| “ | My world is all just shades of grey, Batman. That's why you'll never really understand me. | „ |
| ~ Catwoman. |
Selina Kyle, more commonly known as Catwoman, is a major character in the DC Universe, specifically serving as the deuteragonist of the Batman franchise and the titular main protagonist of the franchise of the same name.
She is a professional thief who dresses in a cat-like costume when carrying out her crimes. She's the on-&-off ally and main love interest of the Batman and one of the Gotham Sirens, alongside her best friends Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy.
Despite her status as a villain, she's one of DC's most noble and sympathetic villains, since she has a tragic reason behind her criminal acts and has more morality and standards than most of Batman's other rogues. In the modern times, she is even portrayed more heroically.
Her Evil Ranking[]
Her Villainous Deeds[]
In General[]
- She has stolen countless highly expensive artifacts over the years, often committing several other crimes in the process of doing so. Her motive for these thefts is rarely ever necessity or even greed, but rather simply enjoying the thrill that comes with the act of theft itself, showing that her motive for crime is mostly selfish.
- Even though most of the people she's killed were themselves criminals, she rarely ever killed them out of any sense of justice (excluding self-defence situations), but mostly did so for personal reasons like revenge.
Earth-One[]
- In Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane, Catwoman tried to use Lois Lane as a pawn in a plan to kill the Penguin.
New Earth[]
- In Catwoman (v2) #4, she got Bane to kill a crime boss named Leopold for personal reasons.
- In Catwoman: When In Rome, she tricked the Riddler into ingesting Scarecrow's fear toxin.
Prime Earth[]
- In Batman Eternal #28, she took over a crime family. This started an arc where she was a mafia boss overseeing nearly all of Gotham's criminal underworld, making her indirectly responsible for countless crimes across the city.
- In Batman Eternal #43, she kidnapped and extorted Stephanie Brown.
- In Batman (v3) #35, she broke Talia al Ghul's arm and brutally stabbed her.
Why She Doesn't Stand Out?[]
- She is on & off vigilante, and due to her association with the Bat Family, she is largely heroic these days. There are multiple times where she has helped Batman take down much worse people than herself.
- She massively fails the heinousness standards of the DC universe by a long shot. Even narrowing it down to just those villains with similar resources as her, serial killers like the Joker, Victor Zsasz, and James Gordon, Jr have harmed way more innocent people in far worse ways than Catwoman ever has. Even ignoring that, her crimes are not uniquely heinous at all and they are mostly bog-standard with her stealing stuff.
- Most of the people she killed were not innocents but rather other criminals, and even if her motives were more often personal than they were justice-oriented, a few of these killings (most notably that of Black Mask) were arguably not unjust.
- There are several people that she cares about:
- She is in love with Batman himself.
- She acts as a protective mother-figure for her childhood best friend Holly Robinson.
- She cares for her sister Magdalene "Maggie" Kyle.
- She is best friends with Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, with the group of three being known as the Gotham City Sirens.
- She is kind to younger members of the Bat-Family like Tim Drake, Stephane Brown, and even Damian Wayne.
- She took up Kitrina Falcone as her protégé, Catgirl shpowing care for her.
- She is nice to the Alleytown Kids.
- Her past is incredibly tragic. She was raised by an alcoholic father who frequently abused both Selina and her mother, to the point that said mother committed suicide. She would then live on the streets of Gotham, surviving as a petty thief. When she was older, she turned to prostitution, and her pimp Stan regularly beat her. She eventually quit and was taught how to defend herself, later becoming a cat burglar named Catwoman.
- She has a sense of honor. She generally refrains from killing civilians (as can be seen by how her only murders were of other criminals), and she will also take defeat well when she is caught by Batman.
- One of her worst acts — taking over the entire Gotham criminal underworld — was done to clean up the streets of Gotham and regulate crime, making her a well-intentioned extremist.
External Links[]
- Catwoman on the Villains Wiki
- Catwoman on the Heroes Wiki
- Catwoman on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki
- Catwoman (Earth-Two) on the DC Database Wiki
- Catwoman (Earth-One) on the DC Database Wiki
- Catwoman (New Earth) on the DC Database Wiki
- Catwoman (Prime Earth) on the DC Database Wiki
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 Villainous Benchmarks
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