Catwoman #5 and Lord of the Jungle #1

One really good comic book today and one that I didn't care for much even though I was in anticipation of the title.

Catwoman #5 was a wonderful read. This series has continued to impress me once the first and second issue were over, and Winick (writer) moved away from the need to turn Selina Kyle (Catwoman) into some little tart. The current arc has Selina once again caught in the middle of something she didn't expect to be in the middle of and dealing with while at the same time having demonstrated with extreme skill why this "non-powered" individual can hold her own in a world of super people. In the first few pages, Catwoman skillfully avoids plummeting to her death after being sent a mile into the air and falling towards the earth rapidly to become a human pizza. She then returns the favor to the super who did her the favor of sending her flying by quickly demonstrating that if you're not invulnerable like Superman, you probably should watch your back when a skilled street fighter is sneaking about. Just as rapidly, Catwoman also proves why she needs nine lives like a cat as she realizes that the extreme amount of cash she has just stolen from a drug dealer's courier actually belongs to dirty Gothcam City cops who send the whole force after her to get their money back.

Judd Winick continues to knock this title out of the park with his writing. While I was not impressed with the title early on, I'm glad I gave it a chance to progress past the tawdry tart Winick seemed to be making Selina into to illustrate that he just chose a poor way to tell that part of his tale. Granted, I know most of the red-blooded American male fan boys don't agree with me on that last part.

Guillem March's artwork on Catwoman continues to be spectaclular from the detail as we watch Selina rip her arm out of socket in this issue saving herself to popping it back in and the anger and surprise depicted over and over again throughout the title.

If you turned off on this title due to the first or second issue, I recommend picking it up now. It's a wonderful series at this point, and I hope it stays that way.

Lord of the Jungle #1 is a title I was in anticipation of - I even went out and read Tarzan of the Apes in anticipation of the comic book to ensure I could properly judge between the two. I'm sad that I did now, because this first issue was a disappointment to me. Granted, not as much of a disappointment as the previous Tarzan movies are to me now after reading the book and seeing how far they strayed from the books and crossed multiple books together in horrible fashion, but still disappointed.

This first issue gets through to the point where the she-ape, Kala, picks up little Lord Greystoke after her tribe has killed his father. The lack of very much dailogue or even captioning in the comics really detracts from the story of how Lord Greystoke and his wife, Lady Alice, ended up on the remote coast of Africa. While you see them being dropped off on the African coast by the mutinous crew of their ship, you never see the reasons for the crew committing mutiny or why they choose to spare Lord and Lady Greystoke. Also, the story brings in Mbonga's tribe of natives while Lord and Lady Greystoke are still alive and even has them note the little cabin on the beach, which is out of sequence iwth the actual book (not really detracting in and of itself, but worth noting with my other issues with the issue). I can only hope the title gets better and goes for a little more detail in the story with the next issue. Right now, I would say check this title out if you're a die-hard Tarzan fan and have been waiting to see him in comics or if you really enjoy Dynamite Entertainment's work.

I will say the artwork in the book is stunning for the genre and works well within the context, so kudos to Castro. I'm not sure who's decision it was to go light on the early part of the story, but having read the book now, I think it is invaluable information in many ways to understanding how the Greystokes ended up being dropped off on this remote coastland.

Thanks for reading!!