Tim Hanley - The Many Lives of Catwoman: The Felonious History of a Feline Fatale

Copyright 2017 by Tim Hanley

All rights reserved

Published by Chicago Review Press Incorporated

814 North Franklin Street

Chicago, IL 60610

ISBN 978-1-61373-845-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hanley, Tim, author.

Title: The many lives of Catwoman : the felonious history of a feline fatale / Tim Hanley.

Description: Chicago, IL : Chicago Review Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017006163| ISBN 9781613738450 (paperback) | ISBN 9781613738481 (epub edition) | ISBN 9781613738474 (kindle edition)

Subjects: LCSH: Catwoman (Fictitious character) | Women heroes in literature. | Women heroes in motion pictures. | Women heroes in mass media. | Comic books, strips, etc.United States. | Women in popular cultureUnited States. | BISAC: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture. | LITERARY CRITICISM / Comics & Graphic Novels. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Feminism & Feminist Theory.

Classification: LCC PN6728.C39 H36 2017 | DDC 741.5/973dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017006163

Unless otherwise indicated, all images are from the authors collection

Front cover design: Tim Hanley

Cover layout and interior design: Jonathan Hahn

Printed in the United States of America

5 4 3 2 1

To my sister;
me, I say
that shes okay.

Index

I ts too bad she has to be a crook! So lamented Batman after one of Catwomans earliest comic book appearances in the autumn of 1940. Shed just gone on a robbery spree throughout Gotham City and roped Batman into freeing her from the clutches of her shady underworld associates. Catwoman then escaped Batmans attempt to arrest her for the third straight issue; this time she stunned him with a kiss before shoving him out of her way and taking off in a stolen car, leaving her free to commit another series of dazzling crimes just a few issues later.

Catwoman completely enraptured Batman. She was cunning, fierce, and beautiful, a femme fatale and master thief rolled into one. She was also one of the few villains in the Golden Age of superhero comics who was able to escape Batman and his resolute war on crime. While many of Batmans other foes ended up dead or behind bars, Catwoman constantly outsmarted him. He adored her nonetheless, but he knew that his affection was futile. She was a crook, after all.

For more than seventy-five years, Catwoman has been a mercurial character, with her many incarnations ranging from criminal to hero. In the black-and-white world of superheroes, she exists in shades of gray, yet she is ultimately defined by her villainy. When shes not outright engaged in criminal activity, shes a mistrusted ally cautiously held at arms length. Because of her felonious history, Catwoman is a perpetual outsider, and her existence on the periphery of society led her to avoid both the tropes and triumphs typically associated with the evolution of female characters.

Female superheroes are generally held to the prevailing cultural standards of what a woman should be. When the Cold War culture of the 1950s emphasized the importance of wives and mothers, female superheroes wanted to settle down and become homemakers. When womens lib became mainstream in the 1970s, female superheroes began to embrace the tenets of feminism. The history of female heroes in the superhero industry is a familiar narrative that mirrors the conventional history of American women as a whole.

Catwoman is not beholden to these standards, and thus her history exists outside this typical framework. She has forged her own path, with its own twists and turns. No female villain has had as long or as varied a career as Catwoman, and her journey is wholly unique in the world of superheroes.

At times, Catwomans depiction was an intentional counter to the dominant portrayal of women in comics. As a villain, she was meant to represent the opposite of what a good woman should be, but her supposedly negative traits came off looking like far more fun. When many women in superhero comics were damsels in distress pining for their hero, Catwoman was independent and carefree, reveling in corruption and using her sexual wiles to her advantage. However, being a villain had its drawbacks. Over the decades, Catwoman was considered expendable and prone to lengthy absences. Furthermore, the primarily male creators behind the character sometimes depicted Catwoman in objectified and degrading ways that they couldnt show heroines.

For good and ill, Catwomans criminal role allowed her to escape the familiar evolution of female characters throughout her history. The standards for a female villain were different, and for nearly eight decades her adventures have charted a varied journey of empowerment and exploitation. Catwoman has been a popular character across a variety of media at every stage of her career, an iconic embodiment of both villainy and a unique independence, and her history showcases a compelling alternate viewpoint in the world of superheroes.

G otham Citys feline fatale is a familiar sight for superhero fans. From comics to television to movies, Selina Kyle has burgled her way through the city in her sleek costume and cat-eared cowl as the fiendish Catwoman for decades. However, her original incarnation would be almost unrecognizable to those familiar with her more recent exploits. When she first debuted in the spring of 1940, she wasnt even called Catwoman. She was simply the Cat for her first appearance, and then became the Cat-Woman; the hyphen eventually disappeared in the mid-1940s. She wasnt Selina Kyle, either. Instead of one regular alter ego, she adopted a string of different aliases to aid in her felonious schemes. Whatever name she gave was inevitably a ruse.

Her costume was different as well, in that she didnt actually have one. She relied on disguises, using false identities to get near the items she wanted to steal rather than the sly breaking-and-entering tactics that became her modus operandi years later. Catwoman also adapted her clothes and hair to the circumstances at hand so that she could blend in, whether she was pretending to be an old woman vacationing on a cruise ship or a society gal throwing legendary soirees. She donned a mask in her third appearance, but it was nothing like her modern, form-fitting cowls. Instead, it was a realistic cats head, which was large enough to fit over her own and came complete with brown fur and whiskers. This mask stuck around for a few issues.

Catwoman eventually settled into a regular costume and adopted a consistent alter ego, leaving behind her enigmatic origins and cumbersome mask for more typical comic book villain fare. Despite her lack of resemblance to her modern incarnations, the original Catwoman was familiar at her core. She was a clever thief, almost impossible to pin down, and a constant headache for the Caped Crusader. Catwoman was a crafty, independent cat burglar from her very first appearance, firmly establishing the heart, if not the look, of the character for the myriad versions that followed.

The creation of Catwoman is usually credited to Bob Kane, the man also credited with Batman, Robin, and a host of Gotham Citys other iconic characters. All the live-action adaptations of Catwoman, from the Batman television show in 1966 to