In this review of Catwoman #69, clouds gather around Selina as an international conspiracy against her springs into action!
Catwoman #69 main cover by Sebastián Fiumara
Catwoman #69
Writer: Torunn Gronbekk
Artist: Fabiana Mascolo
Colors: Patricio Delpeche
Main Cover: Sebastian Fiumara
Variant Covers: Frank Cho, Homare, Daniel Sampere, Noobovich
Release Date: October 16, 2024
This review contains spoilers
Catwoman #69 begins in Selina’s apartment, as she wakes up to news of her own death – one of her old identities, Evie Hall, in Berlin. Noticing heavy undercover surveillance from the police, she discovers she’s also wanted as Selina Kyle in connection for a lethal Gotham sniper shooting the night before at a society event she attended.
Elsewhere, a tech tracks Selina’s face through the internet, ordered by a voice on the phone to kill her before the police find her.
Putting on her suit, Selina exits her apartment and heads out over the rooftops as a mysterious setup shoots some of the cops surveilling her. Breaking into another one of her apartments, Catwoman finds a European hitman there first, fights him, and knocks him out. The hitman’s employer on the phone threatens her, and Selina heads out of Gotham disguised as a nurse. She discovers her old crew when she was Evie Hall is being murdered, and flies to Berlin to find out why – alerting the tech to her location.
Analysis:
After the dreadful run by Tini Howard, focused on telling readers that Selina is super competent while showing her failing and needing her bloated army of out of character gal pals to save her from an army of evil evil men, Torunn Gronbekk’s first issue with Catwoman #69 is a breath of fresh air. Selina is shown to be competent three times, though not perfect since she does get tagged by facial recognition at the end (but could that perhaps be on purpose? We shall see!) First in spotting and evading the cops watching her, second in beating the hitman trying to kill her, and third in getting out of town and to Germany. All this with the melancholy, noir-atmopheric narration that practically has a muted trumpet wailing in the background like LA Confidential. The action is brutal, punctuating the slow burn mood with bursts of urgency and horror. All in all, a really well crafted introduction to this adventure, with clear stakes and murky villains, just the way an opening should be.
Fabiana Mascolo’s art, with beautiful colors by Patricio Delpeche, perfectly complements the storytelling by Gronbekk. Mascolo’s art is more detailed than the last main artist for the run, Nico Leon. That allows the book to feel a bit more equally divided between colorist and linework, and Selina in particular has a great flair and expression, even through all her disguises! Mascolo also designed the new Catwoman costume – similar to the Joelle Jones design from 2018 with the short jacket, this one also has a distinctive jacket, highlighted by a collar exposing cleavage instead of armpits, and striking textured shoulder pads. Time will tell how it works, but just being free of the armpit holes is a big relief for this reader!
Moving from regular variant cover artist on Detective Comics for Ram V’s just completed run to main cover artist on this new run of Catwoman, Sebastian Fiumara (an old favorite of mine from over a decade ago on the Ender’s Shadow comics for Marvel) provides a great action shot of Selina in her new costume slashing her whip at the reader, with a simple white background with pink/purple claw slashes – vivid and exciting. Master artist Frank Cho provides the first variant plus a virgin 1 in 50 incentive using the same linework of a black and white woodcut-style Selina sitting on a thronelike chair surrounded by cats in her underwear – pretty classic Cho! Homare provides a pensive look of Catwoman on a stool in front of a bigger bust of Selina.
Daniel Sampere (Dark Crisis and current Wonder Woman artist) provides a single full body figure Catwoman in the new costume against the stark silver foil cover to add to the All In variant collection. In addition to the 1 in 50 virgin variant, Noobovich provides a sexy and pink-heavy 1 in 25 incentive variant of Selina cracking her whip as she jumps from a building in a foreign land.
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Final Thoughts
Starting out her run with a slow burn and haunting mood, punctuated by bursts of terrifying violence, Torunn Gronbekk and Fabiana Mascolo give Selina a globe-trotting mystery to solve with Catwoman #69 that promises thrills and emotions galore.
