Overview: In Catwoman #59, Selina Kyle enters the next chapter of her life with a new costume and a new power of having at least nine lives. Is she immortal? Or will she be no more after her ninth life is spent?
Title: Catwoman #59
Writer: Tini Howard
Artist: Stefani Raffaele
Colorist: Veronica Gandini
Letterer: Lucas Gattoni
Main Cover: David Nakayama
Variant Covers: Tirso Cons & Jorge Forbes, Dani, and Nico Leon
We catch up with Catwoman (Selina Kyle) in Medellin, Colombia. She has the cat, Duchess, with her, and she is here to see Paola Molina or Santa Espanda, Our Lady of the Sword. She is returning Duchess to Molina, wearing her older purple skin-tight costume.
Selina tells us through a flashback that Vandal Savage did not kill her, or perhaps he did, she is not sure. A grifter helps remove the rubble, and she is attacked by a pack of cats. The old lady tells her that she looks after the cats there, but the lady tells her that it is true that the cats are not immortal but rather can be reborn nine times. Selina first finds Eiko. She asks Eiko to don her mantle of Catwoman while she is away. Selina has a mission to complete elsewhere ,and she shows the new markings on her back, nine marks with the bottom one colored in black, symbolizing a life lost.
The scene shifts to the present in Medellin, the home of Paola Molina. Molina is relaxing by the pool while Selina tells us the type of person this woman is. In short, she is a violent killer even known for killing her own staff. This is shown soon after.
Selina had gotten romantically involved with Molina’s ex, Valmont. Valmont brought Duchess to Selina, and that’s how Selina found her way to Paolo.
Selina scales the wall of the compound, but she activates the wall defenses, which give her a shock. Catwoman plummets to the ground below. She survives, or does she? Soon she is faced with Our Lady of Swords, who stabs her in the chest. The two fight and talk. Selina decides that Espanda is not a hero but a killer, and she plans to stop her. Selina achieves her goal.
Back in Gotham, Selina returns with Duchess. On removing her shirt, she realizes that she lost two more lives, as there are two more marks on her back that have been colored in black.
Catwoman #59 variant cover by Tirso Cons & Jorge Forbes
It’s an interesting choice to give Selina the purple costume again. It is shown beautifully here, sexy and practical. I like the new gloves, and in place of the long over the elbow gloves, she has short leather gloves that come up to her wrists actually revealing the skin on her wrists.
There are a lot of close-ups of the charaters’ eyes in this story. The artist, Stefani Raffaele, uses the eyes to show emotion. From Molina’s shock at being face-to-face with a possibly immortal being to the rage in Selina’s eyes when she tells Espanda what she thinks of her.
This story gives a supernatural element to Catwoman. No longer is she just a cat burglar, she actually seems to have nine lives now. This could be a callback to the film Batman Returns where Selina is depicted as having nine lives after her dead body is licked by several cats in the beginning of the film. Here she is scratched by several cats. What I find interesting is the visual representation of those lives as markings on Selina’s back that get colored in when a life is lost. Selina tells us that they are not ink or wounds, instead they are actual markings on her skin. This gives an interesting visual of how many lives she has left.
The unfortunate thing is that she lost one to Vandal Savage at the end of Gotham War, and this mission, though not very complicated, cost her two lives, leaving her with only six left.
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.
