CLAW AND DISORDER

THE TIME IS MIAOW! WHIP-CRACK AWAY AS SFX CELEBRATES 80 YEARS OF CATWOMAN

- NICK SETCHFIELD

NINE LIVES? WHEN IT COMES to Catwoman, that’s an absurdly conservative estimate.

The Empress of the Underworld. The Princess of Plunder. The Ruthless Queen of Roguery. Whatever the crown, she has survived across eight decades, a wily, slinky counterpoint to the grim crusade of Batman. Part foe, part ally, part lover, this whip-lashing kitty is as much a pop culture fixture as the Dark Knight himself. Two creatures of the night, locked in an endless, flesh-scarring dance through Gotham’s alleys.

People are fascinated by femme fatales and I think she’s aged gracefully over time

“She’s fabulous!” says Batman writer and artist Joelle Jones, responsible for one of the more striking modern takes on Selina Kyle. “People are fascinated by femme fatales and I think she’s aged gracefully over time – unlike some. If anything she continues to become more relevant a character as time goes on.”

Catwoman was part of the first wave of comic book icons, arriving in spring 1940 in Batman 1, an issue that also saw the debut of the Joker. Quite the incendiary package for a slim dime, not to mention the shrewdest of pocket-money investments.

“We needed a female nemesis to give the strip sex appeal, so we came up with a kind of female Batman,” remembered creator Bill Finger. “It was kind of the antithesis of a bat. Cats are hard to understand. They are as erratic as women are.”

The character may have been shaped by prevailing male attitudes but there were other inspirations too: Hollywood, for one. Just as Conrad Veidt in silent melodrama