Batman's History With Catwoman Explained

Upon her first-ever appearance, the woman who would become Catwoman did not wear a costume and was not called "Catwoman," nor was she named "Selina Kyle" (or anything at all, for that matter). She was simply "The Cat." In fact, she wasn't even the main antagonist of the story, only appearing in the final few pages.

The story focuses on a valuable necklace belonging to a wealthy woman throwing a party on a yacht that's attended by a number of relatives who rely on her for money. These dependents are interested in stealing the necklace. Robin has been sent to keep an eye on the jewels and soon discovers a note from "The Cat" to one of the greedy nephews, who just so happens to have an elderly guest with him at the party.

There's an attack by some mobsters and Batman wins a costume contest (these being the early days of comics, of course). Finally, the dynamic duo catches the thief, who turns out to be a beautiful woman disguised as the nephew's guest. Batman decides they'll take her to the police, but "accidentally" loses her on the way back to shore, leading Robin to think Batman has a crush.

In the next issue, the idea is introduced that this charming thief may not be all bad. It's made clear that when it comes to Batman and Joker, the Cat-Woman is on Batman's side. She gives Batman and Robin information on the Joker and later makes a deal with the Joker to save Robin's life. The first use of the name "Catwoman" (or rather "Cat-Woman") appears an issue later and also introduces her original costume, one that's very different from what we've grown accustomed to over the years.

In "Batman" #62, Batman chases Catwoman past a condemned building that collapses just as they are in range of its falling bricks. In a split second, Catwoman must decide whether she'll get away and let Batman die, or save his life at the risk of her own. She chooses the latter, but in the process takes a brick to the head and is knocked unconscious.

Batman brings her to the Batcave to recover. When she awakes, she's stunned to learn that she's a criminal with a feline alter ego, and that it's 1950. She reveals that her name is Selina Kyle and that she is a stewardess who was in a plane crash and hit her head (yes, 1950 "Batman" writers subscribed to the theory that if one head injury caused a problem, a second head injury would solve that problem). Batman theorizes that she has had amnesia and, in her amnesiac state, took up a life of crime as Catwoman. Selina is horrified by this news, but agrees to continue to play Catwoman so she can go undercover and help Batman, Robin, and Commissioner Gordon take down the deadly Mister X, with whom Catwoman had recently struck up a partnership.

The story ends with Selina saying she's through with Catwoman, but Batman thinks the police may need her again soon. Odd, then, that in the next story featuring Catwoman, issue #65's "Catwoman — Empress of the Underworld," Batman and Robin believe that Selina is back to her thieving ways as she leads a group of ne'er-do-wells on a crime spree, only to learn in the final moments that she's acting as an undercover agent for the Gotham police.

After returning in 1966, Catwoman made regular appearances as a villain across a number of DC titles. But the most exciting development came in "DC Super-Stars" #17, where readers learn that on Earth-Two, an alternate dimension in the multiverse, Selina reformed for good after she took a brick to the head that cured her amnesia in the 1950s. Shortly after reforming, she and Bruce married. And just a couple years later, they welcomed their daughter: Helena Wayne.

But things didn't stay idyllic forever. The story jumps forward to the 1970s, when a phone call interrupts a family evening. Selina answers and is pulled back into her life as Catwoman through the blackmail of an old criminal colleague. He pushes her to do one last job. She accepts to keep her family safe. Word of the robbery reaches the police, and Commissioner Gordon calls on Batman to put a stop to it.

Batman arrives on the scene. One of the thugs aims at the caped crusader, who kicks the man's arm to deflect the bullet. It catches an unintended mark: Selina. Bruce didn't know that she had been forced into participating in the crime. He thought the woman in the suit was a copycat (pun intended). Just as the bullet hits her, Selina lets out a cry of "Bruce!" and, in her last words, tells Bruce that she only did it for him.

In the aftermath of his beloved wife's death, Bruce burns his cape and cowl, giving up crime-fighting for good. But while her father is too heartbroken to seek vengeance, Helena Wayne is incited to find her mother's killers and bring them to justice. A mysterious figure with a Batman-like silhouette soon begins to stalk the streets of Gotham, and voila: Huntress is born.

After the reality-altering and dimension-melding events of "Crisis on Infinite Earths" (which we do not have nearly enough time or space to cover here), DC commissioned Frank Miller, who was riding high off the success of "The Dark Knight Returns," to reimagine Bruce's first year as Batman. The result was "Year One."

"Year One" follows Bruce, Gordon, and Selina in the first year of Batman's activity in Gotham. Selina, a sex worker with an abusive pimp (we are very far beyond the clean-nosed comics of the '40s and '50s now), has two significant run-ins with Bruce/Batman during the story. First, the two get into a scuffle before either of them has taken up an animal mantle, because Bruce is naively trying to clean up the streets without much knowledge. Later, Selina meets Batman while robbing a crime boss that Batman is looking to bring down. But perhaps the most important aspect of "Year One" for Batman and Catwoman's history is that Batman inspires Selina to don the catsuit. In doing so, she begins seeking a better life for herself and her friend Holly by stealing from the wealthy.

Two years later, Mindy Newell penned the first-ever Catwoman miniseries "Her Sister's Keeper," which overlaps with Year One and further fleshes out Selina's story in that time. Again, there are two noteworthy interactions between the pair. In the first, Batman shows up during Catwoman's fight with her old pimp, who has kidnapped her sister Maggie (whose disappearance Batman is investigating), just in time to save Maggie from a fatal fall. In the final pages of the story, the two discuss the efficacy of the law when it comes to police violence against women (again, these aren't kid stories anymore). Catwoman lays a kiss on Batman, then hits him and claws his chest. She marks him as just a "smarter, cooler, more seductive" cop, and Selina "don't do cops."

It took much less time after the continuity reboot in "Crisis on Infinite Earths" for Batman and Catwoman to become involved than the nearly 40 years it took before they began canonically dating in 1979. In "The Long Halloween," which began less than a decade after "Year One" in 1996 and is set not even a year later, the two begin a romantic relationship as Selina and Bruce. That doesn't stop Catwoman from flirting (rather aggressively, as is her style) with Batman.

Later in that story, Bruce is placed under one of Poison Ivy's powerful spells. Catwoman fights off Ivy for her new lover. It's a bit funny, then, that years later, after some more on-again/off-again between Bruce and Selina, Catwoman is manipulated by Ivy in "Hush" (also by "The Long Halloween" scribe Jeph Loeb). While Batman doesn't save Catwoman from Ivy herself in "Hush," he does show up just in time to help her fight Killer Croc, who Ivy has also manipulated. After their escape, the two kiss as Catwoman and Batman.

Catwoman then teams up with Batman to unravel the mystery of "Hush," while Bruce and Selina see each other socially. As Catwoman and Batman work together more, and as their romantic relationship grows, Bruce decides that he needs to tell Selina the truth about his identity. That decision brings them closer together, but doesn't ensure their relationship; at the end of the story,  Bruce decides to end it (for now) because he cannot trust whether his mind has been manipulated by Ivy or Scarecrow.

We've all heard of "getting your heart stolen," but "Heart of Hush" makes that concept concrete, albeit in a way that's counter to the generally positive meaning the idiom has. Hush returns to Gotham, having heard that an organization called "The Black Glove" is beginning a plan to kill Batman. Hush believes that Batman's death must belong to him.

Hush knows how much Selina means to Batman, so he attacks her and surgically removes her heart. He connects her to cardiopulmonary machines so that she can survive without it, but the trap for Batman has been set. Batman tracks Hush down and asks why he attacked Selina. Hush responds that no matter who Batman is with (at this time, Bruce is dating model and activist Jezebel Jet), "there has only been one woman that really held your heart and now I'm holding hers."

It's a moment of insight from the villain, and one that Bruce later confirms. After literally saving her heart from Hush, Bruce speaks to a Selina he believes to be unconscious post-operation. He admits that Hush "was right" and softly kisses her on the forehead while telling her, "I will always love you."

During the New 52 story "Gothtopia," Scarecrow has created a "contentment sedative," which he pumps into Gotham. This spreads a widespread delusion of an almost crimeless utopia that's protected by costumed heroes, including Batman and his partner Catbird, aka Selina Kyle. But they're not just partners, as we learn early on in the story. Poison Ivy attempts to kiss Batman, but Catbird tells her "that job is taken;" he and Catbird are also a couple.

As the story goes on, the delusion begins to slip and characters begin to wonder whether the world is actually this perfect. Batman becomes convinced that Ivy, who was ranting about the world being a lie, was right. When he tells this to Selina, she attacks him and tells him he's dangerous to himself and to Gotham because she does not want her perfect reality challenged.

Of course, Selina's reality doesn't go unchallenged. She has a dream, spurred by the appearance of a catsuit, in which Catbird and Catwoman fight. They each argue that the other's reality is fake. Catbird argues that she is happy and that Batman loves her. Catwoman retorts, "Batman wanted to change us. That's not love." It's a moment in an otherwise wild story that speaks to a real concern of Selina's in all of her relationships with Bruce.

And the story's epilogue only hurts more as Selina, now Catwoman again, talks to Batman about their happiness as a couple in Gothtopia. He tells her it wasn't real, that it was just what she wanted to see. When she asks if he saw the same thing, he lies and says all he saw was a safe Gotham.

The currently running "Batman/Catwoman" series, written by Tom King (who also wrote their romance in the above "Rebirth" storyline), really emphasizes this "forever." It follows three different timelines: the past, the present, and the future.

The past shows Selina's difficulties acting as both a villain, sometimes even working along with the Joker, and Batman's lover, especially when he's too smart to ignore her connections to the underworld. The present follows Batman and Catwoman as they work together to stop a spree of murders by the Phantasm while also fully embracing their love for one another. And the future depicts Selina in the days after Bruce's death from illness (at least that's what we're told), visiting an old friend and reminiscing.

It's not clear exactly where the stories will go, but the exploration of three different timelines allows for a beautifully full picture of one of the greatest romances in comic books and arguably popular culture writ large: the bat and the cat.