Catwoman #34

You know what would be more exciting than Catwoman? Supercatwoman!

Yet Another List of Ann Nocenti’s Bullshit

1. The initial scene takes place in "Gotham City" where a remote control Gargoyle is smelling things. The scene that follows takes place "Elsewhere at Alice Tesla's Workshop." That means her work is not located in Gotham City! I'm good at word problems when they don't involve math!

2. The mechanical gargoyle is breaking into Catwoman's penthouse. Alice doesn't notice the break-in on the security camera because she's busy scoring orbs to forge fragoon feathers. I bet the virtual reality world Alice Tesla is currently playing games in (you know, where they forge fragoon feathers) plays a vital role in the upcoming Klarion the Witch Boy series!

3. Catwoman believes that any thought by any other person that differs from her own way of thinking is aberrant.

4. Alice Tesla mentions that Catwoman won the best thief trophy. When did that happen? I don't remember any kind of closing ceremonies? Did Catwoman steal the trophy because at least that makes sense! That was probably the contest the entire time. The best thief would just steal it. Just like Willy Wonka's rigged game where the actual contest was to find out which child would not engage in corporate espionage!

5. Catwoman's new safe house is going to be an old murder museum because Ann Nocenti must have been reading Harley Quinn and was suddenly inspired.

6. Catwoman continues to judge Alice Tesla for being an introvert and a technophile. Why is it that extroverts and nature lovers truly believe that they're living life more fully than those that would rather curl up with a book and their own company, and those who prefer modern conveniences over marveling at the grandeur of nature. Fuck nature! What has nature ever done for me?! I mean personally!

7. Alice Tesla is no better. As soon as she steps outside, it's whine, bitch, moan, cri, hate, hate, hate. Her main problems with being outside? Mosquitoes, flies, squirrels, pollen, bees, grass. So a bunch of things she won't have to worry about running into in Gotham City. Okay, maybe the flies. It's not like inside is any better! Inside has flies and gnats and dust and spiders and shag carpeting. Shag carpeting tickles the feet too, Alice Tesla!

8. Why is being into murderers and the macabre some kind of proof of your alterna-hipness? My mom loves serial killers and she's as unhip as you can get! For her birthday one year, I bought her the complete set of serial killer trading cards. I purchased the set at R and K Comics on El Camino Real in Santa Clara! Although Brian's Books on Calabazas was my first local comic book shop that wasn't a convenience store comic book rack.

9. The building turns out to be a trap as metal shutters close on all the windows. They're in Jigsaw's hands now!

10. Ann Nocenti proves that she read up on online games and spills as much of the lingo as possible in three panels as Alice Tesla tells Catwoman that she's been gaslighted...by Alice herself! Maybe gaslighted isn't the right word since I have no idea what it actually means beyond the four or five definitions Ann Nocenti gave me last issue. So Ann Nocenti mentions questing and mobs and buffing and DDing and tanking and camping and spawning a bunch of the usual fantasy adventure types of loot and classes. It made me think, "Wow! Ann Nocenti has never played an online game in her life but she's definitely mined the wikipedia article about them!"

11. Tesla sets off a trap that seals her into a room with her fremesis, Cyberius! He's an Elvin Tech-Caster, of course! Which means he can summon monsters via 3-D printing technology merged with the best A.I. enhancements! He can make living monsters! Anyway, the trap doesn't seem like much of a trap. It's more of an excuse to separate Catwoman from Tesla.

12. Cyberius' monster is called Bullbot although it should be called Mechanical Gargoyle From Page One. Alice Tesla's monster is called Gearface because her imagination is terrible.

13. Oh really, Catwoman? Every time? Then why does paper beat rock? Dumb dumb!

14. Funny thing about back-ups though. You don't normally keep them with or on the same system as the originals. Also, nice bit of exposition on Catwoman's part to keep the cloud out of it. You don't want snarky nerds reading this and going, "SNORT! He probably hash all hish filesh uploaded to sheveral different sherversh acrosh the shtate."

15. Lateral lisps are not funny, Catwoman. How dare you manipulate me into a spot where I couldn't not make fun of them!

16. Catwoman arrives and guesses that Tesla's monster is called Gearface because she knows that Tesla's imagination is terrible.

17. Oh my God! Cyberius's distraction has been so, um, fascinating that I almost never forgot about his Bullbot raiding Catwoman's place!

18. Catwoman ruins the date and knocks out Cyberius with her Feral Cat Punch. I just made that up. You can have it, Ann, if you want. Oh wait. You won't be needing it anymore. Maybe Teekl can use it!

19. Ann Nocenti has Catwoman mention a "fear of flying" again. So what Selina is really asking Tesla is if she's afraid of her own sexuality and dating and perhaps that's why she hides behind the computer monitor instead of heading out of the house and meeting real people and getting her feet tickled.

20. After the fear of flying comment, Catwoman continues to speak in metaphor when she asks Alice, "Why is your workshop signal red?" Oh yeah. Boom chikka boom, amirite?

21. After Cyberius stole Tesla's data, she stole Cyberius's data while he was stealing her data. But then she stole her data back but not before he used her data to make more data. Or something. I think they both win!

22. See you in Klarion the Witch Boy, Cyberius!

Catwoman #34 Ranking: No change. All of Ann Nocenti's stories have basically become the same story. Bad guy plots against the good guy. Bad guy looks to get the better of the good guy. Good guy had a plan to beat the bad guy at bad guy's own game all along. Good guy comes out triumphant! But wait! Bad guy still has a trick up bad guy's sleeve because bad guy wasn't actually bested at all! Look at how this ended. Alice points out she stole all of Cyberius's data and wiped it so he had no access to it. And yet he still has an army of Bullbots and Gearfaces! Oh my God, Catwoman! I bet you were wrong! He was using cloud storage after all!

Catwoman #33

HOLY GOD IN HEAVEN WHEN IS ANN NOCENTI GOING TO RETIRE?!

Let's just get this over with, shall we?

Yet Another List of Ann Nocenti's Bullshit

1. Catwoman begins the issue upset with Roulette because her Race of Thieves was garbage. Also because it was fixed. And even though Catwoman should have won enough money to retire for the rest of her life and never write another shitty comic book ever again because she bet on a 100 to 1 long shot and won, Catwoman still insists on ruining Roulette's life. Why? Because she fixed a race, dammit! She held a contest and broke trust with the contestants by rigging it? It was a contest for thieves! If there's is one thing I know about thieves, there is no honor amongst them! It's like their main commandment! Thou shalt not have honor! Who is Catwoman to come around and change that?! She knew the contest wasn't going to be fair from the beginning and now she's more pissed off than she's ever been in her life because she found out it was true?! She used the fixing of the race to her advantage!

Catwoman is really pissing me off right now!

2. Catwoman ruins a computer monitor because, like a cat, she can't tell reality from images on a screen and she thinks she just defeated Question Mark Face.

3. Did any of this ever even happen?! Roulette never gained Catwoman's trust! Catwoman never thought she was going crazy! Catwoman hasn't given up any information unless Roulette's entire plan was to throw a fake Race of Thieves so that Catwoman would solve the mystery of the old dead Countess. Although why would Roulette specifically target Catwoman for that plan since Catwoman has never been known for her ability to solve cold cases up until now? And how the fuck did Alice Tesla figure all of this out simply because there were gaslights at the beginning of the race?!

Scenes from Ann Nocenti's Catwoman

Alice Tesla mentions a thing and then defines that thing. She defines it across several short, staccato sentences. Catwoman looks off into the distance and mentions the thing that Alice first mentioned but in different terms. Alice Tesla agrees and then adds a bit of information that doesn't have anything to do with anything else. Catwoman smirks. She says a thing. She says the thing a different way. She comes to a conclusion that's a half-processed idiom.

End Scene!

3. As in...the length of a National Hockey League season!? If I suddenly found myself pregnant and didn't want to cause a scandal, I think I'd take a trip that lasted shorter or longer than nine months. You think she would have waited until she was starting to show before leaving for her trip? Maybe she did but then, like a moron, stayed on an extra three or four months after giving up the baby to a strange Transylvanian Countess.

4. Selina asks Gillbrite a question which he answers by answering another question and then continues to string together sentences with no actual relation to each other.

5. Who says that? People say that? I don't think anybody says that. Also some kid is playing frisbee with a wolf. Also also Gillbrite didn't fucking unleash anything! He found some more information about an old case. I don't think it's going to threaten the Omniverse.

I know just because I've never heard a saying that it doesn't mean the saying doesn't exist! I first learned the phrase "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" when I played Infocom's Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head Or Tail Of It. Not a week later, I was in Las Vegas playing Paigow. An old man sitting next to me picks up his cards, chuckles, shows them to me, and says, "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear!" That old guy became my best friend for the next few hours.

6. Catwoman confronts Hunt Stone about his plan to use her for whatever he used her for. I guess since he didn't know how to manipulate the World's Greatest Detective, the next best person to manipulate was the World's Greatest Detective's Fuck Buddy. Hopefully somebody will explain how the Race of Thieves became the front for getting Catwoman to solve a cold case that Hunt Stone didn't actually want solved.

7. Why are we four issues into the Race of Thieves and nobody has commented on the fact that Hunt Stone's head is on fire?

8. Luckily Catwoman and Hunt Stone have a battle in which they summarize the essential bits of the story instead of concentrating on the punching and the biting. I think it calls for another Scene!

Scenes from Ann Nocenti's Catwoman

"I know what you seek, Hunt!" mrowled Catwoman accusatorily!

"You know what a cunt sees?" questioned Hunt confusitationally.

"When you heard about the dig under the Viceroy Manor, you panicked," explained Catwoman to the readers that weren't quite sure why Hunt would care about any of this since he was just a descendant of the servant that was willed all of Viceroy's money and what did a centuries old murder have to do with any of that? Especially when Viceroy Manor was loaded with riches that the servant didn't get that the Viceroy's children and children's descendants could have claimed. It seemed like a lot of bother for nothing. The Race of Thieves was a stupid idea but it would have been better if it wasn't just the cover for some paranoid asshat that was afraid that his great grandfather would suddenly be accused of murder even though there was no evidence for it at all.

"Do you want I should explain how the whole Race of Thieves came about so that we could, um, I don't know. Tamper with evidence, I guess? Is that the best connection I have between the Race of Thieves and hiring somebody to crack the cold case and then bury the evidence that he finds so that...wait, why did I do that again?" stumbled Hunt Mason. Unless his name was something else. "Anyway, if only you had arrived moments earlier, you would have had me dead to rights. But for what, I don't know. Burning evidence that proves that the original coroner's report and investigation were true? Why would that matter? What's going on here? Where am I?"

"You were busy burning the evidence that would have exonerated, not implicated, your fine stonemason. You were the rightful heir of the Viceroy fortune all along. You had nothing to fear from the crime scene," explains away Catwoman as if the rest of the story somehow made sense and Ann Nocenti didn't just realize that it's all stupid crap.

"Oh woes me! Or something! I should have read the report before burning it! And I should have never done anything at all! Mother always said my paranoia would get the best of me! Unless she didn't ever say that and it was just the paranoia talking," fainted Hunt Thompson. "Why is my head on fire?" he finished.

End Scene!

9. So that the Gotham Police Department doesn't charge him with tampering with the evidence of a two hundred year old crime scene, Hunt Stone gives up some information about Roulette to Catwoman. As if the Gotham Police would care! And anyway, Catwoman did more tampering with evidence than Hunt Mason did! She stole love letters and tramped around the crime scene on stealthy kitty paws! All Hunt Mason did was burn some evidence reports which were sent to him by a private investigator which means they were his reports anyway!

10. I have a theory! Ann Nocenti is a multi-dimensional creature that can't exist in linear time so she's just guessing at the way stories are told and people act! Reality makes as much sense to her as her comic book plots make to us!

11. Hunt Stone tells Catwoman what Roulette does in a day. Luckily for Catwoman, Roulette is an "extreme OCD Neurotic" which means the details Stone gave Catwoman will help Catwoman take revenge on Roulette any day of the week!

12. Roulette is an odd name and fixation for somebody with extreme OCD. How do people with OCD fare with devices that give out random iterations of things?

13. Roulette's Narration Box symbol is a pair of dice. Because that makes little sense. Pure Nocenti! Even if it is the fault of the artists and/or letterers.

14. Catwoman's first act of revenge is to add ten pounds to Roulette's bench press. Maniacal!

15. Catwoman's second act of revenge is to throw a mechanical octopus in the pool that almost drowns Roulette. The purpose is to make Roulette think that she imagined whatever it was that almost drowned her in the same way that Data imagined that Octopus in Goonies. The problem with this act of revenge meant to make her question her sanity is that the art tells a different story where Roulette would have to be a fucking stupid jizzbag to not realize she actually was attacked by some mechanical contraption.

16. Roulette refers to the bench press machine as a "death trap" because she couldn't finish her last rep. Lawsuits for everyone!

17. Catwoman puts on a chauffeur's cap. The perfect disguise!

18. Catwoman ruins one of Roulette's business deals with a plan that rivals the extra weight trick and the perfect disguise! She sends a couple of thugs to Roulette's business meeting and have them say, "We're, uh, duh, uh, wit' Rolo or sometin'?" The Chinese casino owner shouts, "No deal!"

19. Finally Catwoman shows up to punch Roulette in the face and declare herself the winner of the Race of Thieves! She can haz trophy?

Well, she is an "extreme OCD neurotic." I suppose she'd be okay with that as long as every day was exactly the same.

20. At the end, Selina remembers all the other characters in the story and how she defeated them. She says of Hunter S. Mason: "Any time I want, I can put you in jail." What? Why?! I already pointed out why you can't! So he hired Roulette to run a contest. Big deal! And he hired a private investigator to investigate a two hundred year old murder and then burned the file that contained everything the private investigator learned. You broke more laws by stealing those letters, you Froot Loop Dingus!

Catwoman #33 Rating: -2 Ranking. I know I already have this comic book ranked at 52 out of 52 but it's so bad that it needs to be ranked even lower. It is now 54 out of 52! And there aren't even currently 52 books in The New 52! This book is a stinker! It's also one of my favorite to write about!

Catwoman #32

Who is the Mysterious Fireface?! To find out, you'll need to slog through twenty pages of complete nonsense!

Last issue, I decided it was taking too long to comment on Ann Nocenti's story like an actual critic critiquing actual writing. And since Ann Nocenti's writing isn't technically writing, I decided to just start listing all of the weird and incomprehensible things going on in The Race of Thieves! I may also interrupt the list for a nice bit of Scenes From Ann Nocenti. Ready? On your go! MARK!

Another List of Ann Nocenti’s Bullshit
By Grunion Guy

1. Funny enough, I accidentally guessed how Nocenti would begin the issue. Sure, it's a "race" so why wouldn't it start with an on your mark type of gunshot deal. But I'd forgotten this part of the competition was going to be a literal race.

2. To prove who is the best thief in the world, the thieves compete in a Wacky Race. None of them question this.

3. Vegas is running odds on the winner of the Race of Thieves. I suppose this isn't that odd since Vegas bookmakers will run bets on anything. But this is some kind of clandestine, invitation-only, outside of the law competition! Did Roulette hold a press conference at the Rio before sending out the puzzle box invites?

4. I guess Roulette is participating in this race? She's on a bullet train to the end of the line while the other racers try to drive through sandy terrain to beat her.

5. Mirror Master owns a rocket ship?

6. Rat-tail (woo woo!) has suddenly entered the competition and even though the race is straight along some tracks, he rides his motorcycle across the front of a tank and some kid named Big Wheel's truck. He's worse at driving than he is at doing his hair.

7. Rat-tail winds up in Catwoman's car even though the positions of all the vehicles make no sense for him to be able to hop to her car when his motorcycle is run over.

8. Catwoman decides to tell Rat-tail about her new job as an undercover coroner with the Gotham Police.

9. Coroner Bill don't believe in none of your highfalutin, modern day CSI nonsense!

10. Coroner Bill actually says "Jeesums." Just in case you weren't sure he was an ornery son of a gun what ain't got no time for all these computer doohickeys!

11. Catwoman and Mirror Master have no trouble conversing while racing. Perhaps Sam Scudder has gotten good at hearing things he shouldn't be able to hear so he can respond to The Flash's super speed one-liners.

12. Oh! That's what I've been doing wrong all these years of gambling! The smart money is to bet on the long shot! Shucks!

13. I think "stay on your wheels" is better advice than "don't use fuel." It's a fifty mile course! Who's going to be dumb enough to run out of fuel?!

14. I suppose he did have to drive all the way to this desert in South Asia on one tank.

15. Some smart-assed Asian guy points out the idiot that didn't refuel should have been using a camel because "their tanks never run dry." Piss off, old man!

16. An Interpol helicopter begins firing missiles at the contestants and Catwoman correctly guesses that the hearse in the race is asking for it just before it blows up. Why was the hearse asking for it? Where does she get such lovely intuition?

17. While missiles are flying all around them, Rat-tail (woo woo!) asks Catwoman to continue her story about Coroner Bill and his rival.

18. Catwoman notices details the other coroners missed. Like how the corpse of Rita's ancestor is missing a finger. She has such attention to detail!

19. If the family fortune still exists? I suppose he's talking about money other than all the priceless artifacts they found buried beneath the family home and frozen in blocks of ice. Also, I think every line of Coroner Bill's is supposed to be followed by a laugh track.

20. The missing ring finger was taken by Coroner Bill so he could solve the case and prove that gruffness and ill-temper are better tools for solving murders than gadgets and gizmos!

Scenes From Ann Nocenti's Catwoman: Scene Three

Catwoman needed to do some investigating. She was in a race but it was not a race against time because she had plenty of time to do some investigating on the side. She wanted to investigate Hunt Stone's house. "Gee," she thought ballooned, "Hunt Stone's billions are what we are racing for. Not because he wants to give them away but because he must because his child has been kidnapped. I will break into his mansion and do my investigating to prove that he doesn't have a child. I mean, to find his missing child. But I might find his child is not missing because he does not have one! The mystery will thicken!"

Catwoman cut a tiny hole in a window of Hunt Stone's Mansion. It was very small but since it was big enough to get her head through, it was big enough to get the rest of her cat body through as well. The first thing she investigated were the chairs. There was only one in each room! "A-ha!" she extrapolated. "Where did Hunt Stone sit if there were only one chair for his child? I must investigate further!" Next she looked in his photo album that he kept on a table in the hallway. It did not have any photos in it! "This mystery is so thick!" she exclaimed.

Next, Catwoman investigated the bed. "Hmm," she thought. "That is quite a big bed. But do not get me wrong when I say it is big because it is only big enough for one man without any room left for a child. I think I am beginning to solve this mystery!" But first Catwoman remembered something her coroner friend said. He said, "Dust is made of skin flakes." That meant she would collect a bag of skin flakes to perform DNA on them! And the DNA would say, "These flakes have 0% chance of being from a child!" That would really help to solve her mystery! But she thought she still wanted a smoking gun because those always blow cases wide open. So she investigated the creepy baby death mask. "Who could have made this?" she thought! But she knew she could find out the answers because of fingerprints! Her investigations were a success! Now she would just have to go to the lab and process her fingerprints and her DNAs. Good job, Catwoman! That was me, the narrator, congratulating her on her job well done. Or done well enough.

End Scene.

21. There is no possible way that this is a person in a disguise.

22. Catwoman causes the Interpol helicopter to crash. But she does it in the safest way possible so that everybody in it can survive.

23. The Interpol helicopter was actually Vice and Swindle. They argue about how they were getting paid by Roulette to kill the other racers. Catwoman hears them from one hundred feet away while racing at a hundred miles per hour.

24. The finish of the race makes no sense. I'm not surprised because the beginning of the race made no sense. Nothing made any sense. I suppose you don't buy an Ann Nocenti book hoping for a coherent story.

25. Here's how the race finished. Roulette's train was about to cross the finish line so Catwoman grapples it and climbs on top to squat on her knees and scream, "Yes!" Then Mirror Master decides to stop before crossing the finish line to throw up a mirror to stop the train because the engineer would think another train just like his suddenly appeared on the track. That doesn't work and the train crashes into the mirror anyway. Catwoman dismounts (having done her job. I think?) and asks Mirror Master if he got the girl. He says "Yes" instead of "What girl?" I suppose they're talking about Roulette. Alvarez and Keyes were also in the race because they decided investigating a race in South Asia was important to justice in Gotham. And finally the bearded guy in the dune buggy won because he was the only one left and he paid off 100 to 1. And since betting on the long shot is the smart money, he's who Catwoman bet on!

26. Rat-tail (woo woo!), Catwoman, and Mirror Master board Roulette's train to steal the prize money because of course it would be on the train. But it's not. And neither are Roulette or the engineer! So I guess it wasn't Roulette that Catwoman was talking about to Mirror Master. So who the hell was she talking about?!

Catwoman #32 Rating: No change. It's now the worst comic book of The New 52 because Johns and Romita are turning Superman around and making it interesting! And enjoyable! But this book? Holy fuck, my brain hurts.

Catwoman #31

Who continues to buy this book? Shame on you all!

I'm one of those idiot assholes who believe they should act according to the beliefs they hold. So I actually buy my comics instead of going about making excuses for why it's okay for me to torrent the comic books I read. But Ann Nocenti might be tipping me into the realm of rationalizing jerk-off trying to convince everybody that it's okay to steal comic books because the copy protection on them is a huge burden. No wait. That's the rationalization for something else. Whatever! I don't care! At this point, I think the people paying for this comic book are actually doing more harm than the people stealing it!

See, I believe that if you like a piece of art that somebody is creating, you should support that art so that the creator has the means and ability to continue to make more art (Oh man! This is where I should shove in a Donate Button!). If you can't afford it or have some other reason for stealing the art, go ahead and do that. Just don't try to convince me that what you're doing has some kind of nobility behind it. I'm willing to bet I'd still be reading The Movement if as many people who read it actually paid for it. But right now, I can see the other side of the argument! Ann Nocenti's scripts are not worth paying for! They're also not worth stealing though. So maybe I'm not arguing that people steal it. Just stop fucking buying it. When a customer at a comic book shop approaches the counter with a Catwoman comic book, the clerk should confiscate it and hand that customer an Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea business card instead. "Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea! We Read the Shit So You Don't Get So Angry You Have An Embolism And Fall Down Dead in Your Apartment Where Your Neighbor Finds You Two Weeks Later Half Eaten By Your Cats!" I wonder if there's some way to make my business card catchier and more succinct?

Here's my review of this comic book before I even read it: Catwoman says some incoherent things. She talks past people while they talk past her. Some wacky shenanigans ensue that don't make any kind of sense at all. And by the last page, the reader is left shamed and embarrassed and a little bit turned on by the experience.

Last issue, the first part of the Race of Thieves took place. It was the Dexterity Challenge and it consisted of Roulette saying "Let the games begin!" and then everybody else going ape-shit. When you hear "Dexterity Challenge," you think each participant is going to have to pick a lock or walk across a tightrope from one roof to another. You think to yourself, "This is an organized challenge with rule and reason! It's specifically designed to find the most capable thief in the world." You don't think the game is going to consist of the host yelling out each challenge and then letting the participants simply pound each other in the face. But I guess Catwoman wins by being sucked into Mirror World and then escaping.

As a rational human being, I can't think of a more panic-inducing situation than seeing my face a thousand times over. Except maybe being trapped in a fire. Or attacked by rabid dogs. Or having sex for the first time.

Mirror Master's explanation about how most people react to being trapped in Mirror World is exactly the reaction Catwoman narrated while she was trapped in Mirror World. Ann Nocenti scripts as if each character is just another opportunity to say something strange. She doesn't see Selina Kyle as a specific character from Sam Scudder. They're just objects to stick speech bubbles on as they move the plot along through their inane dialogue.

Here's that part of the comic book that made me say Selina would talk past other people in my review I already wrote. Although Sam seems to actually be paying attention to the nonsense coming out of Selina's face.

Wait, wait! I'm not through scanning incoherent nonsense from this page! Enjoy these two panels of people saying weird fucking shit to each other.

Swindle doesn't get the last word. Not at all. And how is Catwoman being a tease? She just said these two will implode. That means she doesn't have to "make it happen." Fuck! Why are these people all such gigantic idiots?!

What are DC editors paid to do? Because part of their job description obviously isn't taking a script back to Ann Nocenti and asking the important questions like "Why is Sam calling Selina a tease here?" and "Why is Swindle saying 'Never again' to Vice?" and "Who keeps signing your paycheck?"

I'm about ready to scan in every fucking page of this mess so nobody has to go through the trouble of purchasing or torrenting this shit! It's just so entertaining in that way that taking a shit that's too big for your anal sphincter is entertaining!

This doesn't make any sense! If this is a race of thieves, why did Volt get an invite? Why is Roulette kicking him out now after she chose him for the party? How does the argument that chaos wins the race prove that Volt should continue to participate in a tournament of thieves?! And why the fuck would she point out this isn't the race of law-abiding citizens?! Because only law-abiding citizens would agree with her when she kicked them out of the contest?! I'm so fucking confused!

Scenes From Ann Nocenti's Catwoman: Scene Two

"How've you been, Catwoman?" asked Trip Winter as he approached Selina. He was hoping she would respond, "Is that a huge cock in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" because he currently had a huge cock in his pocket. Actually it was in his pants but it looked like it was in his pocket.

"Making score after score," Catwoman lied since she hadn't scored at all since she received the near fatal head injury after Batman kicked her off of her motorcycle while going close to one hundred miles per hour. "Without your help, Trip Winter," she spat. She felt saying his whole name would not only accentuate her anger but it also might help the readers to remember who this Bruce Wayne look-a-like was. But just saying his name might not be enough, so Selina continued, "You disappeared on me. Left me holding a bag of loot with no getaway car. Why?"

"We had a good thing, Catwoman," Trip Winter lied. And to really put a point to the fact that he was lying about the good thing they had, he followed that statement up with "But I can't trust you." Because not trusting somebody is always a solid foundation for having a good thing. It's possible the "good thing" he was referring to was the sexual chemistry they had in the lab. And by "lab" I mean "bed." And by "bed" I mean "anywhere Trip could put his thingy into Catwoman's thingy." Feeling that the matter was settled, Trip had one final thing to say to Catwoman. "No one can." That ought to make her feel bad because obviously Trip Winter knows her much better than everybody else knows her! Catwoman squirmed against the wall as Trip made such a piercing observation of her untrustworthiness. She hissed and batted a paw and zipped out of the room.

End Scene Two

Roulette informs the last contestants that they have won Round Two which was prowess in combat. So that wasn't the Dexterity Round? Is it possible Ann Nocenti's horrible writing ability tripped up a Master Comic Book Reader like myself and I made a mistake?! When Roulette mentioned the Dexterity Round last issue, was she talking about the puzzle box invites that she sent out?! If so then Roulette sucks as a Game Show Host because she never actually mentioned that Round Two would be a big fight. She just said "Let the games begin" or something and everybody just seemed to know that they should beat the shit out of each other.

Anyway, now the contestants have to pull off a heist. And they're competing against criminals all over the world. So I guess Mirror Master doesn't fucking understand the rules of the game any better than I do! That idiot actually thought there were only four contestants! Scudder is a jerk!

Anyway, here's Roulette describing the heist (along with some other dumb stuff):

Why is Mr. Stone's head on fire?!

So a house that has been boarded up for two hundred years is now an archaeological dig site. "Careful! Careful! Open that door slowly so you don't break anything! Dust the floor carefully so you don't miss any pubic hairs! Watch out for the pipes when you start digging in the floor!"

Catwoman changes into her costume and heads out to the dig site. On the way, she passes a bar where the lights are flickering. Of course she realizes that means that Volt is in the bar. What else could it mean? Nothing, that's what else!

Catwoman saves Volt from getting his ass beat because I don't know what the fuck is happening. Did Volt get kicked out of the contest or not? I guess after proclaiming he had a right to compete, he decided he needed a drink more. Because as we all know about Volt (or are learning right this second, anyway), he can't lay off the sauce!

Unless asked nicely.

Ann Nocenti really has no idea what she's doing. Who is buying this fucking comic book? Besides me! I get a pass since I tell everybody that isn't buying it that it's still horrendous. That's valuable information!

Since Detectives Alvarez and Keyes decided they didn't feel like going through with their undercover sting of Roulette's Race of Thieves, they've headed back to the office which Catwoman bugged many issues ago with a camera that looked right into Alvarez's crotch on a daily basis. Now the camera has fallen to the floor and Gwen is concerned that it isn't showing the outline of Alvarez's penis against his tight detective khakis. Catwoman doesn't care about that because she just wants to hear what they're discussing. And what do you know?! They're just sitting there spouting information about the Viceroy Manor Dig! What luck! Remember: knowing is winning!

Since Nocenti's stories never make any sense, maybe I'm making a mistake trying to write about them. Perhaps I should just make a list of all the stupid shit in her books? That might hurry things along since writing a commentary on Catwoman takes a lot of energy out of me as I smash my face into the wall and tear out my hair and fall into a psychotic rage.

A List of Ann Nocenti's Bullshit
By Grunion Guy

1. The Viceroy Mansion dig is not an archaeological dig at all. It is a two hundred year old cold case murder scandal! Maybe it's both! The archaeological crime scene dig is being guarded by snipers and anti-aircraft and radar and you name it. This is a situation that makes complete sense if this murder scandal is based on some ancient cult of the Old Gods.

2. Catwoman takes time out to compare herself to a "tethered horse watching stallions pound by her." It's poetic and beautiful and sounds way more sexual than it probably should. Especially the part about the stallions and the pounding! Also that part about the tethering! Scandalous!

3. Alice Tesla brings up those gaslamps from the first issue. Why did Roulette need them, hmm? Curiouser and curiouser, Ann Nocenti probably wished she'd made her say but instead I did! I suppose she brings them up because they'll have something to do with Roulette's ultimate goal which, if the reader is lucky, will never be exposed because this comic book will be cancelled soon. Although its monthly numbers are still abnormally high because comic book fans are idiots that follow characters instead of well told stories. Jerkos.

4. Catwoman states that the other thieves are going high-tech, so she's going to go primitive. I don't know how she knows how the others are going high-tech! She just mentioned that she hates not knowing what the other racers are up to! It's why she compared herself to a horse!

5. Catwoman makes fantastic similes.

6. The archaeological dig is turning up valuables locked away in blocks of ice because not only does Gotham sit on enormous caverns full of the unwashed masses but it also seems to exist on a full scale Pengo video game.

7. The woman in charge of the dig is looking for evidence to clear her family name. Instead she finds valuables worth millions of dollars. Shoot!

8. Rita Viceroy discovers a painting of an ancestor that looks just like her! That's such an original idea that I should write a story about it! I will call it "The Painting That Looked Like Me But Was Super Old!" It will have a twist ending where the painting was actually a time traveler and it really was a painting of me!

9. Selina once again works for the Suicide Hotline instead of the Crime Hotline because it's easier to prevent suicide than it is to prevent crime. Unless the statistics show differently. Which they probably don't.

10. No mention so far of the other Race of Thieves Contestants. I guess they're busy doing research and thinking up stupid similes and building weapons as well.

11. For some reason, the coroner is really upset about the Viceroy Cold Case being reopened. What the poop does he have to do with it?! Why would he be upset if they overturned any conclusions made 200 years ago? Oh! Oh! I bet it was his coroner ancestors who killed the Viceroys for their money and he's been benefiting ever since!

12. Rita Viceroy and the privatized coroner have a moment to share Ann Nocenti's research into inventions that were once invented. "I love things being invented!" "Oh! Oh! Me too!" "So good." "Yes! So, so good." "Let's do it!" "Okay!"

13. Catwoman tracks down some gum on a shoe. You can tell they're gum on a shoe because they say things like "Yeh" and "Whattayawant?" That's totally corrupt gum shoe speak!

14. Catwoman helps the shoe gums to steal lots of stuff from the site! But they can't steal the gigantic golden elephant or she'll stamp her foot and yell, "But we had a deal! Poo!"

15. Catwoman doesn't want the stupid gold elephant anyway. How can she move it on her own?! She just wants some dumb old papers.

16. Golden Glider and Mirror Master finally arrive because they were probably off doing it while Catwoman was busy with her convoluted plan.

17. Vice and Swindle arrive last because they were probably off imploding while Golden Glider and Mirror Master were busy with doing it.

18. Vice makes a heavy lifting comment without mentioning his penis. He is classy!

19. Everybody betrays everybody else in an orgy of betrayal. That's why this issue was called "Gauntlet!" I mean, that's why this issue's cover said, "Betrayal!"

20. Mirror Master does unspeakable things to a golden elephant's behind.

21. Volt arrives drunk and is knocked out by Catwoman. She either claims he has delirium tremens even though he'd only been sober for an hour or two before getting drunk again, or she's making another bad simile where she says he's "grinning like an idiot with delirium tremens." Because delirium tremens make idiots smile because they're too dumb to be terrified and uncomfortable.

22. Mirror Master makes a quick calculation about how valuable the Golden Elephant is. He's really good at math and approximating and guesstimarking because when he brings the elephant to Roulette, she comes up with the exact same estimate in the exact same way with the exact same wording! Coincidence or horrible writer?! As a Reader, you probably think it's just a coincidence! But as a Writer, I know which one it really is!

23. Catwoman wins the Heist Round because knowing is winning and she knew that love letters were more valuable than stripping and melting a golden elephant down to fifty pounds of gold worth one million dollars!

24. Selina has now been hired to the Gotham Police by a transfer coroner that was brought in by private money. Something about that doesn't sound right!

Catwoman #31 Rating: -3 Ranking. This comic book might be worse than Scott Lobdell's Superman. It's kind of hard to tell because how do you tell the difference between really shitty garbage and really garbagy shit?

Catwoman #30

And now here they are! The most daredevil group of bungling burglars to ever twist their picks in the Race of Thieves competing for the title of the World's Wackiest Burglar. The thieves are approaching the starting line. First is the hostess of the race, Roulette. Oh, and here's the lovely Catwoman, the glamor gal of the Batman. And right on her tail is Volt. And there's the Central City Chuggabug with Glider and Mirror Master. Sneaking along last is the Blue Crew with those double detective do-gooders, Carlos Alvarez and his sidekick, Tammy Keyes. And even now, they're up to some legal trick. And...they're off...to a standing start. And why not? They've been handcuffed to a post by shifty Detective Alvarez who shifts into the wrong gear. And away they go on the way out Race of Thieves!

Don't you wish all employers could be as trusting, loyal, and faithful as DC Comics? Just imagine if your doctor didn't know what any of his surgical instruments were called and often mistook the liver for the pancreas while spouting old wives tales and folk medicine as the means to cure you of your ills? And no matter how many patients died at the hands of this incompetent buffoon, wouldn't it be sweet if the hospital continued to employ him, month after month, trusting that he'll eventually get it right? That's a world I'd like to live in! A world where everybody sucked at their job and nobody was ever fired! Somehow that world exists for Ann Nocenti alone! Except she's the doctor if you didn't follow my analogy very well because you're of limited, Disciple-type intelligence.

The most miraculous thing about Jesus Christ is that he didn't just give the fuck up in the face of incompetence! His only disciple smart enough to see what was happening and understand Jesus's message was Judas! Maybe if the others had understood, they would have helped Judas try to stop the maniac!

This issue begins with Selina Kyle burning the Catwoman suit because she never wants to be Catwoman again!

I think Ann Nocenti just finally realized that she has no idea how to write Catwo Man, so she's decided to start over!

Hey Selina Kyle! YOU ARE CATWOMAN! You're the idiot making the decisions that are hurting your life! You know who you should really get rid of? Ann Nocenti! She's the real problem!

And now, Scenes from Ann Nocenti's Catwoman!

Catwoman...no, I, the omniscient narrator, would have to stop thinking like that. Selina Kyle. That's how I meant to start. Selina Kyle stood in the dark alley amidst the urine puddles, and the bums passed out in the urine puddles, and the bums creating urine puddles after they've passed out, smelling the acrid stench of motorcycles popping wheelies. No motorcycles were currently popping wheelies and, let's face it, even if they were, they probably wouldn't be creating the smell of burning rubber that Selina Kyle was associating with popping wheelies on Catwoman's motorcycle. Maybe if she were doing doughnuts or exhibitioning her speed, she'd smell the smell she's smelling now that's being created by the burning of her Catwoman costume. Behind her, a man with a head injury and the kid from mask stood by their own fire, burning their hands off at the wrists. A mother and child rummaged through a nearby dumpster, the child throwing a tantrum because her mother wouldn't let her have the large cardboard box with the Amazon address label. "You know we can only afford the small first class post office mailing box, honey." Her mother was a model of restraint in her moth and rat and possibly homeless person eaten sweater.

The memory of her motorcycle caused Selina Kyle to, yet again, think of Catwoman as a separate entity from herself. The registration may have been in Selina Kyle's name but the bike had cute little cat ears over the headlight which meant it actually belonged to Catwoman. And if Selina Kyle was going to get her life back together, she was going to have to sell the bike for scrap metal. Sure, she could probably sell it on Gotham Craiglist but somebody might notice the cat ears and guess her secret identity. Safer to just demolish the bike completely.

"Hey gorgeous. You free?" Selina turned to see a plumber in a dirty car, made even dirtier from the blood of the bums he'd just run over as he trundled through the crowded alley, leer at her from underneath his Gotham Knights baseball cap.

"Me? Get lost," she said dispassionately. Selina was shocked. She was taken aback. She couldn't believe her cat ears. I mean, her human ears! Here she was in one of Gotham's dirtiest alleys dressed in only a low cut trench coat with six inch heels and some guy thought she was a streetwalker that would give it away for free? Can't he see this is a Coach Bag and a Burberry Coat with Manolo Blahnik pumps? "Creep," she thought, calculating how much she would have fucked him for as she ducked into the smelliest, dirtiest, foulest gym in all of Gotham. "Catwoman would train in a fancy place! And I'm Selina Kyle!"

End Scene One

Later Selina Kyle, trying to distance herself from the persona of Catwoman, adopts about twelve cats for her apartment. She also wonders what kind of writer would write a thief who lives in a penthouse apartment that's simply one big window. Oh, don't think of it that way, Selina! Think of it as wanting a 360 degree view of Gotham so you can catch sight of Batman while practicing playing the double sided diamond studded dildo.

No, Selina. Catwoman stole library books. Anyway, was that copy of Leaves of Grass based on the action packed adventure movie?

Selina Kyle is still working for the suicide hotline where she worked during Gothtopia. I wonder if Ann Nocenti realizes Gothtopia is over? Is this Selina's reaction to Batman telling her he doesn't want to stroke her fur any longer? She's just going to throw everything away and turn back toward her fake life that she dreamt up while under the Scarecrow's drugs? That sounds reasonable!

Excuse me, I got a fact wrong earlier. Selina is working for the Gotham Police Crime Hotline! It just seemed like a suicide prevention call center because she took the job during Gothtopia when the only "crime" was suicide. Anyway, Selina heads back to that job where all of her office mates apparently have nothing to fucking do but stand around and listen to Selina do her job incorrectly.

Why is she answering "friend speaking" on a crime hotline? I think she still thinks she's doing suicide prevention or abuse counseling!

I love how Selina's office mates high five and celebrate as Selina solves crimes over the telephone. Or they think she does! Instead the guy pulls the old twisteroo on Selina and kills himself using her words against her! Ha ha! In your face, Not Catwoman! Now you're hurting people no matter what persona you've chosen! Is this going to drive you back into Catwoman's arms?! One warning: Catwoman's arms currently smell like popping wheelies on your motorcycle.

Selina recognized the voice on the phone, so instead of telling the police in the other room to head to the address of her friend Gwen who might be dying of a gunshot, Selina races from the building and runs across a bunch of rooftops to get to Gwen. Luckily Gwen is a lousy shot and missed her face nine times, judging by the amount of shells on the ground. I guess Gwen has become so broke from Catwoman not fencing stolen products through her that she decided to end it all.

I guess the ten women she works with are too dowdy and supportive to think of as friends.

Gwen, being a true and disloyal rat of a fink of a friend, talks Selina into taking a look at the Race of Thieves invite she found in her purse, a gift from Trip Winter. Remember Trip Winter? He was the guy Catwoman fell in love with before she fell in love with Rat-Tails (woo woo!). He sent her on some job to play giant chess on Gotham rooftops or something. It doesn't matter since that story was interrupted by Death of the Family which caused it to make no sense. That's me being charitable because even if Death of the Family didn't interrupt the rooftop chess game, the story was still written by Ann Nocenti and, thus, would still make no sense.

The invite is from somebody named Roulette who claims to be the World's Greatest Thief. Selina cannot allow her to take that title since that title's keyhole fits perfectly with the World's Greatest Detective's key. Keyhole and Key are metaphors for vagina and penis.

Selina is properly outraged by this woman believing she's the one that should be fuckfighting The Batman, so she decides right then and there that Catwoman shall live again! She also discovers that Roulette is holding children hostage and that Gwen seems to want to live again. But those two things are entirely incidental. That bitch Roulette had better not be calling herself World's Greatest Thief!

Later Catwoman investigates The Foundling Hospital to see if the teeth in the invite were from the children at the hospital.

Of course he's her secret friend! She did give him a jewel studded dildo, after all!

See? The jewels are on the testicles. Probably.

If you want to read some of the shittiest shit of The New 52, just pick up this comic book and read the page where Selina visits Alice Tesla. Fascinating garbage!

Selina picks up some gear from Alice Tesla and a costume to attend Roulette's Party. The party takes place the same night that Selina learns of it which means Alice Tesla must have super speed. She also makes Catwoman's masquerade costume a Cat Mask with a Cat Charm Bracelet and a Cat Belt Buckle. Hopefully Selina doesn't mind being made by everybody at the party.

Selina shows how intuitive she is.

Roulette appears and gets the games started. Trip Winter is on her arm and a mechanical dog is by her side. She has a billionaire with fiery hair tied up and on a leash. It's his money backing the game and his child being held hostage. I bet the kid is inside the mechanical dog!

The game begins with a contest of Dexterity! Everybody rolls a D20! Or something. I actually have no idea what the Dexterity Challenge is because Roulette just says, "Let the games begin!" And then her dog attacks Volt and Mirror Master begins mirror-blasting shit. And Selina winds up in Mirror World spouting Ann Nocenti nonsense.

I guess the Contest of Dexterity was simply about not getting punched in the face by the other thieves? Roulette is definitely not the World's Greatest Gamemaker.

Catwoman #30 Rating: -2 Ranking. Here's my review via a conversation I had with Pickle Boy, my ex-assistant:

Me: "This comic book is so awful! How does she do it?"
Pickle Boy: "Dart board?"
Me: "Maybe if the dart board had different kinds of drugs tacked to it! Nocenti: 'Okay! Today I script under the influence of downers and LSD!'"

Catwoman #27

Am I the only one at least partially disturbed with Catwoman, a person Bruce loves to fuck, dressed similarly to Robin? Is that what Gothtopia really is? A place that doesn't judge a man for wanting to fuck his young sidekick?

For anyone that doesn't know, Gothtopia is this story where The Scarecrow and Mad Hatter and various other Gotham Crazies have drugged the entire city so that they believe everything is going swimmingly. "Going swimmingly" is how phys ed teachers of the fifties used to describe their alternative sex life when they didn't want to use words like "domination" or "heavy leather ball gag" or "genital mutilation." I learned that from a Final Jeopardy question. Anyway, some citizens have been breaking out of the drug induced paradise and been killing themselves. A few superheroes have been breaking through the spell and not killing themselves because they need to save everybody from living a beautiful, happy, harmonious life.

In Gothtopia, Catwoman has become Batman's new partner and goes by the name of Catbird. Who wants to bet against her being called "Cat-Turd" at some point in this comic book? Because I've got twenty bucks on it!

If somebody were to really take that bet, I'd probably lose my money. I forget that just because I think of it and that I would put it in a story, that doesn't mean a writer that has to answer to a bunch of editors would wind up doing it.

Ann Nocenti titles this issue "Happiness is a Cold Gun" because of reasons. After reading the issue, I may very well learn why she titled it that. But I've also learned not to put too much effort into understanding anything written by Ann Nocenti. She's the person that wrote a Green Arrow story where a woman juggling flaming batons kept shouting advice at him. Now, that could have really been happening even though it's unbelievable that she would have kept encountering Green Arrow again and again. Does it make more sense to think of her as a guardian angel or a magic pixie? Maybe. I don't know! Like I said, I don't think about it. I just read it and let it wash over me like five day old diarrhea.

Gothtopia. Where sexuality isn't a spectrum; it's a Fudge Brownie With Walnuts Party and everybody is coming. On the brownies.

The issue opens with Batman and Catbird catching a couple of criminals on the rooftop. It's possible (and I'm going to do just a tiny amount of thinking about Nocenti's writing here. I know, I know. It's a bad habit and I keep falling back into it) that Ann Nocenti has no ability to comprehend the assignment she's been given. Gotham City has no crime. Everyone believes it's a warm, peaceful place. But here are two criminals committing crime and aware that everybody else is acting goofy. Not only that, the police show up and point out that crime is down 99% and the only crime left is suicide. Is that even a crime? Is Attempted Suicide a crime? If attempted suicide is not, why would successful suicide even be a crime since you don't have a live perp left to convict? Anyway, it's pointed out that no crime is happening while they're arresting two criminals for committing crime. Is it Ann Nocenti that's fucking up or am I to believe that everybody is so out of it that they don't have any clue what they're doing from moment to moment? And should I believe that these two criminals have broken free from the Scarecrow's toxin? So far the only ones to do that are geniuses like Batwing and Batman! Somebody keep an eye on these two evil genius burglars!

More sexy orgasmic kissing. I always figured Batman and Catwoman to be the type to come at the same time.

Catbird's friend, Selina Kyle (wink wink!), goes to the police station later to help counsel people who have attempted suicide. Once again, Ann Nocenti has a character mentioning that "a suicide attempt is, technically, a crime." Fucking bullshit. This is more of that "crocodiles prefer rotten meat" bullshit that Nocenti keeps pulling out of her ass. Does Ann Nocenti know anything about fact checking? Lord Google does a pretty good job if you ask him politely and turn on Safe Search so you don't get distracted. I know she does research for her stories because she always over uses lingo whenever she has a character involved in a new pastime or career. Half the time she doesn't even get the lingo right but she seems to feel like she's gotten the job done well if she can manage to stick as much of it into the conversation as possible. So now she's told me that crocodiles prefer rotten meat which is a lie. She's told me that cats can't swim which is a lie. And now she's saying that attempted suicide is technically a crime. Which is a lie. I'd be willing to blame Selina Kyle for having her facts wrong but the police earlier categorized suicide as the only crime left in Gotham.

My point is this: you literally do get dumber reading an Ann Nocenti story!

Anyway, Selina Kyle is going to get to the bottom of the rampant wave of Gotham Suicides! If she just asks the right questions and the people just tell her nonsensical answers, she'll crack this case wide open! Just like a Unicorn Detective!

Why isn't this an AMC Series?

Before Catbird has to join up with the Birds of a Feather and Bluebelle and Flying Fox, she receives one last call from a person worried about his friend. The caller purposefully misunderstands her advice and hangs up. And then Selina goes on with her life as we jump forward in time to Batman's incarceration in Crane's Health and Wellness Center.

I should also mention, because I'm a petty bitch, that Bluebelle is spelled "Bluebell" in this issue.

And then this is Catbird's reaction when the man she hasn't been able to keep her lips off of during the first few pages of this comic is put away for having a psychotic break:

"Welp, no time to wait and see what's wrong with Bruce. I guess it's time to reenter the dating pool!"

Words. Words are not enough. I'd like to explain how awful Ann Nocenti's writing is. I really would like to be able to express just exactly how terribly she puts the words next to the other words and then adds some more words until their whole purpose, as words, becomes hidden in their sudden unwordiness. No matter how many sentences she forms, her ideas remain inchoate. The ideas never venture forth from the primordial soup to become stories. They just kind of flop around, a mess of protein strands that never quite become life. And she has me torturing metaphors in my attempt to understand how she can be so ununderstandable!

I'm not good enough at the wordsmithing to explain how bad Ann Nocenti's writing is. That last paragraph was my attempt and it was a sad miscarriage. Luckily you don't need me to see how horrible Nocenti is! Let me allow her to display her skill. Exhibit A:

Thank Jesus on High for the person that invented the trash can! Whatever did we do with all of our stinky things before then?

That night, Selina Kyle has a dream about her former self. She remembers that she's a thief. Oh! And here's where we get to the part where Ann Nocenti did her research to find out the names of various types of criminals! Like wheelmen and safecrackers and thieves and pickpockets and confidence men and escape artists and hackers and hustlers! Wait. Are escape artists actually criminals? I suppose she means people that escape from prisons and not people like Talon and Houdini!

Anyway, Selina seems to know who she is in her dreams but she keeps denying it. She wakes up and gets back to being Catbird until she meets the guy she gave the bad advice to earlier. He's a man in bird armor. Is he Catwoman's opposite: Birdman?! And when she meets him, she begins to see the real Gotham flicker in and out in much the same way Batman and Batwing did before they broke the Scarecrow's spell.

This guy's name is Steeljacket. I've never heard of him but apparently he's the second best burglar in Gotham but he seems to always try to steal the things that Catwoman has just stolen because he's, presumably, an idiot. And now he's trying to wake up Catwoman so she can become the best burglar in Gotham again? I guess he just can't handle success.

Anyway, by telling Catwoman the truth and letting her beat the shit out of him, Catwoman somehow overcomes The Scarecrow's toxin. Batman and Batwing needed drugs to do that but then they're weak assholes. Now that Catwoman sees the truth, maybe next month she'll turn to Steeljacket and ask, "Who the fuck are you?"

Catwoman #27 Rating: No change. Does anybody like Ann Nocenti? I want to hear from that one reader that defended Ann Nocenti a long time ago and said that he thought her dialogue was like David Lynch's dialogue! Can you still defend her after this god-awful run on Catwoman? Can you?! Dare you?!