I just read Absolute Catwoman #3. This is The Yarn, Chapter Three from Che Grayson, Scott Snyder, and Bengal. It keeps cutting between Selina’s past with the Calicos and the present-day hunt for the Yarn. There are pieces I liked. The question the issue kept raising for me is whether this heist/spy book can actually hold an object that big.
The Setup
In the flashbacks, Selina is running with her old crew — Holly Robinson, Victoria Sage, and Helena Bertinelli — leaving their mark on the city. Seven years ago, things are going well. Then Holly shows up with one last “golden ticket” job: a thousand dollars up front, and one of the richest people in the city offering five million to pull it off. You can already tell that job is not going to end clean.
In the present, they’re coming off issue #2 in a snow cave, still being pursued by those near-invisible figures. When the crew finally grabs one, the explanation is a fiber-optic mask that turns them into shadows (or invisible-like). How does a fiber-optic mask hide a whole person? That’s the kind of beat this book does a lot: a big idea, without the details quite landing the idea.
The thing they’re after is still the Yarn. As of #2, it’s a piece of synthetic intelligence that can supposedly rewrite reality, or at least rewrite history. Selina is reluctant to lock back in with the old crew. This isn’t a Calico caper, as far as she’s concerned. They then quickly, perhaps too easily, work out how to work together again despite Selina’s gripes.
Highlights
Jonesy is the piece that plays best this issue. It isn’t new — the helmet AI has been around since issue #1 — but here it actually gets to do some work. It reads attack patterns and helps Selina move through the fight in real time. That’s a cool, practical idea that fits a spy/thief book.
The flashbacks are stronger than the present-day explanation of the Yarn. You get the push-pull of Selina not really wanting to work with these people again, plus a glimpse of a girl who looks like Cassandra Cain from the earlier caper. Holly is still the thread pulling all of that together. The past/present cutting is the part of the book that feels closest to what Snyder does in Absolute Batman.
The problem is scale. A secret-agent cat burglar story can carry a lot. “This Yarn can change a country overnight and the globe in a week” is a different genre. If that object is really that powerful, the obvious question is where the rest of the Absolute line is. What does that mean for Absolute Batman, Absolute Superman, and Absolute Wonder Woman? Maybe the book is going to shrink the idea as it goes. Right now it just sits there, huge, on top of a smaller story.
The art is fine. The flashbacks work. Some of the “shadow” tech and the Yarn itself still feel like the book is swinging bigger than it’s ready to justify.
Final Verdict
Absolute Catwoman #3 is fine. Jonesy lands better here, and the Calico history is still the most interesting thread in the series. I don’t think this one is stronger than #2 for me. The heist in #2 had a clearer charge. This issue keeps adding mythos without making the spy story and the reality-warping story feel like they belong together.
It’s not a bad comic. It just still isn’t quite getting me there. I’m still reading, and I want the Yarn, Holly, and Cassandra Cain to become something more specific than “this can rewrite the world.” If that happens, the series has a lane. If it stays this big and this vague, it’s going to keep feeling slightly off.
What did you think of the Yarn and how Jonesy was used here? Tag me on X @NostalgicNestEg!
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