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Catwoman #5
Bridget Haines |
| Title: |
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Trickle Down Theory |
| Cover Date: |
May 2002 |
| Story: |
Ed Brubaker |
| Pencils: |
Brad Rader |
| Inks: |
Cameron Stewart |
| Colors and Separations: |
Matt Hollingsworth / Giulia Brusco |
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Synopsis: (WARNING! SPOILERS!)
Catwoman uses a Mission Impossible style
getup launch of a rooftop and make a descent
to a window on the building with the help
of boot daggers to stop herself. She uses
a magnet to slide open the lock on the window,
and heads inside. It's a hospital, and in
the bed in the room there is a boy named
Brendan hooked up to life support.
Flashback to a playground, daytime,
where
young Brendan is playing basketball.
He runs
into Holly and Selina, and Holly
introduces
the two. Selina knew his mother
when she
worked the streets. Holly and
Selina are
investigating Dexter Garcia,
who is in a
car across the street, watching
the kids.
As Holly and Sel head out in
their car, Dexter
calls Brendan over.
Turns out Dexter is using kids
to smuggle
drugs into the States. He sets
the kid up
with an adult who pretends to
be their mother,
gets them fake passports, and
sends them
to South America for a few days.
When they
return, the kid has swallowed
several kilos
of cocaine or heroin wrapped
in plastic.
Then the kid is chained to a
bed for a few
days until the cargo can be retrieved.
It turns out Maria is letting
Brendan do
it for free drugs from the dealer.
Now he
is in the hospital, and brain-dead
from a
kilo of coke bursting open in
his large intestine.
Selina spent the last few days
shadowing
Dexter Garcia to find out who
he was working
for, because the operation was
too well thought
out and well-funded to be done
by the man.
She follows him to a warehouse
on the 6th
day of her stake out, where he
meets with
a man and his bodyguard. While
watching them,
she catches sight of Slam Bradley
taking
photos through a broken warehouse
window
of the exchange of words. She
heads in to
say hello. Despite his snarly
demeanor over
her surprising him and making
him miss the
hand-off, he nevertheless invites
her along
to follow the perp. He has her
take off her
mask in the car. Turns out the
wealthy man
named Xavier Dylan, which Slam
was led to
while investigating a dirty cop
handing over
kilos of smack missing from evidence
to a
kid.
Slam accuses her of being out
for vengeance
rather than Justice. She bristles
at the
lecture and heads to the rooftop
to watch
the man. Her anger rises, and
she realizes
Slam was right. She instead goes
after Garcia,
and has a talk with him.
A few days later Slam pulls up
next to her
as she Is walking in the snow,
and tells
her to get into the car. Over
coffee in a
diner Slam tells her Dexter blew
Dylan's
bodyguard's brains out abducted
Dylan, chaining
him to a bed for days, letting
him suffer.
Selina, shocked, explains her
intent was
different. Garcia, in police
custody, relates
that Catwoman tried to wake him
up to how
he was killing his own people,
like an animal
eating its young, all for some
rich man who
could replace him without thought.
She told
him that if he didn't finger
Dylan and turn
himself in, she would forcefeed
him a kilo
of heroin and let him sweat over
whether
or not she accidentally ripped
holes in the
plastic.
Through the 1 way mirror, two
cops and Dylan
sit. The cops are dirty, and
plan to dispose
of Garcia, while Dylan tells
them not to
pursue Catwoman, that he will
if she becomes
a nuisance.
Slam and Selina visit Brendan
on a floor
full of kids in the east side
hospital. The
two leave together, depressed.
Analysis:
Cover: (0 of 5 cowls)
AAAAAAHHHH! What the HELL is THIS supposed
to be? This cover is atrocious, painful to
look at, out of proportion, distorted, a
hideous color, and just plain a shoddy mess
of mangled perspective. I don't know who
Paul Pope is, nor do I care, nor do I want
him making any more Catwoman comic covers.
Lee Loughridge should have all his or her
crayons broken and get 50 lashes for the
coloration. Stupid Logo still looks stupid
and still caters to children who should in
no way, shape, or form, be reading this book.
Story:  (4 of 5 cowls)
Ed is a good writer. But I think he was struggling
more than a little on the Anodyne storyline.
He seems to be pulling it together better
this time around, and the re-addition of
Slam Bradley into Sel's life makes me happy.
Slam is a great character, and a much better
companion/foil/partner for Selina than uber-bimbo
Holly. This story had more of a flavor of
introduction to life on the East Side, and
some of the major players. I'm a little curious
though, as to this sudden revelation of this
bad part of town and the corrupt cops. It's
feeling more like Bludhaven and less like
Gotham to me. Why haven't we heard of the
corruption in the other Batbooks? Why hasn't
Batman done anything about it? Where is the
presence of Commissioner Akins? That would
better tie me into the Gotham mindset in
this book. I do like Ed's no punches pulled
look at the drug trade and the abuse of kids
by dealers. This is something that does go
on, if not readily in such fanciful steps,
but the drug trade is fostered through the
corruption of kids, and kids pushing to other
kids. I look forward to seeing more of Slam
and Catwoman working together, and this may
have stepped up my interest in a book that
did not impress in its much-hyped release.
Artwork: (3 of 5 cowls)
One would be very hard-pressed to tell Rader's
work from Cooke's at all. Same annoying "too
many panels on the page" layouts. Same
'40s "Dick Tracy" style. Rader
is a bit better with backgrounds and adding
some more detail and an occasional decently
laid out page, but still, the style does
nothing for me. It was neat for a few issues,
now it leaves me wanting something better.
The color work is improving drastically though,
seems to be moving away from the primary
status of the first 4 issues, but in truth,
if they are going to stick with basic line
work with no shading, I wish they'd go to
a monochromatic coloration like Detective
Comics used to have. This is the kind of
art that it works with, and color just doesn't
do much for these images.
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