The emotional heartbeat of Tom King's lengthy run on the main Batman series at the start of DC Rebirth was the romance between Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle, as the on-again/off-again couple took things to the next level while Gotham City was threatened by Bane. King reunites with longtime collaborative partner Clay Mann to continue their story following the Bat and the Cat, this time as part of the mature reader-oriented publishing imprint DC Black Label to allow them to go deeper and darker with the narrative subject matter. And from the start of Batman/Catwoman, the series feels like no time has passed at all while providing a fresh jumping-on point for new readers that may not have followed their previous work with Gotham's most iconic couple.

The maxi-series is poised to unfold across three separate time periods: The early days of the Dark Knight's crimefighting career when he first meets Catwoman and the two begin their tumultuous romance, the relative present of the DC Universe picking up from the end of King's run and decades into a possible future as Selina looks to settle an old grudge while her and Bruce's adult daughter Helena Wayne builds a life for herself as her own crimefighter Batwoman. The opening issue has Bruce and Selina's domestic bliss upended by the surprise return of Bruce's old flame Andrea Beaumont, the vengeful vigilante the Phantasm, return to Gotham City to continue her vendetta against a certain Clown Prince of Crime.

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After over three years of helming the main title, with a particularly strong focus on Bruce and Selina's love life, King effortlessly returns to the character for this new title. While this story certainly feels like a continuation of what King established between the couple, it is also not beholden to it; this opening issue feels like a bonafide starting point for the uninitiated and its own tale that more or less uses King's previous run as a bit of a springboard for its own relatively self-contained story. King's Batman work worked best when he leaned more into the romantic and cerebral possibilities of the character rather than big, bombastic superhero action and this new title gives him the opportunity to really explore this more while setting up a darker challenge for the couple.

Mann, working with acclaimed colorist Tomeu Morey, is delivering some career-level work on the title as he makes his return to Gotham City. Mann and Morey distinguish present-day and future sequences with the future presented more brightly for this issue and move away from the conventional paneling that had dominated the earlier run on the main title. The action sequences that are in this issue definitely have a kinetic sense about them and are dynamically delivered while several twists and turns genuinely veer more towards horror with a distinctly chilling quality to them.

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While the decision to move Batman/Catwoman from the mainline to DC Black Label suggests that King and Mann have a more hard-edged story in mind, so far it feels like a continuation of their past work, with additional creative flourishes. For fans of King's previous run, this is virtually required reading as the true conclusion to his overarching Batman story and yet very much its own thing. With greater creative freedom, King and Mann can really cut loose on their Dark Knight finale to pit the couple against their most sinister challenge across three different time periods and several surprise characters joining the fray.

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