When I started sort of nosing around comics in the early-ish Eighties (after moving away in the late Seventies onward , perhaps at least in part for the usual reasons) , one storyline...um , " continuity " I suppose though I don't think I used it then...change that was of note to me was that , in the Batman stories , Catwoman had definitely switched over from being a villianness , to...Perhaps not entirely a " heroine " yet , but definitely above the 50th percentile in the " being on the right side of the law " !
I had never seen any description of how this happened/in what way it was presented...Until a recent Back Issue story (which I don't have any more-:-() , which detailed how it happened , in the late 70s .
IIRC , it happened in Steve Englehart-written stories .
Anybody here experienc it - with the stories , as they were published - first-hand ???????????
Replies
I think it was retconned as being Zatanna's fault through direct mind alteration, but I was out of comics from the early 1980's on through the early 1990's.
I think it has to be fun for the writers to have a character who has a good conscience, but also no pity for the rich. The "well-rounded character" is something that abounds over at Marvel, but DC is rife with characters who are all pretty much either black or white.
When a writer tries to take any other DC character and make them a little bit gray (hero or villain), everyone starts crying and carrying on for months as if the character is an actual human being who has done them wrong. (Sorry, starting to rant...I'll stop.)
But with Catwoman, we have a DC character who is actually thought of as a gray character, but who will ultimately land on the side of the angels in the end. This has been going on since I started reading comics back in the late 80's. I remember a couple of stories from Batman/Detective Comics by Grant and Breyfogle with Catwoman written in exactly that same way. She was like that in the Tim Burton movie featuring Catwoman.
Have to admit I haven't read any stories where she was actually a murderous hell-bent evil woman. I'm sure they're out there, but it's been since before I began reading.
Good LORD! I laughed out loud when I saw that. Someone put a lot of...uh, "work" into that picture.
Seriously?
THIS is why more women don't read comics. Please tell me that is not an actual comic book image.
Here's my vote, Kirk: NOT innocent. Definitely erotic. Definitely "adult", but not "mature adult". Villain: I don't think that point of the image is a hero/villain thing. It's irrelevant. Victim? Again, not the point. Plaything: Yes. For not only the Joker, but also for the...ummm, how do I put this? "Sightseers" who look at it.
Victim and that is really just taking the old menaced by a buzzsaw routine to another level.
Catwoman has had that fetishistic nature for some time in comics, wearing her leather catsuit with the zipper lower and lower all the time. It probably got a big boost when Michelle Pfeiffer was licking Michael Keaton.
More recently, with so many artists using "men's" magazines as their models and finding ways to twist women's bodies so we can see their faces, boobs and butts all at once, she's become even more popular.
Women in bondage has long been a standard comics trope too, so combining Catwoman and bondage isn't that imaginative, really. Assuming that circular thing on the right side is a buzz saw, I think we're pretty safe in going with "victim" in this case.
Back in the 1950s, thanks to the crackdown on comics, Catwoman reformed, and then she disappeared from comics for quite awhile, especially while Batman fought aliens. She returned in the SA when Batman's rogues (who probably glamorized crime or something) began to return. She was fairly late to the party and came back, in of all places, Lois Lane.
I wrote about Selina in CBG last year: http://www.cbgxtra.com/columnists/craig-shutt-ask-mr-silver-age/the...
Catwoman offers more potential than a lot of crooks, because she allegedly steals for good reasons, and some writers imply that Batman has a thing for her, so it's more than just capturing the bad guy. But she's still stealing, even if it's from some fat-cat's wall safe rather than a bank, so I'm not sure there's any gray areas on her criminality.
She does occasionally help Bats, when their ends match up, but I'm not sure how much of a mitigating factor that ends up being after the number of appearances she's made by now. But it does make her appearances more interesting than most other villains, even if you aren't into leather and bondage.
-- MSA
Just looked at the picture. There's no doubt in my mind what it's for.
The picture? Hardly innocent but Catwoman does appeal to the fetish crowd.
As for her hero turn in the early 80s, I believe it was because of the introduction of the Huntress as the daughter of the Earth-Two Batman and the completely reformed Selina Kyle. That set into motion the change in Catwoman from felon to frenemy to lover, with her actually knowing Batman's secret identity.
Of course, it raises the question: "Did the Earth-One Batman know that his E-2 counterpart married his Catwoman?"
Or any other JLAer for that matter? Could that have changed his attitude towards her?
One time the Huntress did battle the E-1 Catwoman, overcoming her psychological disadvantage of fighting her "mother" but could that have somehow affected the Feline Queen of Crime on some level?
Or did DC like her with Batman than against him?
The person who posted this on FB could not, or would not divulge the identity of the artist or the source. But they maintained that it was "innocent" if viewed through the proper eyes. I argued that there was no question what it was, and that anyone who showed it to their mother, wife or daughter would hear about it! I think it's fan art...I'm sure it was never in a comic.But I don't know the source.
Wandering Sensei: Emeritus said:
Me either. I just wanted to put it out there and see if ANYONE thought she was an "innocent victim" in it. NOT!
Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) said:
Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) said:
Not really, but then she's been shown this way before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuhMqCCDyf8
Though the Batman animated series was far less explicit.
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