Knight Terrors: Catwoman #2 // Review
Selina's sister Maggie would keep the doors of her church open for the Joker and welcome him with open arms. (That's what she thinks anyway.) Selina's sister is a nun, but there's something more to it. She's there at the church with Bruce Wayne, but not really. It's all some kind of dream that Selina will have to confront in Knight Terrors: Catwoman #2. Writer Tini Howard continues her exploration into the psyche of Selina Kyle with artist Leila Leiz and colorist Marissa Louise. The journey moves in strange directions, which echo aspects of the personality of Catwoman, but it lacks the kind of punch needed to be genuinely insightful.
Selina goes into a confessional booth. She's not there to confess. She's only trying to figure things out. There's something strange about the priest. He's telling her a joke. And then he leaps out of the confessional with green hair and a chalk-white grin. Selina knew to expect the Joker. She knew he was attacking somehow. She might not have expected him to be more welcome at her sister's church than she was. If she will help her sister out of danger, she must do so with stealth and cunning.
Selena and Maggie have an exciting relationship that would be fun to dive into if Howard was better at framing it. As it is, the action happening in and around the church that Maggie serves lacks the impact it needs. The Joker's sudden appearance should have a hell of a lot more impact than it does. Selina's choice to train Bruce as Batman in the confines of her dream really SHOULD be more disorienting than it is. Nothing hits with quite the proper force in Howard's script.
There are places where Leiz's artwork is gorgeous. There are also places where the artwork hits the page like a goofy doodle. Sometimes, these moments both happen on the same page. It's erratic art that occasionally strikes through with a powerful punch at just the right moment...then occasionally slams into something altogether less graceful. Just when the script is getting interesting, the art becomes scratchy. Sometimes, the art hits in just the right way as the hand has gone flaccid. Louise does what she can with the coloring, but it tends to avoid creating the depth that would salvage some of the art. It would be difficult to manage that with Leiz's inking style being as heavy as it is anyway...and the color technique would have to swing wildly between one style and the next to make it all work, which would become its problem.
For all its lack of consistency, the issue has one of the more vital endings of all of the Knight Terrors crossovers so far. Kyle wakes up to a powerful jolt of awareness in bed. Howard and Leiz converge beautifully at the issue's end. Howard has done an outstanding job with Selina in recent months. It's too bad this nightmare couldn't have been more vivid.
