Friday, July 28, 2006

Huh.  Batman's ears seem big in that second panel.  Odd.
Holy entendre, Batman! For a comic from 1980, this seemed surprisingly risque when I re-read it. Maybe I just have a dirty mind. But, and I believe Grant Morrison may be the first writer in years to play up this point of Batman's character; you would have to be one smooth man to:

A. Blindfold an unconscious Catwoman to bring her back to your Batcave,

B. Leave said Catwoman, naked and still unconscious, while you do the labwork,

C. Give her a spare costume, that you had been keeping in your "trophy room."

If you can do all that, without seeming like either a creepy, creepy stalker, or an obsessional sexless freak; then you sir, are a goddamn liar.

Anyway, this is the pre-Crisis, pre-mindwipes, pre-baby Catwoman. At this point in the comics, she was on the verge of reforming, and was dating Bruce Wayne. She would eventually start seeing him on the Batman side of things, but of course that would also change about 80 issues later in Miller's Year One. Since then, Selina's been a prostitute, a thief, a villain, a vigilante, a mother, brainwashed, mindwiped, and had a huge rack even by comic-book standards. Guess what most fans think of first?

Well, that's an unfair dig: the 90's Catwoman books were as much of their time as any of her other appearances, and every incarnation of the character has picked and chosen aspects of the previous characterizations as needed. Regardless, she only really looked good in this costume when Alan Davis drew it.

From Batman #324, "The Cat who would be King!" Written by Len Wein, art by Irv Novick and Bob Smith.

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