Catwoman #62: Just a Girl

If there’s anything charming about the Catwoman series in recent times, it would be that you can never tell what’s next with the character, even if some clues are given. Dawn of DC has been heavily defined with Amanda Waller’s tyranny, and she’s famous for operating the Suicide Squad who is now closely associated with Harley Quinn. Even though Harley doesn’t appear in Catwoman #62, nobody could’ve guessed that Catwoman joining the squad, even for one issue, would’ve been on DC’s 2024 bingo card.

Catwoman is teamed up with a variety of different characters that while minimal, drive the story’s plot. Teaming up with Ravager, Sportsmaster, Jeanette, Black Alice, and Clock King, the group is brought together in Cairo, Egypt to steal the beard of Hatshepsut from another famous DC tyrant, Black Adam.

With a strong objective of their mission to not get caught, they fail pretty horribly at that to begin with. With Catwoman and Black Alice, a magician, leading the task and sneaking into the palace, Alice steals not just Black Adam’s power but also the beard. Black Adam eventually catches up to them while the two women find themselves trapped in his palace.

Somewhere along the line, Catwoman comes face to face with a statue of the a cat goddess, transporting her to a place where she comes face to face with the goddess in a real form. This is the part of the Nine Lives arc where things begin to get surreal and unpredictable. Tini Howard does a phenomenal job at showing that Catwoman is so much more than just a Gotham city street thief and Batman’s top love interest.

On a note regarding the book’s art, it continues with its playful will I, won’t I style with Giandomenico and Gandini having clear chemistry with their visions of how everything should look. It compliments Howard’s writing brilliantly and aesthetically, even when the goddess doesn’t look too out there but fits in just perfectly in a childishly fantastical style.