Catwoman: DC's Mysterious Anti-Heroine

In 2009, IGN ranked the Top 100 comic villains. Catwoman ranked 11th on the list, an exceptionally high ranking for a character who is less of a villain. No, Catwoman is hardly a villain, if anything, she's mostly an anti-hero. The city of Gotham certainly contains multitudes of interesting characters but Catwoman is definitely the one that caught my eye when I first started reading comics. To be honest, I didn't know much about the character. However, the more I read about her and got to know her as a character the more I began to love the complex and mysterious character.

The character of Selina Kyle was invented by Batman's creator Bob Kane in 1940. Kane wanted to open up his Batman comics to a female audience. She was described as a "friendly foe who committed crimes but also a romantic interest in Batman's rather sterile life." Kane thought that cats served as an antithesis to bats.

"I felt that women were feline creatures and men were more like dogs. While dogs are faithful and friendly, cats are cool, detached, and unreliable. I felt much warmer with dogs around me—cats are as hard to understand as women are. Men feel more sure of themselves with a male friend than a woman. You always need to keep women at arm's length. We don't want anyone taking over our souls, and women have a habit of doing that. So there's a love-resentment thing with women. I guess women will feel that I'm being chauvinistic to speak this way, but I do feel that I've had better relationships with male friends than women. With women, once the romance is over, somehow they never remain my friends."


Catwoman served as an antagonist of Batman for several years before reaching a bit of a lull in the 1950's due to the Comics Code Authority which tried to regulate the level of sexuality present in comics. Since the 1990's however, she has been one of DC's most popular characters, even earning her own comic book run. In the 2000's, the character faced a bit of an identity crisis thanks to the abomination of a film starring Halle Berry in 2004. The movie was an extremely poor representation of the character actually bearing very little resemblance to the actual character. Luckily the character has been restored and reintroduced properly to a contemporary audience in The Dark Knight Rises.

And it is here that we reach the most intriguing part of Catwoman's character, the fact that she toes the line between good and evil without a care in the world. Just like a cat she frequently teases Batman, her crimes more of a game than anything ever threatening. Most notably she's always the foe that Batman is never able to defeat, unlike the Joker she never threatens him directly in any way. Of course, that doesn't means she's not against playing around with him. Her relationship with Batman is always one where Batman makes an effort to reform her. Just as Kane intended, their relationship is cool and detached. While it's clear that she does have feelings for Batman and that he has feelings for her in return, it's also obvious that she can't commit to him. Not to mention her clear defiance towards Batman's attempts to reform her. It's clear that she has good deep down within her and that she's not as bad as she would like everyone to think. Yet, deep down she struggles because she refuses to see herself as anything better than what she is, a thief. Of course, that doesn't mean that she doesn't like what she does. In fact, she absolutely loves stealing. Despite this, many works that involve Batmand and Catwoman often show the incredible potential the two have when they work together. It's clear that Catwoman could be such an asset for good, rather than the simple agent of chaos she usually plays. Batman often serves as her moral compass, this theme has been explored in many recent interpretations of the character such as The Dark Knight Rises and Batman: Arkham City. In these instances, she usually chooses the good path, with both of these works giving her the opportunity to simply save herself as well. In the New 52 Catwoman remains an anti-hero but more frequently than not finds herself on the good side of things. Most recently she's become an "unofficial" member of the Justice League of America placing her firmly on the side of good, even though her role is handle work that falls under grey areas since that has always been her specialty.

My favorite portrayal of the character has to go the phenomenal performance by Anne Hathaway in The Dark Knight Rises. The reaction to Hathaway being picked for the role was generally negative when it was first announced. Most people doubted her ability to play a character so dark and edgy. After all, when most people think of Anne Hathaway they think of her role in Disney's The Princess Diaries series. From her first appearance in Rises she made it clear that she was perfect for the character. Everything about that scene is perfect, the way that she slides from the innocent, nervous, scared persona into the sarcastic Selina Kyle. The smile that she gives Bruce Wayne was the moment where I realized that she was the perfect choice for the character. Throughout the movie she's sarcastic and snarky and glides through the world with the ease that only Catwoman could. But it wasn't just Hathaway's performance that made the character so great. Credit should go to Christopher Nolan and his staff for doing an incredible job capturing the essence of the character in the short time that they had. Catwoman's inner conflict of whether she's good or evil permeates throughout the film. All culminating in her final decision as to whether she leaves Batman to deal with Bane or to go back and help him. Overall, no other portrayal of the character has been able to give such a solid and succinct display.

Anne Hathaway proved her doubters wrong with a flawless performance as Seline Kyle/Catwoman

The biggest crime that the 2004 Catwoman film committed against the character was simply reducing her to nothing but a sex object. Of course, it's not as if sexuality hasn't always been a part of the character but it's never been something that defined the character. Selina Kyle is character who simply knows how to use her strengths to get what she wants. She knows she has sex appeal and she has no hesitation using it in order to get her goals. But it's a disservice to the character to write her off as that. Catwoman is one of DC's most interesting characters, an absolute enigma but also a pleasure to read. Her character has been so well fleshed out over the past couple of years. Like I mentioned with Superboy in an earlier post; DC's comic book world may be dominated by Batman, but that shouldn't keep one from checking out a great and classic character like Catwoman.