The variant cover for this issue is provided by artist extraordinaire Randy Green (Tomb Raider, New X-Men, Star Wars) and colored by powerhouse artist Paolo Cagampan.
When I saw the variant cover for Selina I was taken aback, it was much different from your usual style, but nonetheless beautiful. And that's what took me aback, you're batman stories are not beautiful. Your batman is not a kind man, he's vicious, methodical and has little humanity in him. But there in lies the subject of this story, the price monsters can put on a human.
Selina Kyle is not Catwoman just as this man is not truly batman, but their relationship has automatically taken a turn which strangely enough could lead to something legitimate (more legitimate than some writers do it these days). Batman is not operating on a higher level in this story, he approaches Selina almost as an equal or perhaps a lesser if we're talking in terms of what makes us human.
The scene which fascinated me was how violently he rejected Alfred's offer to identify his parent's killer. There's many things would can guage from this, he doesn't want to know because knowing could damage his cause and the drive he has or maybe he doesn't want to know because deep down he knows very simply...he won't be the monster he wants him to be. He's able to act so violently and unforgiving because he sees his prey as monstrous beings that need to be punished. To know who killed his parents it to humanise him, and why on earth would he want to do that?
But by contrast, Batman is being humanise by the people he protects and demonised by the ones he punishes. I was in awe when the victims stood between him and the lasers, he clearly didn't want them to do that but they did it anyway. That's when I knew this was bigger than he expected, and this may well be the cause of a shift. This batman is more vengeance and what I like about this is how well you do it. It's done not for edge points or shock value, the whole thing is set in a brutally realistic world and thus to be batman in that kind of world requires realistic brutality and sheer insane drive. That's never gonna be beautiful, it's awesome.
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