The Dark Knight Rises – A Brief History of Selina Kyle

This is important to Selina Kyle for two reasons.  First, in the 70s, the Earth-2 Bruce Wayne married the Earth-2 Selina Kyle, and they had a daughter.  Second, that means there are two Catwomen.  The one on Earth-1 (and keep in mind, the Earth-1 characters are the ones that you’re familiar with) debuted in 1966, and they went back to a more straightforward jewel thief obsessed with cats.  Once again, a romance with Bruce Wayne followed, but our Catwoman never really reformed.

In 1985, DC rebooted their whole universe with Crisis on Infinite Earths, which put everybody on the same world and revised continuity.  You really don’t want me to go into it right now.  But that meant Selina got a whole new origin, where she began as a prostitute before turning to thievery.  Honestly, that never sat well with me, and that aspect of her history has been largely swept under the rug since then.  Other than the bits with Selina, Batman: Year One is fantastic.  But writer Frank Miller (who you know as the writer of 300, Sin City, and writer/director The Spirit) tends to make all female characters either an ass-kicking prostitute, a deceitful ice queen, or a victim.