DC's "One Year Later" event continues this week, and it's made for some rather personal changes in the life of one Selina Kyle. Pfeifer really hasn't tinkered with the cast of characters too much, and I think his choices for change add some down-to-earth drama that plays to the series's strengths. Nevertheless, I'm not entirely hooked by the new direction as it's not at all clear what he's trying to say about these characters. Signing David (Fallen Angel) Lopez on as the title's new penciller was a good choice, but in this issue, he doesn't embrace the darker look that serves his style so well in the past.
Selina Kyle is dead, but a woman who used to be Selina Kyle finds herself in a different part of Gotham facing a radically different kind of physical challenge. It's been a year since she killed Black Mask in the name of protecting the citizens of the East End, and her life has taken a dramatic turn in that time as she reaches the end of her pregnancy. At the same time, Catwoman returns to the streets of the East End after a year-long absence, but if the original Catwoman is recovering from childbirth in a hospital, who's wearing the costume and cracking the whip these days?
Given David Lopez's work on Peter David's Fallen Angel during the property's tenure at DC Comics, I felt he would make an excellent fit with Catwoman, another dark heroine. The problem is that we're not seeing quite the same level of darkness from the artist here. He offers some fairly straightforward comic art here. The simpler leanings in his work that allowed the shadows and mood to take hold are gone, replaced with a slightly more realistic style. It seems as though he's striving to match the style of his predecessor, Pete Woods. There's nothing wrong with the art, per se, but it just seems rather ordinary at this point.
DC missed out on a great marketing campaign and Pfeifer misses an opportunity to really hook readers by failing to connect the title character's pregnancy with the Batman. The character makes a brief cameo in this issue, but from his behaviour, it's clear he had nothing to do with Selina's new status as a parent. It's too bad... it really wouldn't have been that much of a stretch for us to believe that Bruce and Selina shared a night of passion several months ago. Pfeifer doesn't really play up the mystery of the father's identity at all. Maybe I'm forgetting a cue from previous issues, but mention of the kid's paternity is oddly absent here.
Given what she has gone through, Selina's complete lack of concern for her replacement seems out of character for her, and furthermore, Pfeifer is too successful at conveying the new Catwoman's inexperience. She is so in over her head it's difficult for the reader to understand why she or anyone else would think what she's doing is a good idea. Still, there's potential in the concept, just as there is in the notion of a heroine balancing an extraordinary life with single parenthood. 6/10
