Wednesday, June 4, 2003

Catwoman | Comics

A costumed persona who has shades of gray on her ledger as well have fought crimes on many occasion, Selina Kyle is the face behind the mask of Catwoman. Initially, she used to go by the name "The Cat" and had no special costume or mask designed to hide her identity until she got a reputation of her own. Though her costumed endeavors begin as jewelry thief and an enemy to The Dark Knight, she took a liking to crime-fighting and also became part of the Batman-Family over time.

Year One
Selina grew up with a troubled childhood and both of her parents died tragically, leaving her at the Sprang Hall Juvenile Detention Center. She had a brief history of fighting Bruce Wayne on his early year of vigilantism when he came to the East End of Gotham posing as a drifter. She was speculated as a prostitute but she was only trying to protect an underage teen named Holly Robinson from her pimp. To see Batman in action, Selina was greatly inspired to become Catwoman and took Holly with her.

Her Sister’s Keeper
A nun finds Selina in an alleyway as she was severely beaten and nearly dying before she was taken to hospital. Officer George Flannery came to visit her and advices her to press charges against her abusive pimp Stan. In her apartment at East End, she was visited by Stan who tries to forcibly make her wear a catsuit for a client. She calls to a number that Flannery gave her earlier and the recipient turned out to be Ted Grant AKA Wildcat, one of the original members of Justice Society of America. With his help, she learns to fight and finally takes a stand for her own from then on.

catwoman dc comics
Catwoman | Comics

The Long Halloween
A reformed Selina Kyle met Bruce Wayne for the first time at a wedding party of Falcone Crime Family. She couldn't help but notice that they two are a great match, yet had to leave the date as she was about to rob Carmine Falcone. When she realized that Poison Ivy was mind-controlling Bruce, she jumped in to rescue him. Though she helped Batman fight Scarecrow and Mad Hatter, she joined the gang of costumed freaks assembled by Two-Face afterwards. Due to her repeated conflicting actions, Batman was unable to determine her true allegiance.

When in Rome
The previous misadventures with the Falcone Crime Family led her to believe that she is the illegitimate daughter of Carmine Falcone. So, she gave chase to this lead in Rome and took The Riddler along for helping her solve the mystery. During this time, she was having constant nightmares about Batman, Carmine Falcone, The Joker and Two-Face showing up in her dreams. In Rome, they are met by Italy's best hitman The Blonde on behalf of Don Fillipe Verinni. Soon, she finds out that she is in deep water of a conspiracy by Don's son Guillermo Verinni and The Riddler himself.

Dark Victory
With her investigation back in Rome proving to be futile, Catwoman has returned to Gotham with the knowledge that Carmine Falcone might have been her father. Selina aids Batman in fighting a couple of armed gangsters and then reveals a plan by the Falcones to kill Harvey Dent. She attends the Thanksgiving dinner with Alfred and Bruce at Wayne Manor, then she was being stood up by Bruce just like his every other date. While she was away, Batman finds a new sidekick in Robin and together they became the crime-fighting dynamic duo.

Knightfall
A new and powerful enemy for Batman, who calls himself Bane arrives at Gotham and eventually broke the Bat. He offered Catwoman to work for her and upon her refusal; he tried to learn about her true identity. Even after concealing her name under a couple of aliases, she was sold out by Leopold and her apartment was blown off. She even faced Jean-Paul Valley when he became the new Batman who defeated Bane and chased her for trying to steak containers of dangerous nerve gas but she was able to figure out he was not the real deal.

Contagion
Selina was hired by Penguin to locate Kendall Stuart in the midst of a chaos when Order of St. Dumas tries to plague Gotham City. She reluctantly teamed-up with Azrael and Robin to find out the survivor but he was killed at the last moment. Then they went after another man named Fong, who was crazy enough to kill himself. She then goes after a final survivor who is a college student named Leanore We but then learns that the survivor's blood cannot actually produce an antidote and she cannot get paid since Babylon is blown up.

Trail of the Catwoman
Following her long disappearance many thought Catwoman to be dead and just to be sure, Mayor Daniel Dickerson hires private detective Slam Bradley to find out what really happened. Slam starts digging up old records that had no valuable information and one of his lead even suggested that Catwoman was responsible for the murder of a woman named Selina Kyle. He finds an unrecognizable corpse in her coffin and then he is abducted by a mob who previously hired Catwoman to kill Kyle. His bumping into Selina's ex-boyfriend Bruce Wayne and Batman did no help either till he meets Selina herself and decides to drop the case.

Hush
As Batman was busy apprehending Killer Croc for a kidnapping case, Catwoman stole the ten million dollars ransom money and took it to Poison Ivy. She then realizes that she was being mind-controlled by Ivy and when Selina goes looking for her, she encounters an enraged Croc looking for his money who was about to kill her. It was only for the timely arrival of Batman; she survives the attack and then assists him to go find Ivy on Metropolis. The duo managed to withstand the power of a mind-controlled Superman and even take down Ivy for good.

They two head back to Gotham after this little adventure and then go to attend an opera in their civilian guise. There, Harley Quinn showed up to rob everyone blind and when Selina decided to face her as Catwoman, she is shot and gravely wounded by Harley. Batman gives her a chase to find The Joker while Doctor Leslie Thompkins tends to her injuries. In the brink of losing her sanity, Batman was about to kill the clown when she showed up to stop him from crossing the line.

Nightwing inspires Batman to let her come closer to his personal life and he eventually shared his secret identity with her by taking off his mask. She was left with Talia al Ghul to watch over as Batman goes to see her father Ra's al Ghul. Meanwhile, the League of Assassins have sent the deadly assassin Lady Shiva to retrieve Talia and encounter between the two left Selina nearly killed. The entire time when Batman was struggling through web of mysteries against a new, unknown foe, Selina has been very supportive to him.

Crisis of Conscience
When the Secret Society attacked the Justice League, Selina again teamed up with Batman to help him and she was taken to the Batcave when she sustained heavy injury. Despero broke into the cave with a few of the League members under the influence of his mind-control to capture and brainwash The Dark Knight. First she alerted the rest of the JLA members to assemble against Despero and then helped them fight against the mind-controlling by the villain upon recovering.

One Year Later
Selina stopped being Catwoman after she gave birth to a daughter named Helena Kyle and Holly Robinson took up her mantle from there. To protect her daughter and give her a good life, she started going by the alias of Irena Dubrovna. Trouble came in her way when she donned the costume again while Holly was in patrol too and thus, the villain Film Freak was able to figure out who she is and abducts her baby. After rescuing her daughter, she asked Zatanna to mind-wipe Film Freak to keep her identity secret.

Heart of Hush
Though Hush was previously shot down by Harvey Dent, he resurfaces again to terrorize Batman and partners up with Scarecrow. Selina was captured by Hush and her heart was removed from the body to lure Batman out. The Dark Knight quickly rushes after the villain while assigning Doctor Mid-Nite and Mister Terrific to her care. Tommy Elliot reveals to Bats that he has changed his face to look like Bruce Wayne through plastic surgery and he will end the lives of people Bruce loves. Hush was defeated, Selina was saved, Batman confesses his love to her and she robbed Elliot clean.

Battle for the Cowl
Selina went to Vietnam to capture Tommy Elliot and bring him back to Gotham but she returned too late to know of Batman's demise (Final Crisis). After spotting a new Batman around, she followed him to find out it was Tim Drake impersonating The Bat. Later, Dick Grayson adopted the cowl and Jason Todd came out an impostor. Catwoman and Tim Drake locate Jason and she decides to keep the streets clean as much as she can. Selina was tired fighting the villains, thus Firefly managed to escape and she was surprised to see Black Mask whom she killed before.

Gotham City Sirens
The Riddler was working for Penguin when Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy tagged along with him and they stumbled onto a wounded Catwoman. Realizing the dangers of Gotham City without a Batman, she teamed up with Harley and Ivy to form Gotham City Sirens. Ivy had a plan of extracting the real identity of Batman from Selina using home-grown drugs but she repealed these attempts even in her weakened state. As Harley goes out for shopping, she bumped into Hush, whom she believed is Bruce Wayne and he decides to use this opportunity to hurt back Catwoman but the plan was foiled by a Joker impostor.

Return of Bruce Wayne
Selina stole a map from the Falcone Crime Family and returned home to Kitrina Falcone, Carmine's long lost daughter. Kitrina informs her that the map actually has the current location of Black Mask, who has a 50 million dollar bounty on his head that Catwoman intends to collect by herself. She tied the girl up, left her in a locked room and tipped Batman to take her to police but finds out that she managed to escape. Seeing the girl escaping an inescapable knot that Bruce taught her, Selina got very impressed over her.

However, they failed to collect the bounty even after fighting Black Mask and his goons but Selina took Kitrina Falcone as her new sidekick, Catgirl. Catwoman was captured and attempts were made to learn Batman's secret identity from the depths of her mind. Her fellow Sirens helped her out of the attackers and Talia al Ghul instructs Zatanna to mind wipe her as the information is too dangerous to keep within her but Zatanna refused later. Bruce Wayne eventually returned being Batman, she joined him to establish Batman Incorporated.

For more information on Catwoman comics series, you can check out these links below.

Catwoman (Comics) Wikipedia

Catwoman (Comics) DC Wikia

catwoman and batman
Along Came A Dark Knight

Here is your links to buy "Catwoman" comics from DC Comics on Amazon.

The Batman Chronicles Vol 01

Batman – The Dark Knight Archives Volume 01

The Batman Chronicles Vol 02

The Batman Chronicles Vol 06

The Batman Chronicles Vol 08

Batman – Year One (Softcover)

Batman – Year One (Hardcover)

Catwoman – Her Sister’s Keeper

Batman – Shaman

Batman – Prey

Batman and the Mad Monk

Batman – Terror

Batman – The Long Halloween (Softcover)

Batman – The Long Halloween (Hardcover)

Catwoman – When in Rome (Softcover)

Catwoman – When in Rome (Hardcover)

Batman – Dark Victory (Softcover)

Batman – Dark Victory (Hardcover)

Huntress – Year One

Batman – The Cat and the Bat

Crisis on Infinite Earths

Absolute Crisis on Infinite Earths

Kingdom Come

Justice League of America – The Nail

Catwoman – Selina’s Big Score

Catwoman – Dark End of The Street

Catwoman – Crooked Little Town

Catwoman – Nine Lives of a Feline Fatale

Batman – Hush

Absolute Batman – Hush

Catwoman – Relentless

Catwoman – Wild Ride

Infinite Crisis

Catwoman – The Replacements

Catwoman – Catwoman Dies

Catwoman – Crime Pays

Catwoman – The Long Road Home

Bob Kane and Bill Finger, the same creative duo who conceived the idea of Batman were also responsible in the creation of the character Catwoman, who was first introduced in the very first issue of the former character from DC Comics in 1940. The character was developed and evolved over the period of time from a villain to an anti-heroine to a somewhat heroic figure. The popularity of Catwoman earned her solo limited series apart from Batman comics and soon she even got her own monthly ongoing series as well. During The New 52 rebooted timeline after the "Flashpoint" crossover event, Catwoman is relaunched in a new monthly series that is focused on the early days of her career.

jim lee catwoman
The Arousing Curiosity

Just like the other famous super-heroines from DC like Wonder Woman, Supergirl and Power Girl, Catwoman also made it to the list of "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" and other charts as well. Because of her reputation, Catwoman was frequently featured in various TV shows, movies and video games related to or theme based on Batman. The live-action version of Catwoman on TV and films were portrayed by actress Eartha Kitt, Halle Berry, Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether and Michelle Pfeiffer. The most recent portrayal of the character was done by actress Anne Hathaway in 2012's The Dark Knight Rises by director Christopher Nolan.
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