She’s been Batman’s on and off again love interest for years.

She’s been Batman’s on and off again enemy for years.

That, in a nutshell, is the story between the two characters.

It’s a confusing story, but nonetheless interesting.

But some of the confusion gets a little clearer with Catwoman: When In Rome.

The six-part mini-series by writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale tries not only to explain some of Catwoman aka. Selina Kyle’s past but what happened in their other collaborations “Batman: The Long Halloween” and “Batman: Dark Victory”.

It is told that Catwoman’s disappearance halfway through “Dark Victory” is that she left to Italy.

Sure enough, this is where the story of “When In Rome” picks up. We see Catwoman and another famous Batman villain, the Riddler, on a plane to Italy. Catwoman is trying to solve the mystery of her life as she tries to find clues to discover who her true parents are. Through her quest, she stumbles through many traps and encounters many deadly, yet familiar Bat-Famly foes as well as other DC Comic villains such as Cheetah (ironically, another cat villain).

Even more distracting is her constant drifting mind as she has dreams( or sometimes nightmares) of Batman and a deadly new stranger, Christopher Castillo.

The story is pretty interesting as it delves into Catwoman’s past as well as explaining some of her infatuation with Batman, even if she doesn’t want to admit her feelings for the Dark Knight.

The artwork by Sale is wonderful. Most will now recognize Sale’s art on the popular television show, “Heroes.” Some of his best work in the book is in some of the dream sequences where the art becomes more and more abstract. The lines and colors are vivid and do a fantastic job at developing the story.

Loeb’s writing is also pretty good, but some of the story becomes confusing. Catwoman is a strong character, who often prides herself in being able to handle herself. Loeb made sure to explain that through Catwoman’s dialogue and thoughts, yet the story seemed to contradict that. Catwoman seemed to rely heavily on some knight in shining armor to save her. An array of characters help her out of jams quite frequently throughout the story and it just does not feel as though she is being portrayed quite accurately to character. Castillo seems to be the one doing most of the hard work and fighting throughout the story.

But the story does a good job at showing how Batman and Catwoman’s “romance” has developed. It should be noted that the story is dated as in early in Batman’s career, even before a Robin, his sidekick, appears. Which brings up another point. Though Loeb has Catwoman play as though she is dumb at times, it is heavily hinted that she already knows Batman’s true identity of Bruce Wayne.

After reading the story, I felt that there were more promises made that were never quite delivered. The end has an empty feeling to it. But the overall book has a great nostalgic feeling of 1920’s-30’s cinema.

The book is not a must read, even for fans of “Dark Victory”, but it certainly is not a throw away either. It’s a good story that leaves even the biggest Batman fans rooting for the villain.