#Kitrina Falcone

[leoruby-draws]

Posting some more art, these dealing with the other half of the superhero game, some villainous proteges! When the kids aren't helping Batman fight the bigger villains, they deal with the younger minions!

Duela Dent, Joker's Daughter, has a very confusing history despite the fact that she barely appears in any comics. And the few that she does appear in, she keeps changing looks and personality. I wondered if I should split her between her per-crisis and post-crisis self( her post would have elements of new52). It would be one way to deal with her. She's something of an antagonist to the batkids, tho its more light-hearted fun than any actual maliciousness from her. She's kind of the leader of this little gang.

Enigma, sidekick to the Riddler also has very few comic appearances. I thought she would make a fantastic enemy to tiny vigilantes, being a tiny villain herself. She's much more vicious than Duela, tho Duela keeps her in line a bit.

As for the Scarecrow 'distaff counterpart', she's spun from the Batman Family comic, where Duela was running around as all the villain's daughters. So I got the idea to actually make a 'scarecrow's daughter' oc, her name could be something like scaregirl or something. She's quite the creepy girl huh? OC's are pretty fun to make!

There's also Kitrina Falcone, Catgirl. Catwoman has been shown to mentored girls here and there but there's only been one catgirl to my knowledge. I thought her design looked interesting and obviously wanted to make a younger version for my au. I think she should be around Tim's age maybe? She's very playful and kinda selfish, like her mentor but not too malicious. The batkids mostly just find her a bit annoying (she keeps stealing random stuff off them).

Finally theres Cleo Cazo, daughter of the Ratcatcher. I just call her Ratgirl tbh. While I have read the comics for Ratcatcher, I have not watched the movie Cleo appears in (barring some youtube clips of her). So her history is more in line with the comics, considering her father has been in jail for years, she probably lives with her mother or other family. She's mostly harmless, and doesn't really have interest in fighting the heroes, she just wants to play with her rat friends and sleep. She seems to have some sort of narcolepsy disorder.

Anyways, that was a lot, hope you liked all that!

[dc-megatournament]

Batman and Allies Tournament

[fancyfade]

Dick trying to get Selina to un-cat-girl Kitrina but he's got no foot to stand on XD

Batman #704

Given that we don't see Dick trying to get Damian regular life stuff and normal kid school in pre new 52*, I am curious how he feels about this wrt Damian.

*I headcanon that Alfred's got some homeschool program going on in my fanfics, but its just a headcanon

[pyroreadscomics]

Random question but: Does anyone know where the DC Wiki got the idea that Alberto was Kitrina Falcone's father? I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong but... I don't think it's mentioned in any of the comics she appears in, as opposed to her being Carmine's daughter (which, despite being shot down repeatedly seems to be what Kitty genuinely believes)

[kissingwookiees]

god i love when a show proves it knows the source material subtly… the penguin has all the falcones and maronis and johnny vitti… such a minor cast of characters but getting it right shows that they /know/ batman

[calciumcryptid]

Every day I am reminded of that one comic where the Gotham rogues play Poker so have a next gen iteration of it.

Can you tell I have no clue how poker works?

[inamindfarfaraway]

There's Selina Kyle and Holly Robinson as well, if you want a character with that trauma in Gotham! They've both been protective mentors, protectors and gang leaders to the homeless children of the East End (the area containing Crime Alley) at different times in canon, running the Alleytown Kids/Strays, while Jason has never done anything of the sort to Crime Alley kids in canon.

im also at a point where if someone tries to derail criticism about how male characters are often gifted trauma in fandom from the female characters with actual trauma in canon with “not my fault those female characters aren’t popular/interesting” instead of. reflecting about why they’d rather make up shit for a dude than care about a woman. with just. straight violence.

[hood-ex]

When Bruce and Dick were both Batman at the same time, Bruce told Dick to take care of Michael Lane and Kitrina Falcone. It's kind of annoying because Dick and Damian were running the show in Gotham, but Bruce was still the one giving orders. Dick even referred to Bruce as the boss.

Batman #704

Azrael (Vol. 2) #14

[inamindfarfaraway]

I give you a Batman AU timeline wherein Selina Kyle is the richest person in Gotham City and its first vigilante, protecting it with her expanded, somewhat rearranged Catfamily. Bruce Wayne is a master thief and self-made socialite.

But this is not a basic one-to-one swap! I have tried very hard to do every character justice while adapting the parts of comics canon I accept (basically the post-Crisis/pre-Flashpoint universe plus Duke), which is why it’s ridiculously detailed. There are 60 PAGES.

Featuring:

Selina and Maggie Kyle, Leslie Thompkins, Holly Robinson, Barbara Gordon, Helena Bertinelli, Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain and Kitrina Falcone being main characters.

Characters who age consistently, despite how little comics continuity wants to conform to the real progression time. I will make it make sense -

Characters who are allowed to be happy and romantically committed, and have meaningful development addressing their flaws and traumas in coherent narrative arcs. Their growth is not always linear, but never just undone. The Cats make healthier choices than the canon Bats make at times, like going to therapy, due to their different contexts and relationships, so there’s overall less angst and self-destructiveness. But they’re still incredibly traumatised and frequently messy about it.

Female characters who are written with respect, complex interiority and agency.

Deep, nuanced relationships, foil dynamics (familial, platonic and romantic) and vigilante philosophy.

New costume designs and codenames.

Emotional support cats for everyone with a Greek mythology naming theme inspired by Selina’s canon cat Hecate.

Maggie doing cool, important stuff as a civilian and not being fridged and stuck in a mental hospital for years.

Holly being a superhero.

Babs becoming Oracle and staying that way.

Villains dying or reforming and staying that way.

More of Holly and Karon being a lesbian couple. And Brucelina, Dickbabs, Timsteph, Timbern and Harlivy.

Harvey Dent, Two-Face and Talia al Ghul being sympathetic, three-dimensional antivillains/antiheroes with genuine love for people.

And more! I don’t expect anyone to read this in one sitting, but if any of the above interests you, please give it a try. Then you can make my day by telling me what you think! Comments, questions, analysis and fanart are very welcome.

I’ve also made a Discord server. Probably overzealous, but what the heck?

[zahri-melitor]

Recent Reads Roundup:

Annnnnnnd caught up.

Catwoman (Tini Howard): This run definitely had its ups and downs (Valmont's...everything, sending Selina to prison, a bunch of the gang drama), but I thought it pulled itself together better in the back half than I anticipated. True, Howard dropped essentially the entire supporting cast that Jones and Ram V. had been playing with, including sending Maggie off into who knows where for the entire run. However, Howard also clearly has a soft spot a bunch of the ethically dubious women of DC in general, and that shone through.

Eiko Hazigawa is all over this run. Scandal Savage is used with better skill than it appears to someone who has only picked up the Catwoman issues for The Gotham War. There's all sorts of drama entwined with Punchline and the Royal Flush Gang in the front half. Nine Lives drops Rose Wilson, Lori Zechlin, and Jeanette in to join the fun, and creates several peripheral women (another assassin, and someone who could work as an Aquaman side villain) into the mix.

It's not my favourite run, and it did some weird stuff that I expect will never really get followed through with (Selina getting gifted the power of Shazam from Egyptian cat gods? What was actually going on with Bastet and the resurrections? Why does Duchess look like that?) but Howard definitely had fun writing the title.

Nine Lives in particular was a lot more fun than I anticipated it to be, in a madcap 'send Selina into weird environments and make niche references' manner. I got the sense that it was a bit of a directory to runs and characters Howard likes (Suicide Squad, Secret Six, Black Adam, Aquaman 2016, she dug up DC's ripoff of the Wrecking Crew, the Demolition Team, from old Green Lantern, etc). She likes her antiheroes and villains.

And Dario Tomasso, as a character, just feels like a useful part of Gotham's mafia world. I want to dig into his connections with characters like Helena Bertinelli or Kitrina Falcone.

Nightwing (Tom Taylor): this run is the comics equivalent of a 90s tv show season. It's trying to do the longform story arc but doesn't quite have a solid handle on how to balance that against being a title that people can drop in to read. It's got a lot of stand alone short stories that in retrospect can be seen as building up towards the overall arc. It's got award season bait issues (both the single panel comic and 'see through Dick's eyes' are obvious Eisner bait). It's got fanservice (both Taylor's habit of writing scenes to be shared on social media, and stuff like the pirate interlude). It's got downtime beach episodes that let off the steam.

It's not how they make tv shows anymore (and there are reasons for it - the format can drag, especially as the overarching plot arc gets slowly salted in in little references that aren't necessarily essential to the story being told, and the threads often only get gathered up at the very end to make sense of things, so you're often drifting in a sea of serial seemingly unconnected incidents or monster-of-the-week) but when it's pulled off well it can be super memorable, and even when it's not quite there it tends to deliver a bunch of individual stories within the run that people are fond of.

It's good. Not great, definitely best read in about trade sized chunks interspersed with other stories, so you can put it aside when it's getting too samey, a tendency towards incorporating light and fluffy views of characters and tying plots off neatly, but it's engaging with a lot of Nightwing lore, it's familiar with who and what and how it's playing with the canon, and Taylor clearly gets the appeal of Dick's relationships with various of his family members among others.

It's at its best when Taylor's telling short complete stories.

Poison Ivy (G. Willow Wilson): I get why this such a popular run. It has so many of the vibes that the Moore Swamp Thing run had, but also modern, queer and in a character with an existing fandom.

The opening six issues are a beautiful reflection on nihilism and Pamela making an active choice to live, not just to sacrifice herself on a pyre of her own goals. And then it goes from there

It's a worthy inheritor and use of the complex lore of the Green, the Parliaments, the intertwined narratives written by the British Invasion, and decades of stories about Ivy's pivot as a character and the layered versions of her backstory. It centres Ivy's humanity by showing it against how wild and alien the lore she's inherited can become, compared to how she's so often been the alien figure in Bat stories.

And it's remarkably accessible, for all that. Absolutely a gateway drug into the weird shit end of DC, for fans who would never otherwise have branched out into those corners.

("Stick to your already-considerable gifts. Don't throw mushrooms into the bargain.")

The Penguin (Tom King): this isn't one of Tom King's hits.

I actually didn't mind Killing Time as a story, and this draws a bunch of characters and background from it, but I feel like the story ends up going nowhere very fast.

It also, just generally, contains a bunch of characterisation notes and retcons that I don't like as much as other versions. We've got people-eating Killer Croc here. The Cobblepot family aren't founders of Gotham and Oswald's not from inherited wealth. Bruce has apparently been using Penguin as an informer and letting him get away with all his smuggling and black market operations in payment. Oh, and it's one of those dull 'all the major villains know Batman's identity but don't say anything about it because...reasons' tropes.

It also contains a lineup of characters mined out of the back catalogues, and none of whom seem particularly interesting or like they were worth resurrecting? Okay, I'm sure SOMEONE reading this had a "omg it's the Force of July!" moment but it's just so predictably King a pick to pull from obscurity.

[leoruby-draws]

Decided to make this Saturday a Caturday!! Bad puns aside, felt like dumping all my cat-themed drawings in one post. There sure are a lot of them, tho most of these star the kitten vigilantes that the batkids might interact with in this au. First drawing showcases Kitrina Falcone aka Catgirl, who I already explained in this post. Looks like she's going through a string of bad luck with the batkids, they have no tolerance for her antics lol. Bottom right is Catgirl hanging out with the other young cat vigilantes, Kitten and Tom Bronson. If your wondering why Tom is dressed like that, well...

Looks like Catman aka Thomas Blake has decided to take on his own apprentice, and has picked Tom for the job. Say hello to Catboy, Tom is very confused about all this, Ted (Wildcat) looks pissed lmao. I liked Catman btw, he was pretty great in Secret Six, the very definition of a glow-up. I should re-read Secret Six honestly, I did enjoy it but I was mostly focusing on Black Alice tbh. Also was anyone else shocked that Catman was an actual DC character?? I genuinely thought that the Fairly Odd Parents show make him up to parody Adam West's Batman. There's also another Catman from the 1940s but it seems unrelated to the DC version. The more you know I guess.

Here's a Catwoman vs Catman standoff! The cats with their kitten sidekicks, Tom is so done with this. Down below we see Catgirl playfully (and remorselessly) steal poor Tom's cash. She's a goofball sometimes. It kinda seems she might have a bit of a crush on Tom but he doesn't seem interested, also there might be a bit of an age gap too, now that I think about it? She might be 16-18 to his 21-22 I think? I guess the age gap is lower in this au so it's not relevant anyways.

Decided to expand (head-canon lets be real) on this random obscure character, Kitten. I made up a name for her, Felicity Fauve, I wanted to give her a cat-like name for her but not make it too obvious or on the nose, hope it sounds natural enough. You can see her bothering all the Cat-themed heroes and villains she can find. She's been shown to be a sidekick to Cheetah and Catwoman, hope she finds the role model she's looking for. Her being a sidekick to Catman feels like it could be a gag towards the 1940s version now that I think about it.

Bottom left doodle shows her 'hanging out' with Catwoman and her sidekicks. Catgirl seems very territorial concerning Kitten, Holly seems very concern about it, Selina doesn't care in the least. Not her problem!

More Cats! Here's Catwoman showing the ropes to Tom, who's taking on the name Catlad. This is honestly me being inspired by all the fanart of the batboys taking on fanon Catlad mantle. Mostly its Tim I think, thought it would be fun to put Tom in the role. I think he would prefer this over Catboy no doubt. Ted still wouldn't be happy about all this, don't teach kids to steal Selina!! Btw did you know Ted mentored Selina in fighting? There was a 4 issue mini with her 'working' with Wildcat that revealed that, short but fun read.

There's also bonus doodles of Pantha and Artemis Crock. Artemis is very different from the tv show version, like shockingly so. Reading through the JSA comics, I was really taken aback from how she differed, like she was an actual villain here (also Jade isn't related to her, tho I knew that early on reading the tt comics). I still liked her but I think I like the show version more tbh. Also I wanted to put her mother, the Tigress on here but there wasn't enough room here. Maybe another time, I enjoyed her in Young All-Stars btw.

Here's some Yolanda and Tom shenanigans down below!

Yolanda thinks Tom's werecat form is adorable, I agree!

Final doodle, here's Tom drawn with some watercolor pens. Didn't really enjoy using them, but I should try to expand my skill anyways right? Doodle under that is Yolanda and Tom as actual cats, how cute.

Well I hoped you like all these cats, pet a cat for me today!

[dc-megatournament]

Batman and Allies Tournament

[havendance]

Dear Tony Daniel, I'm sorry for doubting yo. You wrote a fun Batman arc with Helena and Babs showing up to play supporting roles and also Selina and Kitrina Falcone and now I have to go read Morrison come back and write Batman RIP revisited. Sigh.

[francisofgotham1]

This is amazing! You were able to combine Selina’s backstory into a consistent narrative, which due to the nature of comics, is near impossible.

However, I would like to add something to it, if you don’t mind.

The reasons for Selina stealing are actually much more selfless than they first appear. She has a younger sister, Maggie Kyle, whom she has to raise due to their parents’ neglect. Thus, she turns to stealing as a way of providing for herself and Maggie. Eventually, it becomes more selfish, but she has better intentions in the beginning.

Moreover, she serves as a mentor/caretaker to Holly Robinson and the “strays” of Crime Alley (orphans from Crime Alley). She taught them how to fend in the streets, including how to protect themselves. Holly learned so much from her that she became Catgirl. Later on, she takes Kitrina Falcone under her wing. Thus, while she is “the bad guy”, she has a strong potential to be good permanently.

And it is this potential that brings Bruce to her. He sees this potential, and not only wants to bring it out more often, but also wants her to see it for herself. It’s really quite beautiful.

Thank you again for your thoughts and your art!! I hope we see her more in the future!

I’ve only done some light reading on Selina, but even so, details on her past seem few and far between. Maybe there’s a reason, maybe I just haven’t looked hard enough, whatever. Someone can enlighten me in the comments. What I do know, however, is that she’s eluded to have experienced some form of abuse as a child. Now, this research came on the heels of brushing up on the rest of Batman’s rogues’ gallery and I gotta say, abuse as a backstory comes up a lot. And I’m just sitting here, like, “There are so many unique people in this world with unique traumas and hurts that this feels almost cookie cutter.” Am I wrong? I just wanna be more specific and explore problems more intimately. So… Selina Kyle. What to write for her backstory? I thought a lot about who she is as a character present day—her playful aloofness, her decision to become a cat burglar, breaking rules as if they don’t exist, always on the run, never settling down with anyone long term, stealing nice things for herself—it led me to this backstory: When Selina was a child, she was horribly neglected. Her father was almost never around and her mother was depressed, anxious, under the influence of alcohol quite often, and wished she never had a daughter. Selina found that it was always easier to live as though she were invisible. If she never got caught making a mess or being noisy or causing problems, her mother would never get mad at her, or even a acknowledge her, and neither would her father if he ever showed his face. She never received birthday gifts—or if she did, they were pitiful—and all of her attempts of reaching out via gifts to her mother and father were rejected. She was never loved and grew to believe that the only way she would ever feel cared for is if she just took care of herself and only herself. She was good at being invisible, and so she became good at stealing. She treated herself to nice things whenever she felt like it, and she rarely ever got caught. She never made close friends. She never really fell in love. She built up walls so high that no one could ever break them down… until she met Bruce. Suddenly, here was a guy who could consistently catch her red-handed. Who told her she needed to stop robbing people. Who believed she could be better. Who saw her. And even though she kept double-crossing him, escaping his grasp, and escaping justice, she found that it was a little bit harder to return to crime every time. She had always found him attractive… but the longer they chased each other around Gotham, and the longer he showed that he wasn’t going to ignore her or give up on her, the more that attraction turned into a deep feeling that Selina had never felt before. True love. She was scared of it. She didn’t know what to do with it. It was completely the opposite of everything she had ever known, and she secretly didn’t think she deserved it. After all, she was a criminal. She was a “bad guy.” Someone who stole from others for pleasure and profit. And yet Bruce believed she was a good person deep down. He believed she had the capacity for change. And in time, he would find himself falling in love with her too. By the end of their story, naturally, those walls had come crumbling down and they had each learned how to love again, something they both thought would never happen to them. 💜