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Selina Kyle's life has taken a very different turn of late. Last year's Gotham War storyline saw Catwoman and Batman come to blows over her radical plan to reduce violent crime in the city by turning the city's goons into elite cat burglars who only stole from the rich. It didn't quite work out, especially when Vandal Savage used it as an opportunity to try and seize power.
That storyline came to a head in the Gotham War: Scorched Earth one-shot when Savage summoned an immortality-giving meteor (don't ask). His plan went wrong, however, and Savage and Catwoman were caught in the resulting explosion - though it rapidly became clear that both had, in fact, survived.
Or had they? Because while Vandal Savage has spent the time since worming his way into Gotham's high society, Selina Kyle discovered that she really did die that day, but has been resurrected by a mysterious figure with cats eyes. What's more, she now has nine marks clawed into her back by cats - a literal tick list of the lives she has left.
Now, if most of us learned that we had nine lives, we'd probably use the opportunity to, I dunno, get into skydiving or something moderately dangerous that we were too scared to try before. But Catwoman being Catwoman decides that this is a great chance to throw herself into taking on all the missions that she'd previously written off as too dangerous.
The 'Nine Lives' storyline has been playing out in the Catwoman solo book since November's #59. Written by Tini Howard, drawn by Stefano Raffaele, colored by Veronica Gandini, and lettered by Lucas Gattoni, it reaches its third part in Catwoman #61, published today - a terrific issue that brings some weight to what has been a slightly goofy arc so far.
In Catwoman #59, Selina left Gotham behind. There's still a Catwoman in the city, but it's Eiko Hasigawa, subbing in for Selina while she's travelling the world. This has given the book a fun travelogue feel as Kyle moves from one location to the next, taking on a series of apparent suicide missions. The first one involved bringing a crime lord to justice, while #60 saw Catwoman battle the assassin Eduardo Flamingo in a deadly theater.
While some of these have felt a little like stock plots, the idea that Catwoman is throwing herself into reckless situations without any of the safety nets that she's built up in Gotham has a lot of potential. And in Catwoman #61, the series finally goes to some dark and dangerous places.
Spoilers for Catwoman #61 ahead
In the new issue, Catwoman travels to Markovia and ventures into the dark heart of a nuclear reactor in full meltdown. She's there to collect a haul of corium - highly radioactive glass - but every second she spends on site exposes her to more of the deadly rays.
Tini Howard's script makes this painfully clear, depicting a nihilistic Catwoman who is putting herself through hell partly for semi-altruistic reasons - it takes it out of the hands of criminals who would do terrible things with the material, and she'll probably make some cash - but mostly to satisfy her own craving to steal "the unstealable score," simply because she can.
Working against her on this mission is a gang of mercenaries, also there to collect the corium in order to make money for their families. They'd be light work for Catwoman on a good day - "chumps with guns" as she glibly puts it - but her radiation poisoning is rapidly weakening both her physical and mental capabilities. This is depicted in gruesome detail by Stefano Raffaele, who draws Selina's skin bubbling and teeth falling out as she struggles to make it through the facility, trying to avoid the mercs' gunfire.
This is bleak stuff, with a terminally ill Catwoman ending the issue looking for somewhere where she can die alone, unsure if she will be able to resurrect this time or not. But then she's visited by two figures...
The first is the "cat-eyed guide" who has been following Selina for the last few issues. They reveal themselves to be a god - likely Bast, the god of cats, and an established character in DC continuity. She clarifies that Selina's power is not immortality as such, it's rebirth, something that she will need to undergo again after her experiences here.
The second is a more hopeful figure. Superman has been keeping an eye on Selina and he visits her now to comfort her while she dies, making sure that she's not alone in these moments before her next and most painful resurrection. It's a touching scene and a haunting end to a surprisingly dark issue that finally makes good on the premise of the comic's current arc.
Catwoman #61 is out now from DC.
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