"Catwoman: Selina's Big Score" Talkback (Spoilers)

[James Harvey]

Catwoman goes for her biggest payday yet!

CATWOMAN: SELINA'S BIG SCORE

http://dccomics.com/media/covers/1293_180x270.jpg (http://dccomics.com/media/covers/1293_400x600.jpg)[

Written by: Darwyn Cooke
Art by: Darwyn Cooke

In this fast-paced, cinematic adventure, Catwoman learns that like anything else in life, loyalty has its price. Presumed dead and without any cash, Catwoman must find a way to make a quick score to set herself up in Gotham again. Learning of a train loaded with unmarked cash headed to Canada, the sultry cat burglar gathers some old friends and devises a plan. But when one of her former allies sells her out to the mob, Catwoman's simple train robbery becomes a desperate gambit for survival.

Comments?

[Joker85]

Is anyone going to be picking this up? I think it takes place right before the current series and is about how Selina came into all her money she got recently. I'm not sure, but I'll probably pick it up because Darwyn Cooke is doing the art.

[LiquidXIR]

Ah that's coming out today? Thats cool, but I'll think I'll wait till her TPB comes out in...mid-august I think. Get both then

[Jor-El]

I am definitely going to pick up the upcoming TPB collecting the first several issues, (I just sold the originals but I want those stories again,) but I'm going to wait for the softcover edition of Selina's Big Score. If I have to wait for awhile, I'm going to have to. As much of a huge fan of Cooke's I am, I'm not enough of a Catwoman fan to justify buying a hardcover.

[Gotham Knights '68]

Hey Joker 85....

I bought it, the art work looks great and the pin-up section in the back looks awesome.

I haven't read it yet but I will be after I read DK2 pt 3.

The story takes place following #94 and is supposed to tell the story of what Selina was doing between then and her new re-launch!!! Looking forward to the read!!!

[Joker85]

Yeah I went ahead and picked it up today as well. It was a little expensive, but I'm both a Catwoman and a Cooke fan so I feel its well worth it. I haven't really looked at it yet, but I'm going out of town on Saturday and I'll just read it on the plane.

[Gotham Knights '68]

Originally posted by Joker85
Yeah I went ahead and picked it up today as well. It was a little expensive, but I'm both a Catwoman and a Cooke fan so I feel its well worth it. I haven't really looked at it yet, but I'm going out of town on Saturday and I'll just read it on the plane.

:cool: Look forward to your thoughts ;)

[DerekPowers]

i couldnt believe it was 24.95! it looked great but i wasnt about to spend that much. but then i reached the $100 mark at my comic store after buying dk2 and got $20 store credit!!! so i got to get selina's big store for only 4.95! how sweet is that!

anyway, i read the first part. wow, all i can say is i wish Darwyn Cooke was still doing catwoman, cause the art is hot! the cover looks great, and inside the art doesnt dissapoint at all. and the story is cool too, but ive only read the first "book" (yeah its long too, well worth the money if you have it). i'll have to post again once i finish it. peace. :wakko:

[Clayface]

I've picked it up as well, and I've read the first 3 parts so far. It seems really good - very interesting story, with that great film noir crime story feel.

[Joker85]

Hey Clayface, could you, or one of the other mods add "Talkback *Spoilers!*" to the title so that as we read it we can post our thoughts here. I appreciate it! :)

[Clayface]

Originally posted by Joker85
Hey Clayface, could you, or one of the other mods add "Talkback *Spoilers!*" to the title so that as we read it we can post our thoughts here. I appreciate it! :)

Done! :D

[DerekPowers]

i just finished reading this book this weekend. lets see, i give it a 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

the art-amazing. the story and characters, great. i really enjoyed this book, very much. i did however have a bit of a complaint....

major spoilers coming right up......




i was alittle disapointed by the ending. i didnt like how everyone except selina was killed, it seemed, i dont know, just not a fitting ending. let me explain...

it seemed alittle obvious. you kind of expected chantel to die and same goes for stark. but thats why i didnt like it. i'd have rathered stark survived but only after an all out fight at the end. for some reason i didnt think killing them all worked . it was expected and therefore the ending was kind of anti-climatic. i wouldnt mind if one or two people died, but all of them!? and how does selina feel about this?? a heist she organized got her whole team iced. i dont know, maybe its just me, but i'd rather have seen a different ending, maybe even a happy one. plus all those characters were great and could have been great guest starts in the catwoman comic. oh well, its nit-picking, but if it wasnt for the ending it'd give it a 5 out of 5, easy. anyway, thats my opinion. peace.

[Gotham Knights '68]

I really enjoyed this book and anyone out there who isn't reading the new Catwoman is missing some really great stuff here!!!

I was suprised everyone died - man, you could just see how messed up and depressed Selina was at the end. It was really a great story - Darwin Cooke was fabulous with his noirish style and captivating story telling. It really set the storyline for the "new" Selina Kyle / Catwoman.

I highly recommed this story!

[Clayface]

Well, overall, I really enjoyed this story. I do agree that everyone dying was a bit predictable, but it didn't bother me. As soon as I read the little blurb on the inside cover about this story being similar to The Usual Suspects I knew people gonna get killed. And since we've not seen this mentor/love-interest guy in the series before this, I figured he'd be dead by the end of the story. So, for me, I was interested in how they got to that ending, not what the ending was.

[Joker85]

I really enjoyed this one. The artwork and the story was great! I wasn't surprised by all the deaths, but I agree that it got a bit much by the end. Still, a good read for any Catwoman fan old or new. The artwork made the whole story for me. I love how Cooke draws Catwoman, and this is coming from an old Jim Balent fan!
Like I said, a good read, and it connected the old and new series pretty good I thought.

[Gotham Knights '68]

Originally posted by Joker85
I really enjoyed this one. The artwork and the story was great! I wasn't surprised by all the deaths, but I agree that it got a bit much by the end. Still, a good read for any Catwoman fan old or new. The artwork made the whole story for me. I love how Cooke draws Catwoman, and this is coming from an old Jim Balent fan!
Like I said, a good read, and it connected the old and new series pretty good I thought.

Did you hear about Balent coming out with his own new book?? I though I read something in the comic shop news last week?!?

[Ms. Kitty]

Anybody know when the TPB's coming out? :)

I wanna know about the Balent book too! :)

[Joker85]

Originally posted by Gotham Knights '68


Did you hear about Balent coming out with his own new book?? I though I read something in the comic shop news last week?!?
No, I didn't hear this. Do you know what it's about, if it's DC or what? Any info you have would be great!

[Gotham Knights '68]

Originally posted by Joker85

No, I didn't hear this. Do you know what it's about, if it's DC or what? Any info you have would be great!

Hello Joker 85 (and Miss Kitty :D )...

The book is called "3 little kittens" - It looks like its going to be a 3 issue miniseries starting this August 2002!

Jim is doing both the writing and art work! I think the company is Broadsword comics - the art looks awewome!!! I will definitely be picking this up!!! Its been described as a mix between a futuristic catwoman + charlies angels.

[James Harvey]

With the release of Justice League: The New Frontier (feature talkback (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=206337), DVD talkback (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=206338)), let's look back at the classic Darwyn Cooke comic recently re-released in the hardcover Batman: Ego & Other Tails.

CATWOMAN: SELINA'S BIG SCORE

http://dccomics.com/media/covers/1293_180x270.jpg (http://dccomics.com/media/covers/1293_180x270.jpg)[

Written by: Darwyn Cooke
Art by: Darwyn Cooke

In this fast-paced, cinematic adventure, Catwoman learns that like anything else in life, loyalty has its price. Presumed dead and without any cash, Catwoman must find a way to make a quick score to set herself up in Gotham again. Learning of a train loaded with unmarked cash headed to Canada, the sultry cat burglar gathers some old friends and devises a plan. But when one of her former allies sells her out to the mob, Catwoman's simple train robbery becomes a desperate gambit for survival.

Comments?

[Spider-Man]

I was a fan of the early Brubaker/Cooke/Stewart run on Catwoman but never picked up this book because of the high price tag. Now that it is included in the Batman: Ego and Other Tails collection is it worth getting?

[wonderfly]

Is this story the 1st 6 issues of the latest volume of "Catwoman"? I'm trying to figure out which issues of the Catwoman comic book this storyline actually covers...

[DisneyBoy]

This doesn't feature ANY of the issues of the current Catwoman series. It is a stand-alone graphic novel, which also compiles the short mini-series of "What Happened to Selina Kyle" back-up stories starring Slam Bradley (a detective who became a main character in the Catwoman series) which ran (I believe) in Detective Comics, the months prior to the launch of the new Catwoman title.

For all intents and purposes, consider this a prequel to the new Catwoman series. It starts off with Selina Kyle being presumed dead (which was where the Jim Balent series ended off) and Catwoman having to find herself some cash and a new life.

I really should read it some day.

[Ed Liu]

I did an article about the many incarnations of Catwoman for Toon Zone News a while ago, but can't seem to find it any more. If I dig out the original manuscript, I may post the relevant section here, but the bottom line is that this is a fantastic noir-inflected heist story that borrows Catwoman and a few other characters who would end up in the Catwoman monthly book.

I actually think the presence of THIS story makes Batman: Ego and Other Tails worth owning more than the title story.

EDIT: Well, that was easier than I thought. There were images linked for the last paragraph, but you'll just have to buy the book to see what I'm talking about ;):

CATWOMAN: SELINA’S BIG SCORE
Catwoman’s last monthly comic book ended in the summer of 2001 after a 94-issue, eight-year run that seemed to end in her death. Like all good comic book heroes, reports of Selina’s death were greatly exaggerated, and it is from this point that Catwoman: Selina’s Big Score picks up. Written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke, a designer and artist on Batman Beyond, this 96-page graphic novel brings Selina back to Gotham City broke and presumed dead. Her search of the “Big Score” of the title ultimately leads to a typically over-complicated heist scheme, as Selina bands with a working girl, a shady pawnbroker, a mysterious man from her past, and a hotshot young technician to get $24 million in mob money off a heavily guarded moving train in the dead of night.

Many comic book fans sneer at Darwyn Cooke’s style as “too cartoony,” which is truly their loss. There is an electric energy to Cooke’s streamlined style which creates sequences that just about leap off the page. It’s akin to the effect most Pixar movies have – you may spend the first few minutes caught up in the visual style of the work, but that admiration quickly gives way to the storytelling skill involved. Eventually, the style is no longer even noticed, as the viewer accepts that this world simply has to look like it does. Cooke backs it up his considerable artistic skill with some solid writing, introducing a fascinating cast of characters as distinct verbally as they are visually. The usual suspects are all here, and the outcome of the heist is never in serious doubt, but the fun of this book is in the trip, not the destination.

The coloring work of Matt Hollingsworth is especially worthy of note here. Cooke’s skill in sequential storytelling is indisputable, but Hollingsworth’s colors grant the story a strong sense of atmosphere. Each setting gets a unique color palette -- witness the cool blues of a Morocco night, the grungy browns and reds of Gotham City’s underbelly, the garish oranges of Miami Beach, and the ostentatious, over-saturated colors of Las Vegas. Selina’s Big Score is a masterpiece of comic book storytelling, easily holding its own against the recent rash of heist movies Hollywood has churned out.

-- Ed