Selina’s Big Score (4)

Selina’s Big Score
by Darwin Cooke

Book Four: Score

The heist does not go well. Everything goes wrong, well, not everything but enough. They make it on to and off of the train with the money. They get on to the boat before they discover that the gig is up. Swifty and Jeff are killed fairly quickly by LePerier. Stark and Selina fight back. Stark kills LePerier but also gets fatally injured.

Selina makes it to the shore. She finds Slam waiting for her. She shoots him when he won’t let her go. He survives what (at first) looks like a pretty serious shot to the shoulder. She buries Stark in the river. End of story.

Once again the art is nice but the scripting left me a bit cold. The chapter opens with what looks like 4 double page spreads. I read this on my iPad. I wonder how those looked in the printed edition where presumably the pages were split by the way the book is printed

On the whole I found the story to be a little disappointing. I was hoping for a little more nuance. I loved Cooke’s DC The New Frontier. I have yet to find another book that he wrote and drew that I like anywhere near as much.

Selina’s Big Score (3)

Selina’s Big Score
by Darwin Cooke

Book Three: Slam

Slam Bradley is looking for Selina Kyle whom he has figured out is Catwoman. His search leads him to Falcone’s penthouse. He gets there just in time to see Chantel die from the beating she received in the previous chapter. He deals with Falcone and his boys, the hard way. He learns enough to know that Selina is planning a heist with Swifty and Stark.

Falcone got enough information out of Chantel to know what Selina and company are planning. He called his business associates in Canada (before Slam caught up to him) and warned them. The Canadians gangsters get the drop on Swifty just as the heist is about to begin.

Slam also drops some information about Selina and Stark and how she double crossed him, while dressed as Catwoman. It’s unclear if Stark knew it was Selina but I’m guessing that if he didn’t know it at the time then he figured it out sometime since then.

Probably my favorite chapter to date. I’m not sure if that means anything or not. I’m thinking it doesn’t because it still feels like Cooke is laying it on a bit thick for my tastes. I’m not talking about the art. I'm referring to the narration and dialogue which don’t leave enough for the reader to figure out for my taste.

Selina’s Big Score (2)

Selina’s Big Score
by Darwin Cooke

Book Two: Stark

This chapter is a bit all over the place. There are a number of locations and two narrators: Stark and Selina. It is all about landing the heist after they recruit one more person.

It opens with a meeting in Miami Beach between Selina and Stark. He narrates this scene. In the middle of it there a flashback to years before in Gotham City. Back then they were a team. They were lovers and he taught her all about breaking and entering. It didn’t work out in the end. In the present Stark is ready to say “no” to the heist but she she asks so nicely that he can’t resist.

Selina returns to Gotham. She pays Swifty a visit. He tells her that someone has been looking for her, a private eye by the name of Slam Bradley. She files the information away and heads to Las Vegas for another meeting with Stark.

They recruit Jeff in Vegas. He’s much younger than Stark, probably younger than Selina. They talk a little shop before parting ways to take care of some errands. Jeff picks up some equipment that conveniently falls off the back of a truck. Selina heads to Gotham to surprise Slam. Stark visits an arms dealer in Death Valley. They rendezvous in Utah where they test the equipment that Jeff acquired. They work out the details of how to get on the train carrying the money they plan to steal and off, without stopping the train.

The chapter ends with a scene back in Gotham. Chantel is visiting Falcone. He has caught on to her thieving ways and beats her up. It is unclear if she survives the beating.

There’s a lot in this chapter. I like the art but I think I would prefer it if the visual storytelling was given a little more room to breathe. So far I don’t love the story.

Selina’s Big Score (1)

Selina's Big Score
by Darwyn Cooke

Book One: Selina

Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman) returns to Gotham City. She’s short on cash and looking to score big. She hooks up with a couple other folks who have a scheme to rob the Falcone family. Her partners in the job are Swifty, Chantel, and Stark. Swifty is a pawn broker who probably has a criminal past. Chantel is the girlfriend of Frank Falcone and the one with the inside information on the location of the money. Stark is a tough guy from Selina’s past.

So far it seems like the prototype for the Parker graphic novels  that Cooke later adapted from prose novels. The first chapter doesn’t feel quite as self-serious as those books. Hopefully the rest of the book will follow suit. For the most part I like it. I thought the moment when Selina recognizes the comment that Chantel makes was a bit too on the nose. She recognizes it as being one that she heard Stark make years before when she first met him. I’m not sure why Cooke is putting such emphasis on this comment. Maybe this is foreshadowing that Chantel (and maybe Stark, too) are going to turn on her? What kind of heist story can it be without at least one double cross?

I can’t argue with the art. It is very likable. I especially like the use of lots of small panels to set the tone and tell the story.