DCU Comic Book Reviews

CATWOMAN #69

Life During Wartime

September 2007

Written by Will Pfeifer

Pencils by David Lopez

Inks by Alvaro Lopez

Cover by Adam Hughes

Synopsis

In Gotham City, a member of the Bana tribe of Amazons is in the middle of the street on the East End holding a radioactive bomb.  Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman) comes running to the rescue, even though she was the one who helped the Bana retrieve the bomb.  One week earlier...Selina has returned to the East End, Karon is in the hospital, and Holly has left the city altogether.  Batman visits Selina and tells her that she is needed to help in the war against the Amazons.  Although Queen Hippolyta is taking all the credit, Batman believes the Bana are the ones in charge.  Batman asks her to infiltrate the Bana and find out what they are planning.  That night, Catwoman meets the Bana and is invited to help them.  She is asked to retrieve the bomb from STAR Labs.  She attempts to remove the radioactive peace, but is caught by the Bana and knock unconscious.  When she awakens, Catwoman goes after the Bana in the middle of the street.  But when she gets there, the Bana releases the trigger, arming the bomb.  

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

The issue was really divided into two parts:  Selina’s narration of events and the brief scene with Batman and Catwoman.  The problem is that over-use of narration from Selina made the issue feel forced, like Pfeifer was rushing to reach the ending.  The beginning with the recap was okay; the narration at the end, however, was the part that made it feel rushed.  Perhaps Pfeifer needed to condense the events connected to Amazons Attack into two issues.  So we get a cliffnotes version of events:  Selina meets the Bana, joins the group, is asked to steal the bomb pieces, and gets caught trying to betray them in the space of half an issue.  What we get is not bad but as I said, it feels rushed; Pfeifer doesn’t establish any of the Bana as characters nor does he provide the connection to the Amazons.  He glosses over all of that to get back to the cliffhanger.  As a result we get the sense that it is not important, but since this is the first lengthy introduction to the Bana (who have not appeared in the Amazons Attack mini-series at this point) it would be nice to learn more about what they are doing rather than this rushed feeling. 

It is strange that an issue featuring the writer of the Amazons Attack mini-series with a plot that connects to that mini-series doesn’t have a hug blurb on the top of the book stating it’s a tie-in.  This would seem to be a no-brainer to me.  Even stranger, the cover for the issue itself doesn’t have much to do with the contents.  It makes you wonder if Pfeifer changed what he was doing so he could write the Amazons tie-in (which was either editorially mandated or his own idea). 

According to issue #4 of Amazons Attack, the war has lasted exactly three days.  It is on that day when Batman retreats from DC and returns to Gotham to enlist Selina’s help.  It seems a little odd, then, that the events at the beginning of the story occur one week later.  Is the war still going on seven days later or is this just one of those funky chronology things that we are supposed to ignore?

 

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