Catwoman #83

Issue Details

Synopsis

NIGHT AND THE CITY Black Mask recounts how he started out as the leader of the False Face Society before he and Batman duked it out in his burning house, which fused his mask to his face. Later when Catwoman stole from him, he kidnapped her sister and brother-in-law, torturing them both and killing the latter. Finally he recalls when Catwoman killed him.  The memory download is complete. Roman Sionis of Earth joins the Black Lantern Corps.   Gotham City is suffering a blackout, so Catwoman is currently robbing the museum. She has stolen numerous items through her life, but the only thing she's ever regretted taking is a man's life.   She hears sirens, and she is about to leave when a hand wraps around her wrist and pulls her out of the museum. She is shocked to see Black Mask. She remembers killing him, and anyway, he couldn't fly before. He wasn't this strong.   Black Masks analyzes Catwoman's emotions and sees fear, rage, and will.   He tries to trash talk her, but Catwoman wraps her whip around his tongue before he can finish his sentence. She rips his tongue and his jaw away from his head, but they grow back.   He tells her this is how she dies. He's going to rip her heart out of her chest, and she'll join the Black Lantern Corps too.   She refuses to give him the satisfaction of seeing her afraid, and she glows green with willpower. Black Mask pulls away, confused and angry. He says he knows how to get what he wants--her fear--and flies away.   Catwoman is confused. The man she loved is dead, and their daughter is far away. Then she remembers her sister Maggie. She sends up a flare for Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn.   Catwoman is stealing a car when Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn find her. They have to go save her sister, she says, and Harley comments that she never mentioned a sister before.   The patients of the Adams Psychiatric Institute are being evacuated to the gymnasium. An orderly and a nun are escorting Maggie Kyle down the hall when the walls change to resemble the room where Maggie and her husband were tortured.   She suddenly breaks free of her catatonia and escapes her escorts, running down the hall, crying that she can't let him hurt her again.   Black Mask is floating outside the institute, using his power on the walls, when Catwoman pulls up with Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. Catwoman runs inside to find her sister while Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn take on Black Mask.   Selina and Maggie hug when they find each other. Maggie asks why Selina stopped visiting, and Selina says she didn't even know Maggie knew she was there.   Maggie is distraught at the memories of what Black Mask did to her and Simon, and when Selina tries to comfort her, Maggie says that it's Selina's fault she's a widow. Selina ruined both their lives when she put on that costume.   Selina angrily reveals that she killed Black Mask so he couldn't hurt anyone ever again before pulling Maggie down the hall, telling her she has a lifetime to blame Selina for what happened but right now they've got to go.   Around the corner they find Black Mask holding Harley Quinn's mallet. He says that Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn didn't make it. Nobody gets close to Catwoman without paying a price.   He chains Selina to a wall and asks her if she ever wondered what it was like for Maggie to watch Black Mask taking her husband apart. She doesn't need to wonder anymore, he's going to do the same to Maggie while Selina watches.   Maggie says that Selina won't care if he does. Selina doesn't love Maggie, and Maggie doesn't love her. Selina thinks she sounds like she means it, but Black Mask notes that Selina wouldn't be here if that was true.   Neither Maggie nor Black Mask can believe that Selina regretted killing him, and Harley Quinn suddenly appears and says, "She's funny like that. 'Course, she's also a better person than you or me."   A carnivorous plant emerges from the ground below them and swallows Black Mask whole.   Catwoman is relieved that Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy are alive, and they apologize for being late. This was the best idea they could come up with considering his regenerative powers--this is like a pitcher plant on steroids, it will keep digesting him even as his ring keeps bringing him back.   They have to move the plant away from people just to be safe, though. Slaughter Swamp isn't far, and the sooner this plant is rooted in wetlands, the more confident Poison Ivy will be about keeping him contained.   Catwoman realizes Maggie is missing, and Poison Ivy says she ran down the hall. Catwoman can come visit her later, but right now they have to go. Catwoman takes comfort in Maggie's recovery, and she hopes they'll be able to talk through it all one day.   The next day, the Adams Psychiatric Institute can't find Maggie, and furthermore, one of the Sisters of Mercy got mugged. They even stole her uniform.   Maggie walks through the sewers dressed in a stolen nun's habit. She knows she should never have left the order and renounced her vows. If she hadn't, she would have realized sooner than her mission in life is to kill the demon that took her sister and destroyed both their lives. The demon that calls itself "Catwoman."