Catwoman #64 – Tini Howard, Writer; Carmine Di Giandomenico, Artist; Veronica Gandini, Colorist
Ray – 8.5/10
Ray: Selina has been taking on increasingly dangerous missions as she wears down her nine lives, but nothing tops this one—heading for space. She’s being hunted by a coalition of rogues she stole from in the past, and she needs to stay under the radar. To do that, she plans to knock a satellite out of commission—and to get there, she’s going to steal an experimental Ferris Air plane. The great escape scene is very reminiscent of Top Gun, with some daring escapes, but once Selina gets there, the story is more concerned with the intense isolation and danger of being in orbit. At least, she’s lonely until Demolition Team shows up. This band of mercenary rogues is known for taking any contract they can, and they put the whole satellite in danger in the process. The fight up there is just okay, but the re-entry segment has some incredible tension—because not every death takes only one life.
John Constantine, Hellblazer: Dead in America #4 – Simon Spurrier, Writer; Aaron Campbell, Artist; Jordie Bellaire, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: John Constantine’s tour of the United States has been… thorny, to put it lightly, but nothing like what he finds in a small prairie town in this issue. Along with his son, the two put on a unique scam with John pretending to be a priest accompanying a mute faith healer. He takes advantage of the town’s bigoted nature to present himself as a man of God and starts prodding for answers about a brutal mystery that happened here—and is tied to why Swamp Thing can’t access his full power. I love the visual tricks they’re pulling with Swamp Thing here, making him feel like different parts of different plants. But while the issue starts a bit slow, it hits its stride in a big way towards the end with a brutal reveal about exactly how and why the subject went missing. This issue requires a big trigger warning for murder, sexual abuse, and small-town justice gone horribly wrong, but it’s probably the best issue yet in terms of the hard points Spurrier wants to make.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
