Why Bother?
Wow, Nocenti's actually improving her Catwoman writing. I mean, she still sucks pretty hard, but at least there's a baby's handful of things that are actually not half bad in this issue. There are a LOT of scenes where Batman's either ridiculous or just plain stupid, but honestly his moment of emotional turmoil as he smashes the ever-living hell out of Catwoman's helmet out of frustration, and Catwoman tosses it away and embraces him when it reminds him of The Joker; both these moments in the scene actually paint a beautiful picture of the incredibly dysfunctional... 'couple.' The timeline is incredibly confusing, Batman's mind should be fairly far from The Joker at this point and especially not in the same mind-set as his sense of loss over Damian; AND Catwoman should be the LAST person to give him ANY sort of comfort, as the killer of his son was a similar 'villainess who he screwed and thought she was reforming.' Batman should have the opposite reaction to Catwoman, this would be far more intelligent and intriguing territory to explore, a rejection of the 'dangerous woman' in the aftermath of Talia's brutal murder of her own son. But even terribly incorrect, the moment was undeniably touching. Although leading into it, it implies that it was always Catwoman's intent to get Batman to help her even though A: She didn't NEED his help until after the heist and B: She didn't even remember that he loved the paintings until the heist was over.
And then there's some so-so development on a few other loose subtplots.
In Conclusion: 2/5
It's still sad that this is still an improvement. The art is pretty much the only good thing about this series, and it baffles me that the editorial department doesn't vomit when they read these scripts Nocenti turns in.
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