Writer, Artist, Color Artist, Letterer: Cliff Chiang
Review by Adam Ray
Catwoman: Lonely City #3 continues to portray Gotham City’s bleak future in a way that truly feels possible. The last issue truly painted this lived-in but starkly different look at the Dark Knight’s hometown. This is a world without Batman, but with the infrastructure for peace to stay maintained is both a welcome place to live and one with many immense and terrifying problems.
I’ve taken an extensive look at recent DC Black Label titles because the creative talent used to produce these has always led to rich and ambitious stories.
The singular creator behind Catwoman: Lonely City has been able to apply a great deal of consistency across the title. Now that we’re here in book 3, we have had a lot of the usual context done away with, and we can look deeper into the story. The political tensions of this near dystopian future Gotham feels measured and real compared to our world, with all the details that show it off as a recognizable setting from our favorite comics.
There’s something both captivating and mundane about the Lonely City artwork. The color palette’s a little muted, which I take to show the age and distance these characters have gone through, between the current continuity and the possible future seen in The Lonely City.
Conclusion
Catwoman: Lonely City #3 is incredibly dense with political drama, personal trauma, and the intense action of Catwoman executing her plans. There’s a specific kind of vulnerability to her that’s hard to find and makes for a unique reading experience. We’re all so familiar with these characters that it takes an ambitious creator to tell their own kind of story and reframe them all in a whole new way.
Images Courtesy of DC Entertainment