This review contains spoilers.
Plot:
Flashback-- A slightly younger Selina happily presents Lola with expensive jewelry she’s just stolen. Lola warns Selina that she should be more careful. Back in the present, Selina, her eyes huge with shock, is bound to a chair by Bone’s men. Bone monologizes about his crappy childhood, relating that he spent most of his youth in a group home, where the other children regularly stole from him. After he became an adult, he made a point to surround himself with material goods, some of which Selina has recently stolen.
And that’s it. His entire motivation for killing Lola and beating Selina within an inch of her life lies in his feeling offended that he has once again been targeted for theft. Certainly anyone would be angry if they were robbed, but given his frightening exterior, the strength of his men, and the violence he has ordered against Selina and Lola, his reasons come off as terribly anticlimactic…and kind of stupid.
After ranting about why he of all people should not be stolen from, he orders his men to torture Selina to death. Once again, all that effort for relatively nothing. He already has information on the people to whom Lola sold the stuff Selina stole from him, but he apparently wants her tortured to death as revenge.
The men flip her chair over, and somehow that’s enough for Selina to break the chair legs with her own. She overpowers one of the men and pulls his own gun on him. She demands that the henchmen tell her where Bone has gone, and when at first they don’t comply, she shoots two of the men through their kneecaps, then threatens the genitalia of the third.
She finds Bone in an exclusive nightclub, receiving a lapdance. Like the Russian clans of the previous two issues, this Catwoman nemesis loves the attention of nearly-naked women. At this point, I feel we might begin questioning why each issue seems to involve some form of women selling themselves. Is this all meant to indicate something about Selina’s past? It certainly wouldn’t be very surprising, as we’ve seen her involved in prostitution before. Furthermore, Selina tells Bone that she grew up in much worse circumstances than he, leaving us to wonder if the overt sexuality of each issue is supposed to point toward a history of sexual abuse. However, with these scenes’ emphasis on the seductiveness of the women, it could just as easily be read as eye candy, not suggestive exposition.
Hauling Bone out onto a rooftop, she proceeds to beat him, citing his murderous materialism as the reason she ultimately seeks to kill him. However, Batman intervenes. He tries to convince Selina that killing Bone won’t help her, and that furthermore, he can’t forgive her that particular crime. Selina distracts him with a kiss and uses her whip to knock Bone over the edge of the roof, knowing that Batman will be forced to go after him instead of chasing her.
Back at Lola’s apartment, Selina sets a fire to destroy all evidence of her connection to her deceased friend. Photographs of them together establish a close and positive past. Leaning down to kiss her friend’s face, Selina thinks she hears Batman behind her and turns to find that the police have found her.
