Catwoman #6

[aeka]

I didn't think it was possible for this book to get anymore problematic, but I stand corrected.

WARNING: for graphic eroticised violence.

4 pages speak for themselves





And then the inevitable confrontation with the Dark Knight himself.





..............

Dear Winick,

Helena Wayne called. And right now she's feeling like unleashing her own personal brand of justice after the way you've shat on both her mum and dad by writing rubbish such as this. And "rubbish" is being *very* polite. This. THIS is just not "sexy" at all.

Comments

[harpers_child]

dear dc,
have you ever wondered why i've stopped buying your comics? i mean other than that whole stephanie brown business a few years back. this would be why. i'm a woman. i identify with the female characters. stop making me a victim and get out of my way so i can hero properly.
no love,
me.

[dancesontrains]

...TBH, I'm just laughing at how bad the 'dialogue' in the last panels is.

And ewww @ the rest.

[dancesontrains]

<3

[mrstatham]

What a load of shit. The art's increasingly devolving into freakish, ridiculous panels of Selina's facial expressions, and the writing's pretty pathetic. Again, if I were DC, I would've backed up a dump truck full of money to Ed Brubaker's house with a note simply saying 'Moar Catwoman plz'.

He at least knows how to write a sexy and confident woman, whereas Winnick is just barely putting a layer of gloss on dialogue that may as well be 'I AM SEXY AND A THIEF, PROBLEM? ALSO, I HAVE A DEATH WISH!' while Batman's going 'I AM DARK AND INTIMIDATING AND WE WILL KEEP ON HAVING THESE BULLSHIT MEETINGS BECAUSE IT VAGUELY HINTS THAT YOU ARE MORALLY UNCERTAIN, SELINA. THAT AND THE SEXY TIMES'.

[valtyr]

Batman's teeth, what the heck is going on.

I don't like this.

[whitesycamore]

I think the thing that offends me most is Winick's habit of recycling jokes that weren't even funny in the first place. That line about it being hard to make witty comebacks with a collapsed lung is straight out of Under The Red Hood.

Speaking of which, I don't think that the *writing* in this scene is particularly sexualised - in most respects it's highly comparable to the way that Winick wrote Jason's torture at the hands of the Joker.

The later interactions between Selina and Bruce are cringe worthy, but I think the eroticised violence is all down to March's art.

Although I actually really like the way the panel with the ear biting is drawn. Well, I don't 'like' it, but it's striking.

[aeka]

So. Much. Motto.

And word on dumping a shit tonne of money on Ed Brubaker's front yard for a well rounded portrayal of Selina as a complex woman without resorting to the brusque eroticised violence that has characterised this book.

I'm not against a different take on Selina, but this is just shit. There is nothing remotely compelling or interesting about Winick's vision of Selina and this book reads as nothing short of sexual violence fantasy galore. Even more alarming is that this is one of DC's top selling books.

[omnipotent]

Look, I understood Selina was pissed, but I shook my head so hard when she went all Mike Tyson on the other woman, whose name I forgot--it was mentioned a few issues back but I didn't care enough to commit it to memory.

And the argument between Catwoman and Batman read like something I'd see in a daytime soap opera. My eyes got sore from all the rolling they did.

ETA: But even the backstory leading up to this was pathetic to me. She steals a load of money and then spends it lavishly, while knowing she should lay low? I'm sorry, but the Catwoman I know would lay low for a few days before lavishing herself with the finer pleasures of life. She's not stupid, geez.

[omnipotent]

You know, I'm glad I'm not the only one who's been wondering what the hell's going on with the art in this book.

[mrstatham]

To be fair, it doesn't say the eroticised violence was in the writing; I'd agree with you that it's March's art - Although quite how you manage to make the ol' Mike Tyson special look even vaguely erotic is beyond me.

That aside, this volume of Catwoman still aggravates me. Between the violence repeatedly dumped on Selina - her home being blown up or whatever and now this, and the continued reliance on guest appearances from Batman, it's just annoying; I know Brubaker actively involved Bruce in his run, and that Winnick probably has to elaborate a little on the specifics of the new Selina/Bruce setup, but it's just so aggravating.

I don't need to see a book where Selina even vaguely tries to justify herself to Batman by stating she's 'earned' something she's stolen. She shouldn't have to - and I don't think it's remotely in character for her.

[aeka]

I forgot Winick wrote the Under the Redhood movie, but on the note of the eroticised violence being all down to March's art...if Winick is writing the scripts and describing what's going on in the panels I don't think it's just March. >.o

[mrstatham]

March is good at what he does, I'll be honest. He draws attractive women, and they're stylised to a degree that I don't really find it worth objecting to him like I do, say, Greg Land. The guy's got a clear style, and I can understand why they put him on Catwoman of all things. I'd prefer it didn't have the obnoxious sexuality in place (and he can do things that aren't oversexualised), but I think he's at least fairly good at what he does, which isn't something I can say for quite a few comic artists.

But some of his facial expressions are verging on the increasingly bizarre; There was a really wide-eyed one in the previous issue that just looked crazy, and some of the ones here are odd - The one of Bruce screaming at her about her death wish makes him look more like Empowered's Major Havok than the Dark Knight.

[mrstatham]

Again, I don't mind March - I think he's a competent artist when he wants to be, but I think DC have made a mistake in putting him on this book; That said, I don't think the combination of creators helps - You've got a very 'sexy' artist on one hand, and a writer barely above 'frat boy' levels when it comes to his perception of sexiness and the like. So Winnick might think he's playing to March's strengths, but I thought March's work on Azrael was much, much better, personally.

And no, I don't mind different takes on Selina - Brubaker's is my favourite, I'll admit, but there are bits and pieces of others that I like; BTAS's version, for instance, and I also like Batman Returns' version, despite the liberties it took; BR's version also had the kind-of creepy bizarre sexual violence fantasy thing going on, but there, I at least thought it was intentional and deliberately invoked. BR's Selina was also tragic, fairly complex and interesting; Here, Winnick's aiming for what he thinks is a powerful portrayal of the character, and not seeing how problematic it is.

[whitesycamore]

Selina is lying on the floor, her captor leans over her with her ear close to her face to hear what she's saying, and then Selina bites her. That's blow for blow what happened in UTRH too (except that Jason only spat at the Joker, he didn't bite him - I do get the impression that Winick recycles vignettes and 'character moments' a great deal).

I don't really see anything inherently eroticised in it - unless Winick wrote that Selina is lying *sexily* on the floor, her captor leans over her with her ear *sexily* close to her face to hear what she's saying, and then Selina bites her *sexily*.

Although believe me, after reading Frank Miller's creator notes on ASBAR, I'm not ruling out that possibility. :/

[omnipotent]

Don't get me wrong, the art is great, but Selina has been making increasingly weird and, to me, painful-looking facial expressions. Her eyes often look as though they're about to burst from their sockets. That can't be a pleasant feeling.

[gerardotejada]

I have a discusion with I friend, I said that while Selina is based on Audrey Hepburn, miss Audrey wont stand a chance in gotham underworld. The image of Selina being brutal and violent have such potential for a great story that reaches deep down on human psicology and test the limits of a character that is always in control, the unleashed image of a woman reaching to her last options and the subtle reference to S&M.


Then this is Winick, he is capable of making batman unpopular, he is capable of taking a good idea and turn It into crap.

Go Helena Wayne, get in contact with Mia Dearden, Im sure she has an arrow with Winick's name on It

[mrstatham]

I absolutely agree. Again, March is stylised, and I don't mind his figures so much because I do get a nice feeling of movement from the action scenes and the like.

But the facial expressions.. I don't know.. The editors should be asking him to rein it in a touch, to me. I mean, I don't know. Maybe I'd be wild eyed and furious after someone's beaten the shit out me and I'm trying to rip their ear off with my teeth, but personally, I think I'd be aiming more for the 'exertion/strain' look.

[salinea]

much as I loved Brubaker's Catwoman, I don't think his run was entirely free of cheese cake art (in the latter part of it) or of brutal torture of women. Although I don't remember if they were used in conjunction.

[mrstatham]

I loved Miller's notes for ASBAR just because of how freaking ridiculous they were. The focus on Vicki Vale's ass might as well have been narrated by Al Pacino in HEAT, bellowing about it.

[gerardotejada]

It doesnt matter how they treat womans but how they write them

Killing Joke? No complains
Supergirl's Death? No complains

War Games? Worst Batman's story EVER! (editors' fault)
Identity Crisis's Rape? Why a mother€!£¥ng rape (editors fault) it doesnt add or mean anything!
Cry for Justice? You took an Eisner wining author and gave him a rifle and firced to kill inocents, congratulations editors you are officialy nazis

[darkknightjrk]

I find what they're doing with Selina interesting--first page of the first issue, once you look around the boobs, basically lays out her motivation at this point: life isn't without risk, you could die at any minute, so why waste time and not just take what you want? Second and third issue was basically about her finding out first-hand that the risk isn't just to her, and her friend is killed in the process, all because of her actions. What this issue in particular seems to show is that she's grieving hard over Lola's death.

Between this, the solicits saying she's going to move around to other forms of crime, and what her role in Night of the Owls is, I wonder if what Winnick is doing is taking Selina from a more reckless, common criminal place and is turning her more towards the more calm, crafty, less amoral version we saw in stuff like Brubaker's run.

[mrstatham]

The torture sequence with Black Mask did actually involve both genders, which doesn't make it better or excuse it, but at the same time, it was still an established character systematically attempting to destroy Selina's life; This, on the other hand, has had no such build up and isn't part of a story that's nearly as compelling. That DC later went on to have Selina's sister go completely nuts and turn supervillain isn't down to Brubaker, either; I guess what they did is more comic-booky (and fucking stupid) than portray a woman struggling back from something like that happening to her.

As for the art, I don't recall the art ever being like this, nor was the tone of his book like Winnick's, which is setting out to be deliberately cheesecakey, it would seem. Brubaker did, however, have artists like Cameron Stewart and Darwyn Cooke on board.

[mrstatham]

Nobody complains about The Killing Joke? Seriously?

And please, don't excuse the editors when it comes to TKJ; the decision to cripple Barbara was, hey, AN EDITORIALLY AUTHORISED MOVE!!

Mod Note

[salinea]

Can you not use the Godwin Point in order to insult people, please? It is disrespectful to victims of the Nazis.

[starwolf_oakley]

Now, not so long ago, I'd respond to these pages like this:

"Why? Because Dan DiDio hates you, that's why."

And yet I wonder if this is more Bob Harras' doing. And there isn't much that says Bob Harras hates all comic book fans.