In this review of Catwoman #72, Selina fights her way through three Belov brothers to find a key!
Catwoman #72 main cover by Sebastian Fiumara
Catwoman #72
“Rules of the Land, Part 2”
Writer: Torunn Gronbekk
Artist: Marianna Ignazzi
Colors: Patricio Delpeche
Main Cover: Sebastian Fiumara
Variant Covers: Frank Cho, Ejikure, Nathan Szerdy, W. Scott Forbes
Release Date: January 22, 2025
Catwoman #72 begins in Budapest, years ago, Selina (going by Evie), looks at the safe where her criminal boss Theodore Belov keeps his (and her) secrets. In the present, Selina remembers the youngest of the family, Adam, now grown up and holding a knife to her throat at a Belov party. While he takes her to the wine cellar, she attacks, and he hits his head. Heading back upstairs, Selina breaks into the safe we saw in the beginning, stealing an egg and other items. She can’t find the “key”, and lingers until the oldest brother, Ivan, arrives. Selina holds him off threatening to start a fire with her lantern, then starts the fire, grabs a copy of Brothers Karamazov she remembers from the past, then fights her way past Ivan and his brother Anton in the flames. Opening it later, she finds the key, then runs, choosing a new disguise.
Analysis: As Torunn Gronbekk and Marianna Ignazzi continue their European crime story for Selina, the lack of anything that makes this specifically a Catwoman comic – connections to her past, familiar characters, even wearing the Catwoman costume – continues to frustrate this reader. Though she does spend a lot of time wearing a fancy dress cat mask, it’s not nearly enough to make it feel less like a generic crime comic and more like an actual Catwoman one.
Though Ignazzi’s art has a strong appeal – often hearkening back to Darwyn Cooke’s simple and intensely appealing linework in such classics as Trail of the Catwoman – the action in this surprisingly lets me down. As Selina tumbles down the wine cellar steps, the two panels are extremely awkward, like a jump cut without any real reason, leading into a fight that could have used the extra panel. The fight with the other two brothers is better, but not terribly memorable.
Some of the writing choices are pure convention without any real semblance of realism – Selina knowing the combination by just hearing it being typed in – but that would be more tolerable if the Catwoman part of the comic was emphasized. In something purporting to be more of a gritty crime comic, it’s frustrating.
Seba Fiumara’s main cover is extremely Anne Hathaway-esque, with Selina in a slinky black dress, a domino mask, and ears in her long hair, very different from her appearance and costume in the comic itself – though she is fighting through fire, similar to the interior! Frank Cho’s variant (repeated in virgin form as a 1 in 50 incentive variant) shows Selina in her new costume, extremely voluptuous and posed with her whip against five white cats, a purple background, and one batarang. Ejikure’s more anime-esque painted cover shows Selina sitting on a roof against a water tower, wisps of steam and bats floating around her as her whip frames her body. Nathan Szerdy’s “Sweater Weather” variant shows Selina in a shiny black swimsuit, holding cocoa with cat marshmallows, sitting in a hot tub next to a Bat-snowman – a lot of humor in this one. W. Scott Forbes’s 1 in 25 incentive variant gives us Selina sitting on a table amidst fire, a mirror behind her showing the faces of cat-eared white masks reminiscent of the Court of Owls.
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Final Thoughts: The lack of real connection to anything much Catwoman-y, awkward action scenes, and thin story leave this chapter of Catwoman’s story a bit weak.
