| Title | : | Catwoman, Volume 2: Dollhouse |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1401238394 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781401238391 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 144 |
| Publication | : | First published March 5, 2013 |
knew existed, not even herself!
DC's sexiest anti-hero continues her adventures here with writer Judd Winick (BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD) and artist Guillem March (GOTHAM CITY SIRENS)!
Collects: Catwoman #7-12.
Catwoman, Volume 2: Dollhouse Reviews
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(B+) 78% | Good
Notes: A not-so-shabby sequel, though declawed and not as raw, it's a pleasing ride, but plot aside, new characters are blah. -
Also reviewed for
Addicted2Heroines.
Does anybody not love Catwoman? I mean, when it comes to anti-heroes I'm not sure if you can do much better than Selena Kyle.
Wait. What?
Did some asshole in the back just yell,"What about Punisher?".
Sit down, dumbass. This is my review!
I've enjoyed Winick's run with Catwoman, but I know it's coming to a close.
Yes, it's very sad.
Please join me in a moment of silence...
I have Catwoman: Vol. 3 sitting beside me right now, but I wanted to review this one before I read whatever fresh hell Ann Nocenti has in store me. I have a feeling I'm going to forget how much I love Selina after Nocenti sinks her gnarled writing skills into this title.
I'm really hoping I'm wrong here, but I doubt it.
In this volume, Selina teams up with another thief called Spark. Not the most original name for a guy with zappy-powers, but I rolled with it because he added something interesting to the story.
While they are out and about stealing stuff, they run across (yet another) Talon bad-guy in a Court of Owls crossover. It's not a bad story, but I'm pretty sure I'd already read it in another book.
Alright...Dollhouse.
Even though I really liked the book, this lame-o villain proved to be a bit much for me.
Dear DC,
Please stop inventing bad guys who like to chop people up and turn them into meat-puppets. It's gross, and you've done it to death.
Sincerely,
Anne
But the story itself was pretty good. Prostitutes and junkies are going missing, and nobody but Catwoman is in the mood to care. An unlikely source on the Gotham police force may be her best bet to bring down the villain, but convincing him that she's the good-guy proves to be a bit of a challenge. In the end, both he and Spark grudgingly agree to help find the missing kids. Unfortunately for her, the cop still wants to arrest her, and Spark has a secret that just might get her killed.
Dum, dum, dum!
Luckily for Selena, she's got nine lives...and some good friends who are looking out for her.
Speaking of, there's even a little cameo with the Big Bat!
So, yeah. This one is worth reading. -
Bullet Review:
Such a fun read. Catwoman is so light-hearted - a reprieve to all those gritty, edgy "serious business" comics out there.
A shame Judd Winnick left after this one :( -
I liked the artwork in this volume much better. Selina's features aren't harsh in this version, and she does have the sharper, intelligent beauty of a cat. The story was pretty good, but the ending was a bit anticlimactic as far as the Dollhouse storyline. It was really disturbing what the Dollmaker was doing to those poor streetwalkers. I'm glad that they had Catwoman to fight for them.
I liked Catwoman's team-up with Spark. The inclusion of the Talon storyline was good too. Catwoman's sympathy for the Talon made sense in light of her antiheroic/villainous reputation. Catwoman continues to toe the line of moral ambiguity. Her actions are often spurred on by self-interest even if she does the right thing.
Looking forward to the next installment.
Overall rating: 3.5/5.0 stars. -
A story about Catwoman finding someone named Dollhouse, who kills hookers and turns their corpse into a lifesize doll. Very dark and very good.
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Even darker than the first volume, but good. The basic storyline is someone is kidnapping homeless junkies and prostitutes and then helping them clean up and get off drugs. Sounds great right? Well, then their organs get harvested and sold on the black market, and their bodies are stuffed and mounted in different scenes. Hence the title "Dollhouse". I liked the art as well, but the story was the main grab here.
I was a little shocked by the first volume and not sure how I liked the new "darker" Catwoman stories, but now that I've settled into it it's working. Good work from Judd Winick. -
Not bad but I didn't think it was as strong as volume one.
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Selina Kyle/Catwoman's up to her usual tricks stealing flashy cars and precious items until she runs into a couple of new characters and gets caught up in a dark and disturbing plot where she's forced to adopt the role of - gasp - hero!
The first new character is Spark, an ambiguously good/bad chap whose powers are, anyone? Yup, electrical sparks! He's also a thief and a looker so he and Selina team up (in more than one way) for a few heists, including an attempt to boost some valuable knives from the Penguin and wind up protecting him from a Talon, one of the Court of Owls' zombie-like assassins. The one-shot Night of Owls crossover issue is maybe the best part of the book but the rest isn't bad - but it's not particularly amazing either.
The second new character and villain of the book is Dollhouse, a weird dreadlocked organ-harvesting serial killer who's been abducting and imprisoning Gotham's youngest prostitutes for various reasons, one of which is to make them human-like dolls after their insides have been sold. Catwoman decides to stand up to Dollhouse and become the white knight for this book, a role she's more or less often cast in albeit not being quite as noble as Batman as she tends to steal and kill a bit too.
Dollhouse is a weak villain, who turns out to be the offspring of the Dollmaker, the dreary villain from the godawful early New 52 Detective Comics run, and she turns out to be as boring. Creepy yes, but not particularly interesting. She's crazy, she's evil, that's about it - not a complex figure despite her kooky macabre treatment of her victims.
Spark turns out to be even more boring. He's really there to set up Catwoman's partner Gwen so that she's in Penguin's debt for a future story (you'll see what I mean if you read the book). He's sparky, he's a thief, he's boring and forgettable.
In a book where the villains fall far short of fascinating, the focus should then be on the heroine and her development in the book. Alas, we learn very little about Catwoman that we didn't already know - the one "new" angle is that she's being more or less the good guy in the Dollhouse story which gets undercut when Batman has to save her in the end. So even Catwoman as a character feels a lot less capable and resourceful in her own title! What happened to the Catwoman from the first book who managed to survive fighting a superpowered villain who tossed her around the sky?
Speaking of the first volume, it took the time to establish Catwoman as emotionally damaged who steals out of an instinct for survival and to escape her past, but that side to her is never really explored further in this book. In the first book, she had this great scene with Batman (no, not that one!) where he tried to turn her away from her criminal path with the scene ending in Selina's emotional response where she yells out her frustration at Batman. In this book, Winick tries that again but between Selina and Spark (when Spark's asking her why she cares about prostitutes being murdered) and it does not work - the emotional punch isn't there and the scene plays out as a weaker, more forced imitation of the first book's scene.
Judd Winick's a good writer but his second Catwoman book feels like he's on autopilot and the book never reads more dramatically than a made for TV afternoon detective movie wishing it were edgier but never coming close to achieving it. Guillem March is still drawing Catwoman with flotation-device-sized boobs but otherwise his work in this book, like the first volume, is solid.
Catwoman's still her reckless, thrill-seeking self, cheerfully breaking the law while saving the occasional life, but her character in this reboot initially promised to be far more complex and interesting than it's become in this volume. "Dollhouse" is an ok Catwoman book, just don't expect anything above your run-of-the-mill vigilantics. -
Judd Winick continues his extremely fun Catwoman run in this volume.
Catwoman is now teaming up with a new guy named Spark (Yes...My comic is called Sparks...with a S...that happens to also feature a electric power superhero) But anyway these two team up to steal stuff because that's what they do. However, when someone starts kidnapping prostitutes off the streets, mostly kids, it becomes a issue for the jewel thief. So it begins down a dark path, betrayal from all sides, and the final twist at the end to end the volume in a nice rush.
Good: The art is great, really flows well. The team up with Spark is fun and brings up some interesting moments and fights. Diving into Catwoman's life more and more makes for a interesting take on the character. The ending is great.
Bad: The main villain isn't as interesting this time around. Talon coming in the middle of this volume is weird.
Overall alot of fun. Though it had one really odd issue out of nowhere and a weak villain it remained solid. A 3.5 out of 5. -
Read as part of my "New 52 Batman Family" push.
Perhaps I am a throw-back to a different era. I've been reading
The Batman Chronicles, Vol. 6 in parallel, and I like the older 1940's version of Catwoman -- not interested in costumes, minimal cleavage and unremarkable figure, no feelings for Batman except to play on his feelings, all thief. Ah well.
This collection also seems to drag, another contrast to stories of the 40s and 50s. Old Catwoman could manage 4 crimes in 12 pages. Modern Catwoman spends an issue setting up, an issue robbing, an issue building tension again, etc., etc.
So in the end, I can't say more than "I liked it", enough to read to the "Rebirth" story line, but I think I'll be setting down my fondness for The Cat after that. -
There is a Court of Owls tie-in in here, but the primary story in this volume centers around the abduction of street folk and Selina's deciding to play the hero in the situation. While not stellar, it was enjoyable, which makes it stand out from many of the other New 52 titles whose lows bottom out a lot lower than this. I drew favorable comparisons to Daredevil and Hawkeye for the hero-at-street-level frame of this story. I don't think it would hurt if this title could develop a humor and distinct style of its own while remaining under the cape of the Batman title franchise.
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Good stuff. I had my suspicions about Spark, and that legacy villain was something else.
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A stronger volume than the 1st in this series. It felt like the storytelling stopped trying so hard to be as crime-y and edgy as it felt in Vol. 1.
There's less Batman, which is good. This is Selina's book; Batman should be a small part of her larger world. Unfortunately, Winick doesn't allow her to get through the climax of the story without a gratuitous amount of help from her brooding pal in the cowl.
That said, I would have liked to have seen Winick stick around for a longer run with her. I feel like he was just starting to find his voice in her world and would have liked to have seen more of it.
After what she did with the most recent Green Arrow, I don't think I can bring myself to see what Ann Nocenti does in Vol. 3. It might be time to move on from Catwoman and imagine what might have been. -
*Rounded to 3.5*
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Art and story were both solid here. I am actually enjoying this Catwoman a good bit.
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After going through several difficult fights in the past volume, Selina still manages to be childish and oblivious to her predicament. It's like she resets to her default state every two issues. I expected some progress in her character, but the focus seems to be on just how many encounters she can survive. Being nimble as a cat has its perks, but there should be more trauma to her psyche or something. There is no direction to this volume, so it's the last I read from this series.
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i realized i dont like judd winick
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After reading the previous volume I wasn't quite sure whether I liked it or not. It was good, but it didn't have anything the blew me away. It needed a good story, and thankfully this book delivers one.
I'm glad we got to see a really creepy villain in this. Dollhouse is convincingly crazy with a passion for brutally weird "art". You also get to see more into Selena's character in this book. The first volume was mainly spreads of Catwoman scantily dressed. Not that there's none in this book, but the story definitely takes focus off them. We get to see the heroic side of Selena and her dilemma with being good and bad. You see a more strategic Catwoman this time round. Which is more reminiscent of her character pre new 52 reboot.
The art was one again fantastic. Creating a beautiful world of working girls and addicts. It once again has a visit from the Dark Knight himself. I loved how he didn't overshadow Selena in this, yet still proves how much of a bad ass he is. It was very well done.
I'm so happy this title ended up improving! Onto volume 3! -
Like the first volume in this reboot, this is all over the place. There's some good character stuff in here, with Catwoman being a champion for the lost and forgotten--the addicts, the prostitutes, the homeless. As an outsider to traditional society, she's a good semi-hero for this kind of work and having empathy for the people she's helping.
It was nice to have a clue who Spark was on re-reading Catwoman's issue that was included in Night of Owls, which the first time around reading it in the monster collection he felt super out of place. That did feel like the strongest issue in here, with the Dollhouse storyline being interesting but not fantastic.
Still sticking with the series, but it does feel like the weakest of the New 52 Bat comics that I've read. -
I didn't really like volume one (mixed feelings), so I put off reading volume two for a couple years. Now I've finally read it and thank goodness I did! A Catwoman book that gets Selina right! She's neither a villain nor a hero, but she's certainly a character you'll respect/admire (and shake your head with a smile at). I've always loved Selina best when she's standing up for the people society doesn't care about, and this is one of those books. The villain is effectively creepy. Winnick did a great job writing this.
The art is good too! I really like March's work with the Gotham City Sirens and his Selina is one of my favourite looks on her. I love her hair...
One of my favourite Catwoman books for sure. It might be my favourite but I can't remember right now. Either way, if you want Catwoman, read this. -
Not as good as Vol. 1; the character suffers here, and doesn't quite have the same oomph. It isn't bad, but the promise of Vol 1 isn't met here. Not as much characterization of Selina/Catwoman here and she also appears to be a little dumber than before. However there is one fantastic page where a male GCPD detective and Batman have just helped Catwoman out with the badguy, and the detective says something like "I just cannot figure her [Catwoman] out." to which Batman replies "Get in line."
Best line of the book.
There's also the one issue crossover into Night of Owls where Catwoman helps a Talon, but not in an evil way.
This Catwoman is almost doing hero stuff, but still a thief; it's not bad but not at the same level as vol 1. -
The Dollhouse concept was suitably creepy, but when this is a line dedicated to the fantastic character of Catwoman it sucks to see her becoming a damsel in distress relying upon Batman to save the day.
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An enjoyable story, but there were several parts that were quite uncomfortable to read, and it really bogs down the character.
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Dat plot twist and then dat double plot twist but no bareback sex :(
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Awesome volume. The twists were great and I loved the Owls crossover and the storyline around Dollhouse was really good
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3.5
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“The trick with monsters is tot remember that they probably weren’t born monsters. I wasn’t born this way. All us monsters deserve a little mercy.”
Catwomman, Volume 2: Dollhouse continues some time after the dramatic events of volume one. Selina Kyle is now working with Gwen Altamont, stealing everything from fancy, antique knives to expensive cars. But her life soon gets all messy again as she meets a new, fellow super thief, becomes determined to figure out who is kidnapping and attacking street kids and prostitutes, and even faces a warrior of an old secret society determined to gain rule of Gotham.
I really liked the first volume of this series, but for some reason, this second volume just didn't click with me as much. Selina is still cool and interesting, and I liked seeing her more compassionate, heroic side explored in this story. I also liked her teaming up with another super thief - their banter was fun. But mostly this book just fell flat for me. I don't even really know why. Dollhouse had potential to be a really cool, scary villain, but I don't think the story gave them enough time - a lot of time was spent on other, smaller plot lines, such as the one including the Court of Owls and Penquin. I think the story would've worked better had the focus been on either the Owls and Penquin, or the Dollhouse. As it is, I didn't feel like I fully grasped any of the villains, and thus couldn't really appreciate any of them. I also felt like the heartbreaking events of book one, should've been addressed in this book in some way. Now, with only the few hints at Lola we got in the dialogue, it almost felt like Selina had moved on from the death of her friend and all that. The art continues to be amazing and beautiful to look at, though.
I'm not quite sure whether to continue this series or maybe try some other Catwoman stories in the future, since the fact that I was a bit bummed out by this story, especially after loving the first volume, I'm not super hyped by the idea of continuing. -
Hey, this was some Catwoman. And I love Catwoman, and I like this. The tone is a lot different than the first book, but this was pretty much just as good.
The writing and art style are neat. I didn't have nearly as many problems with figuring out what was going on in the panels as I did with the first volume. I still don't like multi-page panels though, but there weren't nearly as many of those. Catwoman's internal monologue and the characters' dialogue is well written too.
The plot was honestly pretty cool. This was much more tied together than the previous issue, and I liked the way it was set up. The pacing and tension were great.
Since Catwoman is in this, the characters are obviously my favorite. Catwoman is, of course, wonderful. This isn't as dark and heavy as book one, but there's a lot of awesome defining moments for Catwoman's character. The side characters are also pretty good, and I liked both Gwen and Spark. I don't really have any feelings on the villain since they didn't really appear in full until later in the book, but what was there was pretty solid.
Overall, this was pretty good. I appreciated the somewhat more playful tone throughout and the tension with the darker bits. I haven't really read many comics, so I don't have a standard of comparison to say if this is better or worse, but I'm really liking this series so far.
