The Dark Knight Rises ~ Introducing: CATWOMAN

"You don't owe these people any more! You've given them everything!" - Selina Kyle/Catwoman

Character: Catwoman

Real Name: Selina Kyle:

Portrayed By: Anne Hathaway

Characteristic: Gender - Female

Publisher: DC Comics

Created By: Bill Finger, Bob Kane

Appeareances In Movie: Batman Returns, The Dark Knight Rises

About Catwoman

Catwoman is a fictional character associated with DC Comics' Batman franchise. Historically a supervillain, the character was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, partially inspired by Kane's cousin, Ruth Steel. Kane, a frequent movie goer, also mentioned that Jean Harlow was a model for the design.

The original and most widely known Catwoman, Selina Kyle, first appears in Batman #1 (Spring 1940) in which she is known as The Cat. She is an adversary of Batman, known for having a complex love-hate (often romantic) relationship with him. In her first appearance, she was a whip-carrying burglar with a taste for high-stake thefts.

Since the 1990s, Catwoman has been featured in an eponymous series that cast her as an antihero classy cat burglar rather than a villain. The character has been one of Batman's most enduring love interests and has been described as Batman's one true love. 

A popular figure, Catwoman has been featured in most media adaptations related to Batman. Actresses Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, and Eartha Kitt introduced her to a large audience on the 1960s Batman television series and the 1966 Batman motion picture. Michelle Pfeiffer portrayed the character in 1992's Batman Returns. Halle Berry starred in a stand-alone Catwoman film in 2004, which was a box-office flop, and was not based on the Batman character. Anne Hathaway portrays Selina Kyle in Christopher Nolan's 2012 Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises.

Catwoman's Biography

Catwoman, then called "the Cat", first appeared in Batman #1 as a mysterious burglar and jewel thief, revealed at the end of the story to be a young, attractive woman (unnamed in the first story), having disguised herself as an old woman during the story and been hired to commit a robbery. Although the story does not have her wearing her iconic cat-suit, it establishes her core personality as a femme fatale who both antagonizes and attracts Batman. It is implied Batman may have deliberately let her get away, by blocking Robin as he tried to leap after her. She next appears in Batman #2 in a story also involving the Joker but escapes Batman in the end. In Batman #3 she wears a fur mask and again succeeds in escaping Batman.

Batman #62 (December/January 1950) revealed that Catwoman is an amnesiac flight attendant who had turned to crime after suffering a prior blow to the head during a plane crash she survived. She reveals this after being hit on the head by a piece of rubble while saving Batman while he was chasing her. Although, in issue 197 of The Brave and the Bold, she admits that she made up the amnesia story because she wanted a way out of the past life of crime. She reforms for several years, helping out Batman in Batman #65 (June/July 1951) and #69 (February/March 1952), until she decides to return to a life of crime in Detective Comics #203 (January 1954), after a newspaper decides to publish stories of Batman's past adventures, and some crooks mock her about it. However in this story when Batman prevents a robbery and is knocked out by sleeping gas, Catwoman prevents her thugs from murdering him, though quickly claims she wants him as a hostage. Catwoman appears again as a criminal in Batman #84 (June 1954) and Detective Comics #211 (September 1954) for her final appearance until 1966. This was mostly due to her possible violation of the developing Comics Code Authority's rules for portrayal of female characters that started in 1954.

Power

Catwoman, like most Batman villains, used a variety of themed weapons, vehicles, and equipment, such as a custom cat-themed car called the "Cat-illac". This usage also appeared in the 1960s Batman television series. In her post-Crisis appearances, Catwoman's favored weapon is a whip. She wields both a standard bullwhip and the cat o' nine tails with expert proficiency. She uses the whip because it is a weapon that the user must be trained to use, and therefore it can not be taken from her and used against her in a confrontation. She can also be seen using a pistol against people if her whip is taken from her. She uses caltrops as an anti-personnel weapon and bolas to entangle opponents at a distance. In addition, Catwoman has been shown to have various items to restrain her victims, such as a set of plastic ties for binding hands and feet, and a roll of duct tape used to gag her targets, like she did with Angle Man, Film Freak, Zatanna, and various others during her robberies over the years. Often, especially in the TV series, she uses sleeping gas or knockout darts to subdue victims. Catwoman's attractiveness and feminine wiles have also allowed her to take advantage of male opponents.

Ability

Peak athlete

Extremely skilled gymnast and hand-to-hand combatant

Expert burglar

Possesses costumes with steel spring-loaded climbing pitons and razor-sharp retractable claws

Wields an assortment of bullwhips and cat o' nine tails as gymnastic equipment

Empathic relationship ability with all types of cats

Batman Returns

Catwoman is portrayed by Michelle Pfeiffer in the 1992 feature film Batman Returns as one of the main antagonists alongside the Penguin. Re-created by Daniel Waters and Tim Burton, the Catwoman origin story is something of a variation on the original Catwoman miniseries: Selina Kyle is depicted as the lonely, frustrated, yet dutiful and efficient secretary of corrupt tycoon Max Shreck. After she accidentally discovers his plot to build a power plant that would steal Gotham's electricity, Shreck then attempts to murder her by pushing her out the window of his top-story office. Though her fall is partly broken by several canvas awnings, Selina lies motionless on the snow-covered ground seemingly dead. She is then mysteriously revived by a group of alley cats that flock around her and begin gnawing at her fingers. Making her way home in a daze, Selina's repressed rage transforms her into the clever supervillain Catwoman. Shortly following her transformation, she joins forces with Penguin in order to remove Batman from her path, as he has hindered her efforts to get revenge on Max. However when she rejects the Penguin he tries to kill her, however, she seemingly gains a supernatural power based on the superstition of cats having nine lives, saving her from death several more times throughout the film. As a masked vigilante operating under the guise of a theatrical public identity, Catwoman finds a reflection of herself in Batman, and around the same time, as Selina, falls in love and begins a romantic relationship with Bruce Wayne. In a ballroom scene, during a dance to the Siouxsie and the Banshees song "Face to Face", Bruce and Selina discover each other's secret identities when they recite lines they earlier said to each other as Batman and Catwoman. In the film's climax, Catwoman takes revenge on Shreck by electrocuting him by kissing him with a taser in her mouth after he shoots her several times. Although it would appear that she died in the electrocution herself, she vanishes in the ensuing explosion and Batman is unable to find her body. However, she is seen one last time (in silhouette) at the end of the film, looking up at the Bat-Signal in the sky, confirming that she did indeed survive.

The Dark Knight Rises

Selina Kyle is a cat burglar described as "an associate" of Bane who establishes a relationship with Batman that "takes some of the somberness away from his character." Hathaway auditioned not knowing what role she was up for, admitting that she had one character in mind, but only learned that the role was Selina Kyle after talking with Christopher Nolan for an hour. Hathaway described the role as being the most physically-demanding she had ever played, and confessed that while she thought of herself as being fit she had to redouble her efforts in the gym to keep up with the demands of the role. Hathaway trained extensively in martial arts for the role, and looked to Hedy Lamarr — who was the inspiration for the Catwoman character — in developing her performance.