Looking into the author, it wasn’t surprising to see Myracle’s body of work is exclusively young adult fiction such as The Internet Girls, Book 3: l8r, g8r and The Fashion Disaster That Changed My Life. The comic starts with the narration, “Not to whine, but my life pretty much sucks.” I cringe the first time of many as I begin the story. The abuse and tragedy she suffers are seriously heavy themes, but it barely gels with her own tone throughout. By the end of the graphic novel, it occurred to me there was nothing I would praise this character for accomplishing.

She frequently comes off in ways that seem like you should be impressed by her cleverness, before and after running away from home. Myracle’s version of Selina Kyle is no different. (The contrast here is that most of those characters mature in the face of tragedy.) Hell, it’s like when a new Assassin’s Creed comes out and the new protagonist is another wise-cracking misfit that doesn’t play by your daddy’s rules. She was always trying to make quips and be funny, but I don’t remember almost anyone in my audience laughing. In the Captain’s case, her personality remained virtually static despite memory loss, brainwashing, and eventual triumph. Captain Marvel had a lot of this in mind. Essentially, Carol Danvers explicitly challenges who she is told to be versus who she wants to be and even tells a former mentor, “I have nothing to prove to you.” These ideas are great, but crafting the story around them can be dicey. These days, lots of us enjoy a story about empowerment, victims becoming their own heroes especially. While the story is certainly fitting, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. In Under the Moon: A Catwoman Tale, written by Lauren Myracle and illustrated by Isaac Goodhart, young Selina Kyle cultivates her own self-reliance as an only child to a neglectful mother and belligerent, abusive step-father. Either way, I don’t think anyone would assume Catwoman had a past full of sunshine and parental nurturing.

Did anyone in Gotham have a happy childhood? Probably not.

Under the moon catwoman tale