Michael Bair

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

When I read JSA Classified, the story where Wildcat goes to Gotham and bumps into Catwoman indicated there was a history between these two characters... one I knew nothing about! So I did some research and that brought me to this collection, which contains the four-issue Catwoman vol. 1 miniseries from 1989.This is basically "Catwoman: Year One" in all but name. It runs in parallel to Batman: Year One, showing how Selina Kyle decided to become Catwoman after being inspired by Batman, and how being Catwoman let her escape from her life as a prostitute and rescue both her fellow prostitute and ward, Holly Robinson, and her sister, who is now a nun named Sister Magdalene.

The Wildcat content is pretty small. Basically, Selina bumps into Flannery, a cop in the vice department who advises she protect herself from her abusive pimp and recommends a guy named Ted to her. Ted appears a bit in the first two issues, training Selina in how to fight and teaching her how to use her whip. Honestly, he comes across as a bit sleazy but ultimately well-intentioned. And then that's it; he doesn't appear in issues #3 or 4, though it's one of those issues where we finally learn his last name is "Grant" and thus that he's the JSA's Wildcat. In the then-current post-Crisis timeline, this would be many decades after the JSA had to retire from superheroics because of Congressional interference, and a couple years before their first encounter with the new JLA would bring them back into action. So I guess for those forty years, Ted Grant just worked in some sleazy gyms... which, you know, I buy. I will have to see if future stories featuring Ted and Selina make more explicit use of Ted's identity as Wildcat.

Other than that, this is a solid story, albeit one very much of its time. That's not a criticism per se, but this is definitely right out of the gritty-but-without-being-gruesome Batman aesthetic birthed by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli in Year One and continued into other stories of the time like Shaman, Venom, and Night Cries; it's little surprise to see that it was edited by Denny O'Neil, because it was a vibe he was cultivating all over the place at the time. If you like that vibe, it's one of its more effective examples. Writer Mindy Newell effectively takes what could be kind of an awful twist on Selina from Year One (making her into a prostitute) and uses that to launch a character who feels like a meaningful person. I appreciated the fleshing out of her supporting cast with both Holly and Magdalene; giving Catwoman two people she's working on behalf of stops her from feeling like an out-and-out villain. (Holly Robinson will go on to have big role in Catwoman vol. 3, as I recall, but I'm not sure what becomes of Sister Magdalene in future stories.)

J. J. Birch and Michael Bair are strong artists, capturing the Year One aesthetic without feeling derivative, and there's some great coloring from the ever-capable Adrienne Roy. I really like 1980s coloring, and this book's noir stylings are particularly suited for it.

My edition is from 1992; I would guess it was collected (in this case by Warner Books, not by DC itself) in order to have a Catwoman-related product in bookstores when Batman Returns came out. Since then, DC seems to have let it go out of print... which is weird, given DC's love of having "Year One" collections. Thirty years later, why haven't they rereleased this as Catwoman: Year One with a more legible cover?

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