Catwoman 80th Anniversary Special

[Frontier]

Catwoman's 80th Anniversary Special was released today, featuring 100-pages of everyone's favorite Feline Femme Fatale!



Stories included are:

• "Skin the Cat" - By Paul Dini and Emmanuela Luppachino.
• "Now You See Mee" - By Ann Nocenti and Robson Rocha.
• "Helena" - By Tom King and Mikel Janin.
• "The Catwoman of Earth" - By Jeff Parker and Jonathan Case.
• "A Cat of Nine Tales" - By Liam Sharp.
• "Little Bird" - By Mindy Newell and Lee Garbett.
• "Born to Kiln" By Chuck Dixon and Kelly Jones.
• "Conventional Wisdom" - By Will Pfeiffer and Pia Guerra.
• "Addicted to Trouble" - By Ram V and Fernando Blanco.
• "The Art of Picking a Lock" - By Ed Brubaker and Cameron Stewart.

Please feel free to express your thoughts on the special overall as well as the individual stories .

[Godlike13]

Man I was excited to get back to my comic shop and pick this up, but of course my comic shop got looted .

[batnbreakfast]

Man I was excited to get back to my comic shop and pick this up, but of my comic shop got looted .

Catwoman was there earlier...

[Frontier]

Man I was excited to get back to my comic shop and pick this up, but of my comic shop got looted .

I'm so sorry to hear that .

[DisneyBoy]

I'm really excited to see a non-spoiler review of the Ed Brubaker story.....I miss that era of Catwoman, and Stewart's artwork of her is always so good.

[tbgo]

Is this available on digital?

[Hilden B. Lade]

Is this available on digital?

Available on Comixology and Kindle Store.

[Katana500]

My favorite was Helena! hope to see her born in main continuity soon!

[Frontier]

I'm really excited to see a non-spoiler review of the Ed Brubaker story.....I miss that era of Catwoman, and Stewart's artwork of her is always so good.

It's a pretty nice slice of of Brubaker's run, with the characters and characterization you would expect from that era along with some gorgeous Cameron Stewart art .

[godisawesome]

Pretty good collection overall.

My favorites were the ones by Brubaker, Dini, and Dixon. Dixon’s still probably the best at writing Catwoman as an anti-heroine in a heist story, though Kelly Jones artwork is still more of a hindrance to my enjoyment than an asset. Dini’s the master of trying to find a way to combine Selina as a vigilante and criminal in one story, and I couldn’t help but think that I wouldn’t mind seeing the Taxidermist again. Brubaker isn’t necessarily my favorite version of the character, but there’s a reason it was successful, and his story was a delight, especially with Slam Bradley’s appearance.

I also had a soft spot for the story with Selina taking Maggie on a road trip. I think Maggie is a character with plenty of potential for Catwoman stories, but the evil nun supervillain she was for a while wasn’t a good answer.

King’s story started pretty good... but I think I’ve figured out why I’m cool on his take on the characters. It’s got some great beats at the start, but I tend to find it the wrong combination of corny and boring *for me*; Dini hits a similar tone, but more balanced and in a way I actually like. It’s a shame they don’t have Dini doing more work with the characters right now; supplementing King’s ideas with a different but just as skilled writer would be a good move, Kim dof like how Damian gained significant appeal with fans outside of the Morrison-crowd when Brian Q. Miller and others tackled him.

[OBrianTallent]

I realize they cant include everyone, but I was quite surprised to not see Jo Duffy included.

[millernumber1]

• "Skin the Cat" - By Paul Dini and Emmanuela Luppachino.
• "Now You See Mee" - By Ann Nocenti and Robson Rocha.
• "Helena" - By Tom King and Mikel Janin.
• "The Catwoman of Earth" - By Jeff Parker and Jonathan Case.
• "A Cat of Nine Tales" - By Liam Sharp.
• "Little Bird" - By Mindy Newell and Lee Garbett.
• "Born to Kiln" By Chuck Dixon and Kelly Jones.
• "Conventional Wisdom" - By Will Pfeiffer and Pia Guerra.
• "Addicted to Trouble" - By Ram V and Fernando Blanco.
• "The Art of Picking a Lock" - By Ed Brubaker and Cameron Stewart.

Please feel free to express your thoughts on the special overall as well as the individual stories .

For me, of course, the highlight was "Helena." The Annual #2 was one of my favorite comics of all time, and this is a beautiful continuation of it that also stands on its own. And instead of just telling a Batman story, King very much focuses on Selina's perspective, with a lovely nod to Rooftops at the end.

Lupacchino's gotten a lot of released work this week, and this is no exception to her prodigious talent. I found the Dini and Newell stories buoyed by their art - they tend to be a lot darker than I tend to enjoy. Dixon's take was fun, but as others have said, I didn't love Kelly Jones on art. It's not the most off putting art I've seen from Jones (I like it better than the Tec 1000 piece he did with Johns), but Jim Balent was right there... Brubaker and Stewart's was a really nice little narrative gem, and I'm very glad he was willing to come back. Ram's story was cool, but I hope he deals with the Bat/Cat relationship as a status quo element, rather than ignoring it as the Jones run kind of has when he fully takes over the book. Lots and lots of really great art - Lupacchino, Garbett, Sharp, Case, and Stewart especially.

[Coco Loco]

I wasn't crazy about the first two stories. Too much "tell not show" in the Dini story, and the Nocenti one made little sense (at least to me). The book got substantially better after that. King/ Mann was poignant. The Parker/ Case story was weird and super fun. Sharp's story was an interesting thought experiment. Loved Newell's prose. The Dixon/ Jones story was a solid action piece. Pfeifer's story was also weird but imaginative. Ram V & Blanco did the 2nd most poignant thing in the book. And Brubaker/ Stewart was a lovely injection of nostalgia.

[Frontier]

My thoughts on each story:

• "Skin the Cat" - Fitting that a story by a major B:TAS writer would write a story emphasizing Catwoman the conservationist and animal lover since that was such a major factor for the character in the cartoon. The Taxidermist also definitely feels like a Dini creation. Solid enough story to start off the collection and showing Selina's love of animals and her craftiness. Also, even if she had the cats do it, Selina totally killed that guy.
  
• "Now You See Mee" - This story felt like a mess, which is kind of the sense I've gotten of Nocenti's Catwoman. Like, was it about Selina's standards for the people she works with? About her sizing somebody up? How she judges peoples characters? There was just so much going on and it didn't feel very cohesive or sensible. The art was okay at least.
  
• "Helena" - This felt in-line with King's run, so your opinion on it will probably depend on your opinion of King's run. So we have Batman and Catwoman as this unbeatable crime-fighting duo who can tackle anything and call each other "Bat" and "Cat" constantly, and you have this operatic, lyrical, dialogue going on from everybody and the villains talking ad nauseum. Pregnant Selina and her tackling the idea of motherhood was kind of funny, but pregnant Selina in the Catsuit was a little too ridiculous. Even if she would resist Bruce telling her no, she was jeopardizing the baby everytime she went out there, so I feel like then Bruce would put his foot down. But in summation, I don't know if that Batman/Catwoman series is ever going to come out, but this feels like a fair coda to King's run.
  
• "The Catwoman of Earth" - This was a really fun and vibrant story, fitting for Jeff Parker and something set in the Batman '66 universe. We got to see a bit of Catwoman as this figure of female empowerment and a corrupter, and I feel like had the '66 series still a thing we would've seen this female alien as a moll or assistant for Catwoman in a story. And who would have ever thought they'd see people just handing their valuables to Catwoman? I just really miss the Batman '66 comic...
  
• "A Cat of Nine Tales" - Not much to say about the story other then Liam Sharp is a good artist and Catwoman really knows how to manipulate people. That poor guard...I'm surprised one of her tales didn't involve Batman turning up to stop her.
  
• "Little Bird" - An interesting slice of early Post-Crisis Selina with her Frank Miller established status quo and some of her background as established in the subsequent mini-series she received before her 90's series. Selian saying she'll never have kids is kind of funny not long after a story featuring her having a baby, and it was interesting seeing all the influencing people in Selina's life and how that impacts her code and demeanor. And the overall message that Selina is a strong, independent, person who rejects companionship but secretly is incredibly lonely.
  
• "Born to Kiln" - A pretty good standard 90's Catwoman story, featuring Selina on a high-octane, crazy, heist that runs afoul of another Supervillain and with wonky boob physics. Selina the daring, daredevil, and creative thief.
  
• "Conventional Wisdom" - This was a weird story. I guess this was a send up of Catwoman as a celebrity and convention culture in general? There were some fun jokes there (I didn't care for making fun of some costumes, but c'est la vie) and the art was solid. It was interesting but it was also just kind of weird to read.
  
• "Addicted to Trouble" - The story that seems to have most ties to the present-day ongoing Catwoman. I liked getting to see Selina and Maggie on a road trip together and getting into Selina's head. Of course on-top of all the other trouble Selina has brought to Maggie's life, inciting a bar brawl and getting them both arrested is probably not the worst thing that's happened to them, which is probably why they laughed about it in the squad car. And while Selina escaped custody, she did return the wedding dress she stole, so...justice?
  
• "The Art of Picking a Lock" - Pretty firm summation of the Catwoman of Brubaker's run. Selina as a hero with musing on her old life and the thrills of being a thief, along with Holly Robinson and Slam Bradley along for the ride. It was nice to see the "real" Holly again.

[lilyrose]

I enjoyed it. I think Helena and the fan convention one were probably the most memorable.

I liked seeing her have Helena though. I wish the Bat/Cat series was coming out soon