Catwoman #82

Posted by Devon on August 29, 2008

(DC)

She’s been everything: hero, villain, dead, reborn, mother, ally, betrayer… and every single one of them fit. Catwoman ends this week the way it began, fighting against The Batman. It ends the way it should, no longer fighting against herself. Catwoman ends, this week, with issue 82, leaving me with an all-to-familiar sense of “bittersweet.” Bittersweet because, while she got the ending she deserved, the current comics marketplace could not provide the sustainability the comic itself deserved.

Whether written by the likes of Ed Brubaker or current series writer Will Pfeiffer, Catwoman has brilliantly and consistently been one of our better-written books on the market. In this issue, Pfeiffer brilliantly and masterfully gives her the therapy she so desperately needs in the form of verbal and physical sparring with The Batman. Pfeiffer has her - and the series - come to a conclusion casting them as things solely and truly unique unto themselves. Using Batman as her spirit guide and with one question, Pfeiffer makes a promise to the reader that they will never see Catwoman the same way ever again.

This issue makes me sad for one simple fact: while we, as fans, shake our collective fist in the air, yelling about wanting well-written, well-drawn comics that also come out on time, series artist David Lopez has for nearly 3 years regularly and devotedly turned in highly accessible, well-thought-out artwork to little or no fanfare. For some reason, we, as a collective, seemed more focused on heaping undeserved attention on consistently late books while comics that could have used our eyes, voices and dollars crept further down the sales chart.

The fact of the matter is that upon finishing Catwoman #82, I realized a sad truth: we’re getting the comics market we deserve.

Well-written. Well-drawn. On time. Always. Catwoman.

We don’t deserve her.

Catwoman goes out exactly as she would want it.

Us needing her more than she needs us.

5 out of 5 Vikings