Overview: In Knight Terrors: Catwoman #2, Catwoman’s nightmare ends in poison and love as the Joker attacks Sister Maggie’s church.
Synopsis (Spoilers ahead): In her Insomnia-caused nightmare, Catwoman (Selina Kyle) trains a fledgling Batman (Bruce Wayne) to fight the future Joker. They find Joker victims in a fire and save the only living one. However, he turns out to be Joker himself. Joker and his snakes manipulate Selina during his interrogation. Learning the Joker has targeted Maggie Kyle, Selina’s sister and the hero Sister Zero, they head to the church. Maggie ignores her warnings, and Selina enters the confessional. But Joker is waiting for her. They fight, she knocks him out, outraging Maggie.
In the monk cell, Selina traps the Joker. She returns to Maggie, only to find that Joker poisoned the congregation with snake venom in the Communion wine. She orders Maggie to interrogate Joker to discover which snake. Batman plans to replicate the anti-venom, but two medusa-haired henchgirls attack.
Maggie gets the information from the Joker as Selina is bitten by the snake hair of a henchgirl. As she dies, she hears three things. The henchgirls cackle madly. Maggie forgives her and sends her to heaven for saving the people of the church. And Batman confesses his love and his vow of vengeance on the Joker.
And Selina wakes in her bed, faced with the choice between trying to help the city with her Socialist Crime Family Syndicate or saving the man she loves.
Analysis: After the dreadful mess that was Knight Terrors: Catwoman #1, do writer Tini Howard and artist Leila Leiz wrap things up in a more satisfying way? Sadly, the answer is no, as Howard continues with her weak attempts to mash Batman: Year One and the connected 1980s Catwoman comics, her own Catwoman: Communist Crime Cat plotline, and the Knight Terrors concept of the Nightmare Wave. Leiz’s art, while often appealing with strong lines, falls apart several times. Whether it’s the whiplash emotional shifts in expression (Catwoman going from sad to wickedly happy in one panel with no real change in relationship to her scene partner), to incoherent panel placement or storytelling (action often shifts from left to right without warning or reason), it’s a mess. One could argue that the messiness is inherent in the Knight Terrors concept – but very few of the other Knight Terrors artists have traveled Leiz’s path.
The issue ends with Selina torn between her plan to control Gotham’s crime by redistributing its wealth from the evil to the weak, and her love for Batman. It’s a decent segue to the upcoming Gotham War, but the conflict still feels monumentally stupid. Gotham is not a real city, as James Tynion said in his intelligent posts on the topic. It will never truly improve, because we still want to read about Batman’s adventures. All in all, this Catwoman run continues to lack strength in characterization, themes, moral exploration, and coherence.
Corin Howell’s C cover features a faux tarot card, with Catwoman upside down, one demon wing and one angel wing on her back, and inset skull and lady liberty/justice-esque figures above (a black and white version of this intricate cover also features as the 1 in 50 incentive variant). Dani’s 1 in 25 incentive features a black and white Catwoman eating a red apple with snakes all around her – a clever nod to all the snakes from the Joker, the Garden of Eden/devil concept that the book plays with, and possibly the snakes=phallic men symbols theme of the overall run too.
Leila Leiz’s main cover is quite nice – much less disturbing than the first issue, this issue pretty nicely ripped from a bodice ripper romance novel set in a bat-infested crypt. Tula Lotay’s B cover shows Catwoman looking at us over her shoulder as large, clawed hands drip blood over her – not extremely related to the Knight Terrors concept, but the idea of being trapped by her own plans is something Howard is playing with, so props to Lotay for getting that concept across.
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Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with an advanced copy of this comic for review purposes. You can find this comic and help support TBU in the process by purchasing this issue digitally on Comixology through Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.
