own DKR, her final decisions being not entirely out of step with Bruces at the end of that tome. The comparisons are deserved, especially on a qualitative level. This may be the first Bat Family book that lives up to Frank Miller's groundbreaking series.
Rare domesticity from DC
There's a grim romance and longing in every issue of the series, along with some genuinely lovely touches by Chiang. Selina finding the one cat that stayed. Like her. Or beautiful moments of Killer Croc and Selina playing the odd couple, living together in Selina's penthouse. It's a kind of domestication we don't often get in DC Comics. We soon see what makes this city so lonely: Masks are outlawed (except for Gotham's Batcops, of course). Alfred is dead, as is Grayson. And Bruce, too. All marked by headstones on the grounds of Wayne Manor, a place no one is allowed to visit anymore. Selina eventually becomes the thing she hates the most: a pawn in somebody else's game, her fierce independence used against her. The Catwoman's target for what could very well be her last job is entirely personal, and in keeping with Bruce's life rather than her own, she must undertake it to solve a mystery. In a way, it feels like she's carrying out his last will and testament and this becomes his gift to her, giving her a crime to commit, something he knows would make her happy.
A New 52 arc too good to have been released during the New 52
Chiang Magpies great bits of Batman lore from over the years. Beyond the DKR comparisons, he also goes to recent cuts, like the Emperor Penguin storyline from the New 52... And that is to a certain extent what Lonely City feels like, a New 52 arc that was simply too good to have been released in that five-year period. How could they have? It would have destroyed all comers. Year One also echoes across the first issue as we flashback to the infamous 'Fools Night' that claimed The Batman. And the oppressive Gotham Selina comes home to feels like the one portrayed in Future State.
Everything works so perfectly
Some of the early panels recall Darwyn Cooke on Brubaker's Catwoman run, but that's not to say the book is just a riff and mish-mash of other works. Chiang creates a milieu all his own, splashed with his electric colours and stern faces. It's a gorgeous book. Nothing else in DC's current output looks or feels like it. There's not an unearned, false moment in the entire thing. It's wonderfully crafted and plotted like a military campaign. Everything about it just works so perfectly. Chiang proves that he is one of the modern masters working in the medium and should undoubtedly be pitching his ideas, his books, to every major publisher and they should be falling over themselves to pay him for it. If I'm being hyperbolic, it's because something this good demands it. Aided by the extra large trim size of the Black Label prestige projects, this is a showcase for everything comic creators can do within the many worlds of the big two. My only regret is that I didn't make a best of 2022 list, because this would have been right at the top. Best comics of all time list, however...
It's a steal.
Buy the original 4-issue series of Catwoman: Lonely City here or you can buy the HC from Gosh Comics.
