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Just
Imagine Stan Lee's Catwoman
2002
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Stan Lee & Michael Uslan
Pencils: Chris Bachalo & Darwyn Cooke
Inks: Richard Friend & Mike Allred
Colors: Alex Sinclair
Letters: Bill Oakley & Phil Felix
Price: $5.95 US/R85.00 SA
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The Catwoman movie has just come and gone here
in South African theatres, and everybody’s ears are still
burning with the berating that the silver screen ‘version’
of the original has gotten, so will all the media hype pointing
to this DC Franshise there’s no better time than now to delve
back into some comic book history of the feline kind. Back in 2002
Stan Lee [he created just about everything
so I'm not even going to bother to mention a book here]
hooked up with DC to ‘re-create’ comic book history
with his ‘Just Imagine Stan Lee’s...’
series of prestige format comics based on the re-working of DC Comics’
heroes by the legendary Marvel mainstay. In this issue Lee teams
up with the ultra-modern and gritty artwork of Chris Bachalo
[Ultimate X-Men, New X-Men] to
take on a re-make of Catwoman’s origin.
Joanie Jordan is a professional model who unfortunately
is the target of a bunch of bank robbers who work for a villain
known as’ Fargo the Flesh Crawler’. They need Joanie
to get them access to the 5th Federal Bank and she can do just that
as she is shooting an advert on the bank premises. During the scuffle
and her failed capture Joanie and her pet black cat, Ebony, are
struck by an errant bolt of glowing green lightning… fused
together and changed forever she has become… Catwoman!
True Stan Lee fans might be better off not reading this book as
it is a less than satisfying mixture of Lee’s classic storytelling
techniques and a horde of blunders. Typical Lee style comes shining
through via such elements in the story as the heroines name, Joanie
Jordan, and her origin, the classic Marvel style recipe for a super
hero: ‘Lightning bolt strikes female with cat in hand and
POW! We have ourselves a new superhero named Catwoman’. Unfortunately
if this was the premise i.e. ‘A campy and outdated re-tool
of DC Universe characters’ then fine, but the problem comes
when you mix it up into a nonsensical and heavily mixed-up
modern comic tale.
Lee instantly muddles things when we meet Joanie by vocalising her
thoughts for the reader when she really shouldn’t be talking.
Her thoughts should be internalised via thought balloons, and to
top it off the dialogue is horribly forced and false, no one talks
to themselves like this unless they’re an Arkham inmate. I
know we are spoiled by such writers as Brian Michael Bendis
[Daredevil, Powers] who give us
month after month of achingly great dialogue and believable thought
patterns, but this is just really sup-par work by any of
today’s standards.
The second glaring error I picked up was a little bit further into
the story when Joanie talks about the bank robbery to her assailants
before they’ve even told her what they intend to do with her
and the bank, now that’s just inexcusably bad writing and
editing. Thirdly the hoodlums shoot at her, yet at the same time
claim she’s an essential piece of their plan to get into the
aforementioned bank. Surely they would need her alive for this plan
to work?
Lastly, and this ones a doozy, certain lines of dialogue are attached
to the wrong characters, and in one scene a character even holds
a running conversation with himself due to no one catching on that
the speech balloons are concurrently attached to the same person
when they should be on the guy he is conversing with! This is probably
more indebted to sloppy editing and bad lettering
than Lee’s writing, but nevertheless you get the feeling that
no-one has proofed this before going to print which is entirely
inconceivable to me. All in all the dialogue and narrative/timeline
blunders make this story less than compelling. Lee’s quaint
anecdotes/slang, fun origin and naming conventions of yesteryear
do nothing to improve upon a story that is essentially dull and
full of holes.
Chris Bachalo seems a strange choice of artist to match up with
Lee as his ultra-modern deconstructed style of art clashes head-on
with Lee’s honky dialogue. All said and done the art was what
kept me reading this comic. The grittiness of Bachalo mixed
with the muted dark colours of Alex Sinclair [Batman: Hush] work
perfectly together. One scene in particular rises above
the rest as it includes the smart choice of using heavily filtered
and Photoshopped cityscapes as a backdrop to Catwoman swinging through
the night sky, a perfect match for Bachalo’s drawing style.
An additional short story by Michael Uslan [the
the initiator of the Just Imagine series], Darwyn
Cooke [DC:The New Frontier] and Mike
Allred [X-Statix, X-Force]
is also included in this package, but unfortunately suffers from
the same problems as the main storyline. Weak writing makes it a
bore to read, but much like the first tale its artwork pulls it
out of the mire.
The double-sided cover for this issue is awesome with the front
side by Bachalo and the back by Adam Hughes [Wonder
Woman, Gen 13: Ordinary Heroes]. There
are nice pieces of graphic design in both the Logo and inside cover
layouts by Brainchild Studios that help to round
off an impressive set of visuals for this comic.
One huge bonus for fans of the comic book medium is the
sheer amount of raw creator talent on show in this one volume.
From legends like Stan Lee to new-school artists like Chris Bachalo
and Darwyn Cooke this book is filled to the brim with talent. It’s
a pity then that it didn’t quite work out as planned because
the potential for greatness was definitely there, it goes to show
that even with all the great names attached to it a comic can still
be a let-down if not edited correctly and proofed accurately.
This is an art book first and a narrative second. Bad editing and
writing make for a read similar to the new Catwoman movie, pretty
on the outside but lacking any substance on the inside.
Score 3/10
Reviewed By:Iain Duncan
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