Catwoman #20

Penguins nest in mausoleums?

I am declaring June 14th "Ann Nocenti Day!" On that day, everybody needs to talk like a character from an Ann Nocenti comic book. Instead of actually engaging in dialogue with another person, everyone should just spout random facts at each other that have some kind of tenuous link to the conversation or the actions they're currently engaged in. The good thing about Ann Nocenti Day! is that your facts do not have to be correct. Although you shouldn't just make shit up entirely out of whole cloth (is that a saying? If it is a saying and this were Ann Nocenti Day!, I'd be able to tell you where that phrase came from!). It's not about lying. But you don't have to worry if the facts you think you know are true! No fact checkers on Ann Nocenti Day! The only reason I decided to make it June 14th is that the date is far enough in the future that I'll probably forget all about it and not have to celebrate it.

Last issue, Catwoman ended up in the clutches of the Super Secret Society of Super-villains. But the end of that story is probably being saved for Justice League of America #4 or else Ann Nocenti will fuck it right the hell up. Oh! That might be another thing you should do on Ann Nocenti Day! Whatever you're working on at work, you have to treat it as if you're coming to it for the first time. Try to pretend you know nothing about your current job and then do your job as you think you would if you didn't know how to do it. But do it like a champ! Act like you know what the fuck you're doing! Don't ask anyone for help or research anything! Just ask youself, "What would Ann Nocenti do?"

This issue begins with Oswald Cobblepot putting new jewelry on his dead mother's fingers. Well. That's fucking weird. Catwoman is spying on him and being a big judgmental bitch! And by bitch, I mean female cat. That's what they're called, right? Ha ha! I'm practicing for Ann Nocenti Day!

Technically, that's a Knowledge Farm Fun Fact!

Catwoman has been in Gotham long enough to know that most of Gotham's criminal masterminds are shorty runty-runt pants. The Penguin isn't even the smallest! I think Scarface is the shortest. Unless Ferdie is smaller! I know he's gayer. It's a fact!

Oh! Here's an Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea Fun Fact! My step-uncle is Sam Adams, the man that plays the part of the Portland Mayor's assistant in Portlandia. When he was running for real mayor, I thought his campaign slogan should be "The Wayer Gayer Mayor." He didn't go for it. But he won anyway, so I guess he made the right call not to use it. Kyle Maclachlan makes a better mayor anyway.

I think I may have mentioned that fact before. It's hard remembering everything you've ever said across one thousand commentaries.

Catwoman picks the lock on the crypt while teaching everyone a little bit of slang she picked up from a quick read of the Wikipedia entry on lockpicking. Unlike the issue of Green Arrow where Nocenti peppered his dialogue with Poker Slang, I can't tell if she's using it correctly here because I don't know lockpicking slang. My guess is she's not.

After she makes a copy of the crypt key using a secret process known only to people with an internet connection, Catwoman is punched in the face by one of The Penguin's Crypt Keepers.

He must not have been able to tell that she's a girl.

I think this guy is Blade! He must have been hunting vampires and wandered into the wrong comic book company.

Catwoman recognizes him too! She thinks she met him in the Black Room but the only flashback she has is of the weird black goo that touched her ass (see the Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea header!). I have a choice now. Do I move my Batman and Robin Cabbage Patch Kids so I can dig in my comic book box and check out Catwoman #16 to see who this guy is or do I just ignore it and move on? Serious comic book historians would dig into the back issue so that they could precede with all the knowledge at their disposal. But I don't think I've been serious about anything for over twenty-five years!

Oh, what the heck! I'm curious as to why a guy that was in The Black Room is now guarding crypts for The Penguin! Perhaps his life just took a turn for the worse when he was possessed by The Escalator!

Well that was a waste of effort. If this guy was in The Black Room, he was a member of A.R.G.U.S. and now he's working for The Penguin. This guy must have really pissed in Steve Trevor's coffee. Unless Catwoman just recognizes his essence and realizes he's going to end up turning into The Escalator. Which means she actually recognizes him from her brush with the Rat Tales gang and not from The Black Room! I don't blame Catwoman so much for this error of memory. But I do blame the editor for reinforcing the idea that she met him in The Black Room! The editor should have had a note that said, "Actually, his name is Joe Pazzo and he kidnapped Gwen and he works for The Formally Dressed Boys (or The Penguin, more likely) as seen in Catwoman #18! Oh, and he's possessed by THE ESCALATOR!!!"

It would probably be easier to research back issues if I were buying these stupid things digitally. It would definitely be easier to store them!

As Catwoman enters the crypt, leaving Joe Pazzo struggling to remove the bolas keeping his hands and feet tied together like an Argentinian Caballo run down in Las Pampas by some caballeros, The Penguin is busy becoming The Toyman because Ann Nocenti doesn't give a fuck. He's in a secret basement that only he and his top men and Catwoman know about. Catwoman narrates the action because she's somehow become an omnipotent narrator.

It's also possible that Ann Nocenti believes people launder money to remove their fingerprints. I didn't say it's probably she thinks that! But it is possible. Very, very possible. Which is probably probable. Anyway, it isn't improbable!

I don't know if Selina robbed the crypt or not. I guess she did and that's why The Penguin is screaming, "SHE DID WHAT?", on the above page. Whatever the case, the scene shifts now to Selina's apartment where she's chewing the cat cud with Gwen. "Chewing the Cat Cud" is what happens when a cow is slaughtered on a farm. The farmer removes the "cud" because nobody likes to eat already chewed cud and then he feeds it to the farm cats.

I can't wait for Ann Nocenti Day! Why did I schedule it for so far away!

That's weird. When playing Call of Duty, I've never heard anybody say, "I love trash talking!" immediately after saying, "Fucking camping faggot!"

I guess Gwen was bailed out by The Penguin since he's blackmailing her which takes a bite of Catwoman's cut on all of her jobs. But Gwen doesn't seem to want Catwoman to know. But she does know. I may have forgotten some of the history between these two while drawing farm animals and thinking up new ways to phrase "Ann Nocenti can't write." Also, look at the computer monitor in the above panel. That's a pretty good shot of the office from a camera installed underneath the desktop!

Of course, if I'd just finished reading the second half of this page, I could have answered my own question! Gwen tells Selina that everybody pays a cut to The Penguin because he's such a fearful, monstrous crime lord. You know he's fearful because he took the name of the one animal nobody has ever been afraid of ever. Well, maybe that's true of Guinea Pigs too. He could have been The Guinea Pig! And then Ogilvy would have been Emperor Guinea Pig! Oh my god! That would be so cute! Especially if he were Emperor Abyssinian Guinea Pig!

Oh. Well that explains that then! He must have escalated his smell.

While Selina is out hanging around in a fish and chips bar, The Escalator (in Pazzo's body) happens to walk past and see her. He's just come from ruining Joe Pazzo's life by beating up Joe's daughters in front of his wife. So now that makes him free to kill Catwoman for some reason. To drive her out of the bar (because The Escalator can't fight in a fish and chips bar!), The Escalator escalates the lust of all of the men in the bar. I think he also escalates their stupidity because they all act on their feelings immediately. Of course, being an owner of a penis, I understand. Whenever I meet someone I think is super sexually attractive, I immediately try to put my ding dong in their ding dong receptacle. I'm not 100% sure but I think the receptacle is located between the legs somewhere. It's like an anti-ding dong.

Holy shit, she's good! I could never out Ann Nocenti Ann Nocenti! She nails her Fun Facts with this bit about Tigers and Bulls that she doesn't even care that it's false AND the mistaken belief is harmful to tigers and bulls! I'm in awe. She's a fucking master.

Catwoman decides to start kicking their asses. I was under the impression her lust would be driven through the roof as well. But I guess you have to have some lust for it to escalate. And Batman isn't around, so it's arctic tundra time in Selina's hot pants. I think that was a mixed race metaphor.

This guy knows less about the female anatomy than I do! It's her ding dong receptacle, you ding dong!

What kind of fucking perverts were working at Hostess? Ding Dongs. Snowballs. Ho Hos. Zingers. Twinkies. Fruit Pies. Mini Muffins. Cup Cakes. Suzy Qs. I'm pretty sure those are all euphemisms for genitalia or sex acts.

The Escalator decides that maybe just this once, he can enter a Fish and Chips Bar. He's tired of waiting for the men to rape Selina so he can kill her, so he crashes through the window. Selina and The Escalator declare "Game On" and then go outside to fight. I hate that phrase. "Game on." It's usually uttered when the game is already 75% over. Who waits that long to begin playing? Didn't they ever hear that poem about that jerk in Mudville that strikes out? There were some other phrases like "Game On" that I was going to bitch about but then my cat, Pelafina, jumped up on my comic book boxes and I lost my train of thought while giving out lots of loving kitty head scratches.

Outside the bar, The Escalator begins escalating nature. I guess that's why he didn't want to go in the Fish and Chips Bar. It's never good when you escalate fish and chips. Apparently it's not good when you escalate nature either! It causes birds to go all Birdemic and sand to go all Dust Bowl and clouds to go all super soft and puffy. Catwoman is going to have to think of just the right emotion for him to escalate now! And since it's Ann Nocenti, I'm guessing she's going to choose Cramps. That's an emotion, right?

The Escalator chooses to escalate suicidal tendencies. I guess everyone in Gotham has those because everybody begins heading toward the water to drown. Catwoman's last chance is to use her lethal mind blast!

Seriously. I have no idea what just happened here. Unless it was a sniper!

I guess she sliced his neck open with her claws although you'd think in the medium of comic books where both words and pictures are used, one of them would have clued me in as to what happened. Sure, Penguin explains it later. But I don't like having to wait one full page before understanding what I was expected to understand a page earlier!

Nobody remembers Joe Pazzo as the Escalator, so they all believe Catwoman killed him. Except Pazzo is hauled off by The Penguin's men who just happened to be flying by in their helicopter to check on The Penguin's order of fish and chips. Now The Penguin wants to start a war with Catwoman. And he might as well throw in the Rat Tales while he's at it since he's been meaning to mess up their shit anyway.

Catwoman #20 Rating: No change. I'm going to go easy on it this month because there were some things that might possibly have been decent if Ann Nocenti hadn't gotten her musk all over them. I like that Catwoman has a problem with The Penguin who wants a cut of all the crime in Gotham. So Catwoman wants to free Gwen from his grasp and remain as independent as possibly. Although if you're having sex with Batman so that he'll let you steal whatever you want (at least when he's not mourning his stupid dead sidekicks), I'd hardly consider that independent. But the dialogue, as always, is awful and unnatural. And the Escalator doesn't seem to have really been thought out as well as it should have been. He escalates emotion. Oh! And nature! Also he escalates one emotion into that of another emotion! Or does he only escalate the emotion he's currently feeling? And then how does that cause him to escalate "nature"?

Anyway, I have the great joy of reading yet another Catwoman comic book next week when the Annual comes out! Hooray!