#and a pretty boring villian/antihero

[emotinalsupportturtle]

so the tree at the end of loki was Yggdrasil, right?

[lazaruspiss]

ive played the main story of Gotham Knights like 6~ times i think im allowed to say that it's kinda ass. batman being dead was a decent setup, the labyrinth bit was really fun and interesting, but really the entirety of the main plot has nothing really going for it. i could probably list of a few sort of interesting aspects, but none of it comes together for an interesting story.

Harley's side story was decently done and i think GK nailed the whole "yeah shes a victim of the joker but shes still a crazed villain in her own right and can fuck shit up just fine on her own" angle that i strongly prefer for her. the mainline comics nowadays keep running into tell vs show issues from what ive seen. they keep telling me about how ~nuanced~ she is, but they keep showing me the most generic unproductive antihero characterization. DC comics as a whole over the past decade have, at least for me, been committing the most egregious comic book sin of all: being boring. like i was wondering why harlivy seemed to end up w less chemistry after getting together but then i remembered DC comics have just all been like that recently. anyways. tangent over back to GK.

GK's side missions might have been better than the actual main plot, at least story wise. although all three do sort of hit the same story beats. villian is somewhat sympathetic, but ultimately acts maliciously of their own accord and must be stopped. you beat them, the end. they have different enough level designs though to pretty much make up for it in my opinion.

yeahhhh gotham knights is kinda the superhero game version of a slice of life show, and it would be completely jarring for arkhamverse fans. like i love both but i don't think there's really much overlap in the appeal of AKverse and GK.

[fyeahbatcat]

Hey! I wanted to ask you something that's been on my mind. Why do you think the fandom seems divided on Selina's characterization? Half the fandom wants to "remain a villian" and the other half wants her to be an antihero, i.e. wanting more out of life besides thievery? Personally, I feel like both opinions are valid based on the amount of material she has, and bc DC just hasn't given her a proper definitive origin, it's hard to know what makes her tick, so her characterization has become murky?

Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion but FWIW that hasn’t really been my experience. Most of the people in fandom that I’ve seen or interacted with who are Catwoman fans seem to be more in favor of the anti-hero with a heart of gold characterization. My observations hasn’t been anywhere near what I would arbitrarily call “divided.”

Except for maybe a short time during the Silver Age, Catwoman has never been a hard line villain. She’s more self-serving than anything. Even in the Golden Age she had a moral code and aversion to killing and extreme violence so categorizing Catwoman as ever have been a villain is not accurate. She can’t “remain” something she never was to begin with. So that’s the first thing.

Like I said everyone’s entitled to their opinion but it would strike me as odd that anyone who is familiar with Catwoman’s modern (modern being a pretty generous term) comics would say that since her own comics has never portrayed her that way. Ed Brubaker’s Catwoman run, to this day is widely considered to be the most definitive Catwoman run. Whether or not you agree with that isn’t really the point. The fact that the series when Catwoman firmly reforms and we see that transformation from her perspective, is the most acclaimed and well known Catwoman runs, says something. In my experience the people who say that Catwoman is a villain or that thievery is the main crux of her character, are more familiar with her in the most basic sense. I think when you consume more Catwoman-centered media you see her more as a character and less of an archetype.

Thieving isn’t even something Catwoman particularly cares about, which is why she’s able to give it and move onto other things. It wasn’t her life-long dream to become a master thief, she wasn’t called to it or anything. She started doing it out of survival and eventually grows weary of the lifestyle. It’s more or less a gig to her. Okay maybe I’m being being hyperbolic, but only a little bit. This has been pretty consistent across Catwoman’s characterization, even in other forms of media. Catwoman begins a life of crime out of necessity, and eventually wants to find a better path for herself. This goes back to the Silver Age. It’s pretty ironic that some want her to “remain a villain” when it’s exactly that kind of perception and low expectations of her that makes Selina feel that she can’t move on with her life, even if she wanted to. It’s because of how others perceive her and pigenhole her into that role, that she feels like she can’t be anything else. Catwoman is a thief and that’s all she’ll ever be. These were prominent themes in The Dark Knight Rises and Batman: Telltale.

As much as I would love for Catwoman to get a new origin story I don’t believe that it would change anything about people’s perception, I guess because I don’t believe that her origins are unclear. I think it’s been consistent for the last few decades, in one way or another, that Selina becomes a criminal for survival. In The Brave and the Bold #197 she reveals that her abusive ex-husband left her socially and financially ruined, and thus stole to get back at him.

This was published in 1983, but it was a Silver Age era comic. Catwoman (v2) #81 goes into a lot of depth about Selina’s upbringing. She grew up in an abusive household and was orphaned at a young age. She learns to steal to fend herself on the streets. I’m going to link the panels instead of posting because it’s extremely graphic, but be warned: it contains images of suicide and domestic violence, but if you’re interested you can read about it here.

DC Comics’ has more or less stuck to this as Catwoman’s *origin* ever since. If you are interested in learning about how her childhood and it’s connection to thieving I’d check out Catwoman (v2) #39. It’s one of the few times Selina talks about missing out on having a loving family and stability growing up. You can see a few of the panels here. 

The only thing else I have to add is that I think that people have an overly romanticized impression about what Selina’s life of crime is like. Sure she’s had some really great and highly entertaining heist stories, but it’s also come with very severe consequences. Including, but not limited to, getting Selina almost killed, thrown in jail a bunch of times, accused of crimes she didn’t commit, forced on the run, led to the torture and even death of her and her loved ones. She’s had to fake her own death more than once. So...yeah. If you read about all of these things happening to her you can see how the criminal lifestyle would start of lose its appeal, and why she’d want to move on with her life.

Selina has said herself that eventually the thrills wears off, and she doesn’t feel fulfilled by it in the long run. That is an indication of character growth. Development in character and storytelling should be moved forward not stifled or regressed. This is also just bad from a storytelling perspective. The first half of Catwoman’s first and fourth ongoing series were about Catwoman heisting and general life of crime, and if you’ve read them you might find that they start to get really repetitive and boring after awhile. As a reader you want to see different things, and I can see why readership eventually dropped off for both of those series. There are only so many ways you can see Catwoman dangling from the ceiling about to burglarize some museum or whatever.

I honestly think you have to read Catwoman’s comic book series to really appreciate her as a well-rounded and multi-layered character, because it’s from her point of view. You’re not really going to get the same insight if you only rely on her appearances in the Batman-centered media. I’d definitely check out at least the end of her 90s series and Ed Brubaker’s run for more depth.