Catwoman: Selina's Big Score

by Darwyn Cooke

I've been playing catch up on Darwyn Cooke's work for the last little while, and had overlooked this graphic novel (as well as his and Ed Brubaker's work on the monthly comic).  Cooke gives us a rare thing - a superhero comic (okay, maybe a villain comic), without any superheroics.

Selena's Big Score is a heist/crime comic, which just happens to be set partially in Gotham City, and which features a character who gets involved with a man in a bat suit.  This is an intelligent, tightly plotted and beautifully illustrated comic, which is set squarely in the DC Universe, but is not really of it at all.

Selena has the inside line on a potentially very lucrative train robbery, and goes about assembling a team to help her pull it off.  This involves going to a former partner and lover, Stark, who falls into the traditional role of the mysterious and brooding criminal.  Their associates include a demolitions expert, a call girl, and a pawn shop owner.  While all this is going on, Selena is being hunted by the classic DC gumshoe, Slam Bradley.

The plot moves quickly, while it jumps back and forth to Selena's past, and the entire book is as beautiful as anything Cooke has ever done, although it is probably the darkest work I've ever seen from him.  Recommended.