Batman/Catwoman
I’m not very knowledgeable about the current state of DC Comics, so I chose this collection because a) I had heard that this was outside of the main canon, and b) thanks to Batman Returns and Selina Kyle’s appearances in Batman: The Animated Series I have become a fan of the Bat/Cat relationship. So a graphic novel that was about those characters? Count me in!
I guess alphabetical order wins out because this story is really about Selina Kyle, the Catwoman of the title. Oh, there is a ton of Batman but it’s Selina who is anchoring the story. I’m glad I read the synopsis before diving into this because it let me know that “The Bat and the Cat’s past, present, and future collide in this thrilling, romantic epic!” Which – true! Except things are almost literally colliding, as between pages the timeline shifts and as a reader you need to keep up. That jumping around was a bit jarring at first, but once I got into the groove of the story, it flowed better for me.
Also jarring was I was not expecting the amount of Joker in the story. I mean I get it, The Joker and Batman are famous foes, and Selina operates in a space where she’s kind of a villain but she’s also dating (and married) to Batman, so it makes sense that we see the Joker, but I’m not a huge fan, so I was a little “meh” on that aspect of the story. I also wished we saw more of the extended Bat-Family, I do enjoy the Bat/Cat romance but I also love the interactions with the rest of the people who are in Batman’s orbit. I was so happy every time Alfred was on the page. A lot of the villain cameos were, however, delightful, and I really really enjoyed the future set scenes with the Penguin.
I’ve read swearing in comic books before, and I fully believe that the characters involved in this story would swear, but it did start to grate on me that all instances of swearing were written as variations of “@!%&!”. The whole story was adult in nature, and the kind of old-timey comic book swearing really threw me out of the story from time to time. It became a bit of a joke to me, by the end I was giggling every time the symbols showed up in a speech bubble.
My personal preference is to read a story that is a bit more linear, and I think I would have enjoyed this more had it played more straightforwardly. I liked the stories the most at the end of the collection; the ones outside of the 12-issue Batman/Catwoman run, stories that, while taking place over various time periods, were more linear in nature.
Overall, yes, I enjoyed this very deep, very expansive dive into this version of Batman and Catwoman.
Batman: Wayne Family Adventures
This is a very different beast from the Batman/Catwoman comic. Taking place in its own continuity, this is actually a lighthearted Batman comic. It focuses on the characters who make up the extended “family” that Batman has collected over the years and tells short, cute, funny, and sometimes heartwarming stories about these characters.
This is very light; these characters in the main continuity often have very dark things happen to them. Some of that is referenced (Jason Todd’s intro notes that death and resurrection leave some lasting scars) but that is mostly it. This is also a series where characters call dibs on cookies and have post-patrol snack fests. Some of the darker superhero tropes are played for laughs (there is a very funny comic about who changed their codenames, who has died and who has been trained by ninjas…) but anytime there is an option to go dark, the comic goes light.
The stories read like fun little vignettes and have expressive and colourful artwork to go along with them. Except for a couple of multi-parters, the stories are self-contained. The stakes are very very low, and when there is drama it’s more about the characters and their emotions. I like the not-so-emotionally-constipated version of Bruce Wayne we get in this! It does feel maybe a bit like some slice-of-life fan fiction come to life but – that is okay. It was what I wanted from this collection and it delivered.
Plus this collection contained Bat-Cow which was just – a delight. Really this was the palate cleanser that I needed going into a long weekend. A nice breezy, not that high-stakes collection of characters I’m used to seeing deal with a whole lot of angst, just have a continuous run of good-natured adventures.
Is cozy superhero a genre? If so I think this would fit in it. I don’t want it all the time, but it hit just right when I read it.
