The Queen Of Crime Rises Once Again: Reviewing ‘Catwoman’ #56

War is coming for Gotham. On the eve of that war, one participant has completed her majorly bold opening moves. After months of hard-fought battles and losses, Catwoman’s battle against the mobs of Gotham has been completed.

A lot happens in Catwoman #56, and that really feels like an understatement.

DC Comics is about to put all its titles on a two-month hiatus to run its Knight Terrors event. In their place many of the regular books will have two-issue nightmare-focused stories, some by the regular creative team and others not. It’s a very bizarre move because some books have literally just launched. Others were either mid-story lines or were at a point where momentum might be lost during that hiatus.

This one, at least, was lucky enough to wrap up the story. Perhaps the two-issue nightmare story, still written by Tini Howard, will bridge the gap between this and the Gotham War crossover with Batman. I’ll reserve judgment for those reviews.

Speaking of Howard, the slow burn that she has put into place here has been really solid and pays off quite well. One of the things that made it work was that alongside the long-built overall story, there were smaller stories happening. It made sure that we never lost interest because things were personal and fast-paced, but also played together well. Every single beat that we saw from issue #39 till now is connected to where she is now.

Selina’s turn towards bigger crime aspects beyond just thievery, while employing Batman’s rule about killing (after the Valmont thing) is intriguing. It shows why she and her off-and-on love will come to war (also his whole multiversal trip in his own book). Howard shows that Selina thinks that crime done the right way is the way to go to protect Gotham, but we know the Bat feels quite different.

Also, I really like that she was ten steps ahead of Black Mask. It was very powerful to know that the thing he wants most is the mask and use that to break and destroy him rather than kill him. At the same time, we know that someone like Mask and the other criminals are too erratic. Selina’s control, and enforcement of the one rule, are sure to blow up in her and Gotham’s faces.

This series has been an artistic ‘musical chairs’ for a lot of the run. This issue, perhaps moreso than most. We get Marcus To and Marco Santucci switching off every few pages along with M.L. Sanapo doing finishes on the first three pages. As an artist jam, it mostly works since they are handling different characters and moments until they aren’t. Their work has the same overall energy and style that doesn’t make it jarring to switch. Noticeable but not jarring.

All the action is pretty solid and fluid, with decent capturing of emotion/feeling. A ton is going down and it’s pretty rapid-fire. I would say their style isn’t quite the same level as some previous ones at capturing the crime feel. It works as a superhero-adjacent book though with lots of action.

Nothing against any artist that has stepped in here, they are doing great work. It’s just unfortunate that this series is one that hasn’t been able to really nail down an artistic identity like others, or even the previous run.

There is a throughline to previous issues as Veronica Gandini’s colors are still in play. Lots of darker tones with weight to them, dropping in vibrant pops as needed. It feels quite heavy as a crime story should and it’s not too far into the realm of superhero with the vibrancy. This is a street-level underbelly type of story, and it feels that way.

Another member of the team still doing what they do best is letterer Lucas Gattoni. This is an issue where the levels of dialogue and the captions are pretty equal, a lot of words to be found. It all flows great, as usual, and captures the voices and tones fluidly. We get a ton of information in the spread-out caption boxes in a way that tells us tons without Catwoman or someone else just vomiting information at us.

Overall a satisfying conclusion to this part of the story. Now on to the nightmares. Or should we say… knight-mares.

Catwoman #56 is now available from DC Comics.