Flawed Artwork - Excellent Story
The third installment of 'Catwoman, Her Sister's Keeper' (A.K.A. "Catwoman: Year One"), has both Catwoman, Batman, and the Gotham Police all trying to track down the kidnapped Sister Magdalene. The police hope to find her first by questioning Selina Kyle, and then when that proves fruitless, by tailing her; but she gives them the slip. Catwoman learns her whereabouts by threatening one of Stan's former hookers for information. Batman presumably follows a trail of clues Stan has left behind (it's never made clear).
That lack of clarity of some things in this issue is the only thing that keeps it from being a four star, or even higher rated book. As another example, when Sister Magdalene is being force fed by Stan, he suddenly doubles over in pain. Why? It could be that Sister Magdalene has elbowed him in the gut - or maybe he just suffered some kind of unexplained, hitherto fore unseen malady? The composition of the artwork isn't clear enough to say either way. I can deal with the later instance of unclear events in the dark rafters of an abandoned theater, where it seems to have been intentional, but in a brightly lit room it just seems like sloppy work. The sketchy artwork is something I've mentioned before, and Adrienne Roy's coloring of Stan as a white faced Joker like character doesn't help.
But the artwork's flaws don't undermine what is actually a really great Catwoman origin story. Why, why with unrestricted access to material as good as this do Warner Bros. Pictures put out film adaptations with such obviously sub-par screenwriting as Catwoman? It boggles the mind.