Catwoman 31, Race of Theives, Guantlet Spoilers

[Mark S. Ogilvie]

Even if this book is doomed due to low numbers I'm still enjoying it. Selina dwells on the fringes of the weird stuff in the DCU, she's got ties to the really super powered types through Batman, but basically she's a normal woman with skills and that is what is shown here. She wouldn't have much chance against someone like Sinestro or Grogg, but she would against Flash's rogues or most of the Batman rogues. The story opens with her and Swindle and Vice trapped in Mirror Masters world. Selina gets them out, each side promising to have the others backs and then makes the same deal with the Mirror Master. All of them know that the deals won't last and all of them are ok with that. Roulette seems to be playing some game of her own of course. And they know that too. When everyones cheating the game seems almost legit. This issue focuses on an old mansion in Gotham that's been close for two hundred years after a scandal. It's the sight of an archeological dig and it's under heavy guard. Roulette wants to know what the secrecy is about and what ever it is about she wants it stolen. The Viceroy's died under a murder scandal of some sort. Catwoman allies temporarily with Volt, an alcoholic who can control electricity. In a flashback we learns how she learned how to find crooked cops in Gotham and that leads to her getting into contact with two of them. It turns out that an earthquake in Gotham opened a fisure under the mansion, exposing a vault with a lot of stuff burried in the permafrost (Gotham has more stuff under it than any city I can think of) and the current Rita Viceroy hopes to find evidence that will clear her family name. What they do find is a solid gold statue of an elephant, a picture of Victoria Viceroy (who looks like Rita) and other stuff. In someways this is a very complex murder mystery in the middle of the thieves race. Mirror Master goes after the gold elephant, Vice and Swindle try to take it from him, Vice throws Swindle into the path of a bullet meant for her, Catwoman teams up with Mirror Master...Volt kills all the electronics and Mirror Master makes off with the elephant. This suited Catwoman because she stole a bunch of old historical love letters that Victoria Viceroy collected, valued perhaps at over a million. She wins and sells the letters back to the Viceroys so that they might be able to find out who murdered Victoria Viceroy. Somehow in all of this she manages to get a job in the Gotham morgue. It's a complicated storyline, but it's also tight with no wasted space or padded scenes. The kind of comic you can read a few times.