Death Becomes Her: Reviewing ‘Catwoman’ #63

Nine actual lives to spare, to use for anything imaginable. Unfortunately, Catwoman is running out of extra lives. Surely, she would be a bit more careful with those she has left.

Let’s not be silly, of course she wouldn’t.

A watery death awaits the feline super thief in Catwoman #63 from Tini Howard, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Veronica Gandini, and Lucas Gattoni.

Truly, I’m running out of things to say about this still-going story arc.

As solid a concept as the nine lives is on paper, the execution so far is leaving me wanting. Throwing in godly things and having this cat god just letting Selina blow through lives for mostly pretty silly missions is wild. I mean, saving some documentarian and his film from a forgotten realm of Atlantis is just not what I would have expected. One life blown to save him, the second to rescue his film that she’s now a producer on.

While it’s probably not, it’s hard not to feel that this arc is just stretched-out filler.

With creative teams about to finish up on big books like Nightwing and Detective Comics, and a shift in the main Batman series, a Bat-line relaunch seems pretty close at hand. Therefore, something will be changing for this series. Whether it’s a direction or creative team, one has to wonder what this is all leading to.

It just feels lost and disappointing after what Howard delivered in the first major chunk of the series, and in other series before.

Some visual continuity is here as Di Giandomenico remains on board for this issue. Strangely it feels a bit more composed than the previous issue, where there were some panels or visuals that felt a bit rougher than normal. Which is saying something since their style happens to be one that is naturally pretty rough and sharp full of solid motion. Tons of it takes place under water at a frantic pace, which the art does reflect pretty well.

A lot of shadows and colder colors are at hand for Gandini this time around. A lot of washed-out beats and less vibrant stuff than normally might come from such a story. It keeps a thread to the previous issues, despite each of them taking place in whole new locations and circumstances. It still feels pretty bright and powerful when it needs to be, hitting home the more supernatural facets at play.

Per usual, Gattoni makes the lettering do what it does best on the page. Giving those black, purple, and white caption boxes the pop of Catwoman related energy they deserve. Plenty of little flairs that liven up all the bubbles and dialogue. Taking advantage of the fact that many swathes of the issue can’t have dialogue because of the watery setting. Allowing the captions and the rest flow through the pages so smoothly.

Catwoman #63 is now available from DC Comics.