“The Yarn”
Creative Staff:
Story: Scott Snyder, Che Grayson
Art: Bengal
Colors: Giovanna Niro
Letterer: Lucas Gattoni
What They Say:
Selina Kyle has carved a good life for herself. Through her ingenuity and skills, she’s become the greatest thief the world has ever known. With high-tech gear and weaponry, there’s no place too secure for Catwoman. Selina has built this life for herself and thoroughly escaped Gotham. But when someone from her past comes knocking at her door, Selina’s life comes crashing down around here. She’ll need to get to the bottom of a mystery taking her all around the globe! Written by Che Grayson and Scott Snyder with art by Bengal, Catwoman bursts onto the scene in the Absolute Universe!
The Review: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With several Absolute books out there now, and ties becoming clearer to the mainline series, expansions are a given. With Catwoman having some solid appearances in Absolute Batman, it’s worked well where she had key scenes, but didn’t steal or overpower the book. So, a spin-off makes a lot of sense, especially with Scott Snyder involved in guiding it with fellow writer Che Grayson. The pair have teamed up with Bengal on the artwork, and that’s just a huge win for everyone around because we get some great character designs here, but also some really fantastic flow with the panel layouts to just make the action exciting, but also to deliver right with the quieter scenes. All of this is made even better thanks to what Giovanna Niro brings to the page with the colors and the solid lettering from Lucas Gattoni that flows within the artwork.
The opening for this miniseries is one that frustrates me on some level, but it’s done effectively enough. We get to jump through the hoops of several time periods to follow and understand Selina’s life. The mainline is that having just turned twenty-five and her way of celebrating in London is to line up her next remote villa in Italy where she’s going to basically retire to. We see some of that trip and you really just want to see that story play out in a kind of normal way, but normal is not what Selina will ever be. Unfortunately for her, while she has put the tarp on her gear and costumes, someone has snuck into her place to retrieve something and it turns out that they’re part of a group of copycats wearing older costumes that are certainly familiar. It’s not what Selina expected, and we get a pretty good chase sequence out of it.
What helps to fill it with a bit more resonance is that we got back to when she was thirteen, dealing with a terrible foster father, and was nicking things in order to build up some savings to figure out her own life. That’s when she met another girl in a similar situation, Holly, and the two became fast friends and eventually part of the group called Calicos that did plenty of thieving until Selina left and it all fell apart. Now, Holly has some to London seeking Selina’s help, and bearing a gift, which is what the copycats are after. And they’re willing to blow up Selina’s place to try and get her out of the way. The mix of time periods is handled well, even if it frustrates me, and I like getting the nods to Selina’s personality, from how she developed her fight style from Waylon and then others, to knowing that it’s unusual for someone her age to be looking to just settle down and disappear. The kidnapping of Holly and the blowing up of Selina’s life is certainly changing that.
In Summary:
Having enjoyed almost all of the Absolute books on one level or another, an Absolute Catwoman miniseries was like the easiest given out there. I liked her time in Absolute Batman, so getting to see her disconnected from that, at least for now, is very welcome so she can carve out her own personality and place in this timeline. It’s handled well with some solid narration, great artwork, and a strong sense of flow with the panel layout. We do get a familiar face at the end making their Absolute debut, and I’m curious to see how that goes as I have little investment in them in the main timeline, as they largely showed up after I left comics for a while. So while that doesn’t do much for me, their introduction is solid and I just love the strange scale of the book with how it gets around. Definitely keen for more.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics
Release Date: June 10th, 2025
MSRP: $4.99
Chris Beveridge
http://www.fandompost.com
Chris has been writing about anime, manga, movies and comics for well on twenty years now. He began AnimeOnDVD.com back in 1998 and has covered nearly every anime release that’s come out in the US ever since.
He likes to write a lot, as you can see.
