DC Comics has announced a new Black Label miniseries from acclaimed writer/artist Cliff Chiang. Catwoman: Lonely City is a four-issue, oversized “Prestige Plus” miniseries that will be written, illustrated, and lettered by Chiang. The series will follow Selina Kyle as she takes on one last job a decade after one deadly night that ended in the deaths of Batman, The Joker, Nightwing, and Jim Gordon.
Here’s how DC describes Catwoman: Lonely City:
Ten years ago, the massacre known as Fools’ Night claimed the lives of Batman, The Joker, Nightwing, and Commissioner Gordon…and sent Selina Kyle, the Catwoman, to prison. A decade later, Gotham has grown up—it’s put away costumed heroism and villainy as childish things. The new Gotham is cleaner, safer…and a lot less free, under the watchful eye of Mayor Harvey Dent and his Batcops. It’s into this new city that Selina Kyle returns, a changed woman…with her mind on that one last big score: the secrets hidden inside the Batcave! She doesn’t need the money—she just needs to know…who is “Orpheus?”
Chiang first teased that he was working on a Black Label project for DC almost two years ago during a panel at 2019’s New York Comic Con. Catwoman: Lonely City is the latest DC project for Chiang, whose notable DC work includes the New 52 Wonder Woman series. It’s also Chiang’s first full project since the conclusion of Paper Girls in 2019, though he has had short entries in a few anthologies over the past several years.
The tease of new character Orpheus is interesting, as this will not be the first time a character using that name has been active in Gotham. The previous Orpheus was created by Alex Simmons and Dwayne Turner, and first appeared in the 2001 miniseries Batman: Orpheus Rising. That character, one of the first Black vigilantes in Gotham, appeared only a handful of times before dying at the hands of Black Mask during 2004’s “War Games” storyline. What connection this new Orpheus has to that version of the character is as yet unrevealed.
Personally I’m a big fan of Chiang’s work — the 2003 Vertigo series Beware the Creeper is criminally underrated — and his style is a great fit for a character like Catwoman. Don’t take my word for it, though: check out some interior preview pages, as well as designs and a variant cover for Catwoman: Lonely City #1 below. The first issue of the four-issue Black Label miniseries will arrive in stores on Tuesday, October 19th.
