If nothing else this month's cover is immediately in the running for top 5 favourite Catwoman covers, maybe top 3. The classic pose, outer space and earth in the background, the costom purple space suit that would be hella impractical with the helmet with cat ears, the umbillical attached in just the right spot to look like a an extremely long tail, the fact she's holding 50s ray gun. It's all just so fun. Kitschy Retro Sci-fi fun.

I have finished Tom King's Batman run

Fuller thoughts may follow but in general: I did not like it.

Good News, I know this so I can explain it

Bad News, it's multiple continuity overhauls in a trenchcoat that may or may not be canon simultaneously. The condensed but still long explanation under the cut

To shortcut alot of things, post Crisis on Infinite Earths Selina got her backstory reset and over the course of her solo series slowly got her family history fleshed out to: a mom, Maria who commited suicide when she was young, a dad, Brian, who drank himself to death shortly afterwards and left her a pre-teen orphan, and a sister, Maggie, who's going to be relevant later. And it really was slowly, the first hint of this particular backstory comes in 1994 but it won't be until 2000 (specifically Catwoman 1993 #81) when things would solidify with her parents were, being named finally and providing a glimpse of what their relationship was like pre-death. It was abusive and also kinda racist (also that issue gave us Selina being canonically mixed race)

However, at the same time that the Catwoman solo was slowly hammering out one version of Selina's backstory, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale were creating the Long Halloween (1996) and it's sequels that would introduce the idea of Selina being a Falcone. If you haven't read those stories,the relevant info is that someone is killing members of the Falcone family and the mystery is figuring out who and one the many suspects offered is Catwoman. The to provide a motive, the Long Halloween has a few scenes that suggest that Catwoman is a secret daughter of Carmine Falcone.

The two sequels to Long Halloween would go even harder with this connection, with Dark Victory (1999) ending with Selina saying she knows for sure that Carmine was her father, even though she has no proof, and Catwoman: When in Rome (2004) would explain the how of Selina being a secret Falcone.

The problem though is that between Long Halloween and When in Rome the solo series had solidified Selina's origin in a way that the explanation given by When in Rome isn't compatible with her established backstory (which had been written with the knowledge that Selina might be Carmine's kid in mind). The end result being, they couldn't both be canon, and later writers would either choose one parentage or the other to use or more often ignore the parents all together. (And while by and large most writers decided Carmine was not the father, as late as the Dick is Batman era stories would occasionally bring up Selina's connections to the Falcones) Then the New 52 happened And Catwoman unlike a few characters geuniely gets reset pretty hard and all backstory is thrown out (save for being a teenage orphan/thief). In the comic Batman Eternal (2014), a character named Rex Calabrese is introduced and there's only three important things about this dude 1) He's Jim Gordon's cellmate (don't worry about it), 2) He was the big crime lord in town before Carmine Falcone overthrew him, (which is the capacity the Penguin show is invoking him most likely) and 3) He was Selina's father, who gave her to another family when she was nine and kinda ghosted her afterwards. Really the most important thing he does is pull strings so that Selina can take over as the new head of what's left of the Calabrese family (which leads into the only good Catwoman story of the New 52 and the introduction of Eiko as Catwoman).

Then Rebirth happens and the Catwoman Solo, decides to reintroduce Maggie (which is a reasonable call, she's one of the most important members of Selina's supporting cast, on account of being one of the few who actually shows up under multiple writers) and in laying out the sister's history with eachother and establishing which of the Maggie and Selina stories are still canon (which is basically everything except Maggie's brief superpowered nun phase), they show a flashback of their parents who are clearly supposed Pre-flashpoint Brian and Maria.

Now you'd think Brian and Maria being back would mean that Rex business is non-canon right? Nope As recently as 2022 Selina was traveling around under the name Calabrese and the editorial blurbs where referencing her crime boss stories as context for the current run.

Now maybe they're both canon because all the flashbacks of the Kyles were after Rex gave her away but if Selina was adopted, and adopted at an age when both her and the rest of her family would know, you'd think someone would mention it out loud once. With how much the first 30 odd issues of her current run centered on that strained relationship between you'd think, if Selina was supposed to be adopted now, one of them would mention it at least one, even as just a lighthearted joke. TL;DR Post-Crisis, Selina was either the secret daughter of Carmine and Louisa Falcone, who was supposed to be killed but instead given up for adoption in secret. Or she's the daughter or Brian and Maria Kyle (though possibly the result of Maria cheating on Brian) and the sister of Maggie Kyle. Post-Flashpoint Selina is either the abandoned daughter of Rex Calabrese and an unknown mother, who was given to the Kyles age nine when he left for milk and cigarettes (and then that family despite everything wrong with it, never once mentioned that Selina was adopted, including Selina), or she's the actual daughter of Brian and Maria Kyle who randomly has the connections of a mafia boss. Yeah Selina's backstory is mess, but at least it's not Kitrina Falcone

See the Girl in pink, that's Kitrina Falcone, now guess, is she: A) Selina's Half Sister B) Selina's Full Niece C) Completely Unrelated

The answer is we don't know, we can't know, Selina's family tree is a nightmare.

can catwoman fans please explain to me why she hss two family sections on her wiki. IM SO CONFUSED.

Hey remember that time when a GCS/BOP team up ended with the day being saved by giving aerosolized estrogen to everyone?

Poison Ivy: Okay, hear me out, what if we just forcefem all of Gotham? Leslie Thompkins: Sounds good let's do it.

Relatedly

I have reached the point in this read through were Holly is introduced and... fuck I knew I would be mad but I'm seething with rage right now over a plot point I knew about five years ago.

I thought reading all of New 52 Catwoman was going to be a self-inflicted hell. But I wasn't even at the worst of it. Next on my schedule is rereading Tom King's Batman. That run (well, mostly the "wedding") irritated before when I was just kinda a BatCat fan. Now I'm a mega Catwoman fan, I love Selina, Holly is my Blorbo, and I'm now staring down a run which does both of them dirty as hell and also Selina's in so fucking much of it I basically have to read all of it.

Selina in her first word establishing what we should I need to brace for for the next 40 issues.

This is going to be grueling few weeks for me and also how I'm choosing to spend my free time.

I thought reading all of New 52 Catwoman was going to be a self-inflicted hell. But I wasn't even at the worst of it. Next on my schedule is rereading Tom King's Batman. That run (well, mostly the "wedding") irritated before when I was just kinda a BatCat fan. Now I'm a mega Catwoman fan, I love Selina, Holly is my Blorbo, and I'm now staring down a run which does both of them dirty as hell and also Selina's in so fucking much of it I basically have to read all of it.

I thought reading all of New 52 Catwoman was going to be a self-inflicted hell. But I wasn't even at the worst of it. Next on my schedule is rereading Tom King's Batman. That run (well, mostly the "wedding") irritated before when I was just kinda a BatCat fan. Now I'm a mega Catwoman fan, I love Selina, Holly is my Blorbo, and I'm now staring down a run which does both of them dirty as hell and also Selina's in so fucking much of it I basically have to read all of it.

SELINA'S NEW 52 APPEARANCES

I have updated the spreadsheet to include up to the end of the New 52 and to go along with that here's a the next page of the infographic And yes, I completely stand by that note (well... Batman and Robin #22 was also pretty good but the New 52 overall is still not great)

Selina Kyle Reading Order

For my fellow fans who want to read every comic a character appeared in, (or who like me have seen jlquaterly's excellent reading guides and wanted one for their blorbo) I have compiled a list of every single appearance of Selina Kyle in Post-Crisis continuity up to the Flashpoint reboot.

This reading guide is also in in-universe chronological order.

This reading guide was not only inspired by @jlquarterly and her excellent work, but they also provided immense help in putting this together. This guide would, on multiple levels, not exist without them.

Also, I'd be fascinated by what a current Gotham City Sirens book would look like, given that Harley, Ivy and to a lesser extent Selina are all in different places now then they were pre-flashpoint. Like, Harley's a hero now, Ivy is shifting harder and harder into anti-villain/anti-hero territory, and pair of them are dating now. Throw in now bisexual but always an anti-hero Selina as the third wheel and I'm not sure if they'd end up as an anti-hero group, go back to being a a villain team, or turn into a polycule.

Of course there's always the option they might change up the team, though I'm not sure who might get added or swapped around. Eiko instead or Selina maybe? Punchline? One of the BoPs? In universe I imagine Talia has better things to do but that might not keep her from getting added.

Say what you will about the Gotham City Sirens but I'm amazed that DC hasn't done a second GCS series. Like, all three of them are massively popular, debatably more now then when that run kicked off (Harley's in everything, Poison Ivy finally has an ongoing series, and Selina's still Catwoman), their dynamics/friendship with each other is popular enough that they keep popping up in each others books/tv shows, and I imagine if that run wasn't still kinda popular DC wouldn't have put out that omnibus collection.

If I had to guess, I'd speculate that DC isn't going to pull the trigger on a GCS book while all three of them have solo series. It'd be redundant right now but if some of those series end, well then...

Say what you will about the Gotham City Sirens but I'm amazed that DC hasn't done a second GCS series. Like, all three of them are massively popular, debatably more now then when that run kicked off (Harley's in everything, Poison Ivy finally has an ongoing series, and Selina's still Catwoman), their dynamics/friendship with each other is popular enough that they keep popping up in each others books/tv shows, and I imagine if that run wasn't still kinda popular DC wouldn't have put out that omnibus collection.

If I had to guess, I'd speculate that DC isn't going to pull the trigger on a GCS book while all three of them have solo series. It'd be redundant right now but if some of those series end, well then...

Genevieve Valentine's Catwoman run remains excellent

Genuinely one of the top 3 Catwoman runs of all time.

Does anyone know what the ship name for Selina Kyle / Eiko Hasigawa is? I'm rereading Valentine's run and having emotions about it and i need to know how to tag them.

I love Genevieve Valentine's Run so fucking much

I just finished Batman Eternal (2014) and... I have thoughts. Mostly about the final villain reveal Spoilers underneath

First of all, genuinely, Cluemaster was such an excellent choice for the twist villain because... well for the entire of the he's got an excellent excuse as to why he's part of the story: He's here as part of Steph's backstory. This story reintroduces Steph / Spoiler into the post flashpoint world so of course you've got to do Cluemaster. And he's initially presented more as one person in a much larger scheme who's being forced to kill Steph to save his own skin. And while that subplot spans the entire book Cluemaster doesn't actually get much focus because it's about Steph and her becoming Spoiler. For almost the entire book he's a bit character in one of a half dozen subplots, and what better place to hide the true villain then there? And everything about his scheme, his motivations, his plan, as laid out in issue 51 is a near perfect capstone to the series. And also it's so nice because reading it you just know that this is going to end with Steph turning her bike around and coming back to Gotham and she's going to defeat her dad once and for all and earn her place in the batfam and it'll be a nice clean ending to the series. And then fucking Lincoln March shows up. Lincoln March, in contrast to Cluemaster, wasn't in the story at all. Seriously nothing. I checked and apparently he was the shadowy figure in issue 3 where Cluemaster was introduced, you know, the figure who was never seen or named or had any indication of who he was outside of "probable big bad". He makes his visible debut on the second to last page of the penultimate issue upstaging Cluemaster to be a just worse. And I don't mean more evil I mean qualitatively inferior (accept in ability to fight). Lincoln March feels like a cop out, a dodge of the basic principle of storytelling to introduce your main antagonist prior to climax. And maybe at the time he was a major player in the comics so him popping up here makes sense in the boarder context of the DCU but in this story his inclusion as the big bad is an ass pull. Which is a shame, because besides a bit of a bumpy start while the story got all it's subplots set up and rolling the story was actually pretty good and Cluemaster as the big bad actually made things come together for me but Lincoln March's appearance just... idk it leaves me feeling cheated out of a proper ending.

Hey, I know I haven't been active much here lately. That seasonal affective really do disorder.

Anyway, I'm going to try and finish some stuff up so here's an update on what is probably coming down the pipeline onto this blog within the next few months or so. Firstly, I'm continuing work on the Catwoman Chronological reading guide, I'm almost halfway done the New 52 to Rebirth period. Next on the reading order is Batman Eternal which hopefully will be more enjoyable then the last year long weekly series that had a Catwoman in a supporting role I read for this project. Expect an update to the infographic sometime in March? maybe sooner. Secondly, I've got a number of... posts? think pieces? amateur attempts at literary analysis? Fan essays. I've got a number of fan essays about Catwoman comics that I've been working on on and off for a while. Topics include: a compare and contrast of Catwoman Defiant and the Joelle Jones Run, just my thoughts on When in Rome, an extensive look on the ways the first three years of the New 52 failed Catwoman, and a essay on how each Catwoman series uses it's first page and what that says about each story. Hopefully I'll finish one of them soon. (note: if there's any one of those essay ideas that seem interesting to you, do let me know and i'll try to get it done first / at all. I've got a lot of projects going and it's easy to lose focus if I don't know that other people are also interested.)

Thridly, I want branch out a bit from "All Catwoman All the Time". Sure i'll probably finish the reading guide first but then I want to expand my horizons a bit comic wise. I might play it safe and read Harley and Ivy's comics (and not get out from my bisexual batman rogues who are also members of the GCS comfort zone) I might switch over to marvel and see what's happening over there with the Hawkeyes or Moon Knight, or i might try some indie comics (though not sure which ones, maybe if anyone's got some recommendations?). The one thing I can say for sure is there's a "why you should read Demon Knights" thing I'm working that I hope will get you all thinking "wow I should read the first 15 issues of Demon Knights" whenever I finish it.

Until I finish something, happy belated new year everyone.