Review: Batman: One Bad Day: Catwoman hardcover (DC Comics)

What is the meaning of value? It’s a potent question that G. Willow Wilson asks in the context of DC Comics' preeminent thief, Catwoman. It’s not that there’s so many double-crosses in Batman: One Bad Day: Catwoman as that the value of the McGuffin keeps changing — what was valuable becomes worthless and what was worthless becomes valuable, and ultimately value is not about actual worth but sentiment, and what people are willing to pay versus what things actually cost.

Wilson’s work has been hit-or-miss for me, though her recent Poison Ivy Vol. 1: The Virtuous Cycle was really spectacular. As such, I was hopeful for One Bad Day: Catwoman, though of all Batman’s rogues, I know Selina Kyle is one whose stories can work well or flame out miserably. In the sense of a Catwoman story, Wilson’s One Bad Day is good, really good — again, a thoughtful treatise on value in which Selina’s life as indigent child and later master thief position her well to represent oft-conflicting perspectives here. Wilson also adroitly negotiates that thorniest of things, the Batman/Catwoman romance.