Under the Moon

by Lauren Myracle and Isaac Goodhart

[Quirky Cat]

I received a copy of Under the Moon through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Under the Moon is a retelling of Catwoman's origin, starting from well before she ever even dreamed of becoming the thief we all know her as. This origin story's purpose is to explain how Selina ended up growing into the woman who would become Catwoman.
This isn't the first retelling of it's kind, but they've been such a hit lately that I understand why they wanted to go forward and make a graphic novel focused on this beloved character.


Warnings: There is a lot of abuse in this graphic novel. Selina herself it one of the victims, along with her mother. There's also a really graphic animal death scene.
Under the Moon is the first time I've read a Catwoman origin story. I was surprised that they opted to go back so young, but when I stopped to think about it, it made sense. They were trying to explain how she became who she is today, and thus they needed to cover her most formative years of her life.
It all starts back when Selina was a little girl, but quickly speeds ahead to when she's fourteen. As a teenager, she's tired of her mother's abusive boyfriends. And understandably so. I honestly think that her home life alone was enough to justify her stepping out on her own. From there I could see her developing to the character we know her as.
There's more to the story than that, of course. I'll confess that I didn't love that she went to the same school as Bruce Wayne. That made very little sense in my mind. There's no way he went to a public school, and I don't see Selina affording a private school. So that broke the immersion a bit.
My other complaint would have to be what was done with the kitten. I completely understand what they were going for here, I really do. But I also think it was too much. I knew it was going to happen from the moment they introduced that little guy, and I just couldn't handle it. I personally had to skip over that, but it tainted the rest of the graphic novel for me. I just couldn't enjoy any of it after that.
I think that the core of this graphic novel did have some good points and concepts. There were just elements I didn't love about it. Maybe I was just being too sensitive though.
I would love to see more origin stories like this, all things considered. Just maybe with them being slightly less graphic (in the abusive and animal death sense, that is). But that's just my personal preference.


For more reviews check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks