Catwoman #38 – Ram V, Writer; Caspar Wijngaard, Artist
Ray – 9.5/10
Ray: The main narrative is over, but Ram V has one last issue to tie up his Catwoman run—and it’s probably the best of the series. With guest art by Casper Wijngaard, it picks up after Selina sacrificed herself to the police to let Ivy get away last issue. A pair of police detectives, veteran Rigs and wild card Kollak, have drawn the lucky position of interrogating and charging the infamous Selina Kyle. But as usual, she has some surprises for them. For one thing, she’s actually taking this seriously—bringing in a fancy uptown lawyer who turns the tables on the officers and leaves them off balance. Suddenly, Selina’s dictating the terms of the interrogation, and for every charge they have waiting for her, she has an answer. This is almost a Rashomon-like tale, as Selina warps our perception of past events and leaves us asking the question of which version of events actually played out.
Despite it all being flashbacks, this issue does give us a surprising amount of new information. The Wight Witch, whose subplot will be followed up on in an upcoming issue of Urban Legends, turns out to have a potential surprising link to Ghost-Maker. Shoes, who was mostly in the background of the run but whose true identity has much larger implications, has a chance encounter with Cheshire. The story zips all over the place, but it manages to keep itself grounded in Selina and the two officers. That story takes a dramatic turn when one of the officers has his own dark intentions for the interrogation, leading to a surprisingly tense climax—with a shocking last-act twist as everything we knew about the main players turns out to be false. It leaves Selina in a very ambiguous place as it wraps up, perfect for a new writer to take over, but what Ram V built here is destined to go down as the best Catwoman run in a long time.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
