"Selina (Now In Her 50's) In A Batman-less Gotham"
Review by Brayden (they/them)
Other Favourite Titles Include:
You may recognise this absolutely gorgeous art style from ‘Wonder Woman‘ by Brian Azzarello & Brian K. Vaughan’s ‘Paper Girls‘, but this time Cliff Chiang takes on the entire creative process with a spectacular addition to the DC Comics Black Label collection. Chiang weaves a compelling story where we get to follow Selina Kyle as a 50+ year old who has just spent the last 10 years in Blackgate Prison after a mysterious event referred to as “Fool’s Night” resulted in the deaths of some major characters in the Batman world. Now Selina must try to solve a mystery left stuck with her after all these years… by assembling a crew featuring some of her old friends to pull off some classic heist action!
With the obvious main selling point of this book being the art (oh my god THE ART 😍), let’s just accept that it’s amazing and get into the other aspects of this book that I really enjoyed! This future for Gotham that Cliff Chiang has developed is captivating and incredibly well paced with how it slowly fills in the gaps of how the city and characters we follow have reached the point we see them in now. For example, seeing the political drama of Councilwoman Barbara Gordon fighting against the fascist police-state of Mayor Harvey Dent was well developed and reflects a lot of fears we have in the world today.
But by far the most interesting aspect of this tale is getting a story featuring characters that aren’t just in that amorphous age bracket between 25-45! Seeing a feminine character in her 50’s who isn’t just a motherly-figure is such a rarity in media, and exploring how these classic comic book characters are dealing with ageing out of their prime physical years is so much more interesting than just another Batman x (Insert Female Character Here) will-they/won’t-they romance. No spoilers here but shout-outs are to be had to the great member of the crew with the big belly and lil hat and the living-her-best-life friend who moved away, you’ll know who I mean if you read it and they are amazing.
While in my opinion the final action scene can get a little bit too ‘larger than life’ compared to the rest of the story’s mostly street-level nature , the execution on this book is perfect. After you finish reading it you are even treated to a behind-the-scenes peek at Cliff Chiang’s process for the creation of ‘Catwoman: Lonely City‘, where editor Chris Conroy displays just how meticulously crafted the work is.
A perfect read for the avid DC Comics fan and casual reader alike, Cliff Chiang solidifies his place as a masterful creator in the comic and graphic novel medium and I personally can’t wait to see what he has up his sleeve for his next project.
