Batman: Caped Crusader Succeeds Where Batman: The Animated Series Failed

This Batman: Caped Crusader article contains spoilers.

“Oof,” says a purple-clad woman with a tantalizing slit running up the side of her dress. “You’re definitely a lot sexier than in those sketches,” she tells a stoic Batman.

Modern viewers may not recognize the green and purple get-up, but between the pointy ears on her head and her flirty attitude toward Batman, anyone can identify the burglar as Catwoman, chief villain of the Batman: Caped Crusader episode “Kiss of the Catwoman.”

A new animated version of the baddie/love interest will of course invite comparisons to the Batman: The Animated Series version and for good season. That ’90s animated series gave some of the Dark Knight’s villains their definitive stories. The Clock King was never scarier than he was in the episode bearing his name and “Heart of Ice” made Mr. Freeze into a tragic figure. Even when it didn’t completely change the game, TAS featured all-timers with some long-standing Bat-baddies, including multiple amazing Joker tales and the supervillain team-up “Almost Got ‘Im.”

But for all the good stuff in TAS, the series never quite figured out how to handle Catwoman. With the exception of maybe “Tyger, Tyger,” none of Catwoman’s eight appearances (across every iteration of TAS) stand out, making her feel like an also-ran instead of one of the greats of TAS. But in her one Caped Crusader episode, Catwoman has an energy that was missing from the lauded ’90s cartoon series.

Catwoman Caught Between Qualities

Several issues contributed to TAS‘s Catwoman problem, most of which can be traced back to 1992’s Batman Returns, which came out the same year that TAS first aired on Fox Kids. Michelle Pfeiffer gives a dazzling performance as the mousy Selina Kyle, who becomes the vengeful Catwoman, but hers is hardly the only take on Batman’s best bad girl. The character first debuted as The Cat in Batman #1 (1940), and has been imagined as a vain cat burglar, a devious schemer, a champion of the down-trodden, a sultry seductress, and more.

TAS tried to synthesize these all of these versions, with Pfeiffer’s take as the biggest influence. Too often, Catwoman became a damsel in distress, whose reckless ways put her in need of rescue. That model began in the show’s first episodes, the two-parter “The Cat and the Claw.” In that story, Catwoman (Adrienne Barbeau) runs afoul of the terrorist the Red Claw (Kate Mulgrew), and she and Batman team up to take the Claw down.

Like the Pfeiffer version, the TAS Catwoman played like a woman pushed to the edge and out of her depth. She never properly challenged, or even attracted, Batman, and instead earns his sympathy. She gets threatened by the gangster Daggett, turned into a cat/human hybrid, and never stands on her own.

Pfeiffer’s turn in Batman Returns may have helped Batman: The Animated Series make it to air, but it hobbled Catwoman in a manner unbecoming of a classic villain. Fortunately, Caped Crusader corrects that.

Clawing Back in Caped Crusader

With a story by Ed Brubaker and Bruce Timm, a teleplay by Adamma Ebo and Adanne Ebo, and direction from Christopher Berkely, “Kiss of the Catwoman” begins with Bruce Wayne (Hamish Linklater) staring at his mother’s pearl necklace, part of a museum exhibit about Gotham’s upper class. As always, the sight brings him back to that fateful night in Crime Alley, at least until Selina Kyle shows up to start flirting with him.

Why is Kyle at the party? Most would expect her to be casing the joint, looking for information about her next score, which she’ll share with her friend Holly and other poor kids.

“Kiss of the Catwoman” does something different. Here, Kyle has come to hobknob with the rich and powerful because she is one of them. Or, well, she used to be one of them. Selina’s father has died, leaving behind a host of bills, a crumbling mansion, and a cranky German housekeeper (Jackie Hoffman). To maintain her lifestyle, Selina becomes Catwoman.

As that description suggests, there’s no moral ambiguity to Caped Crusader‘s Catwoman. Nor is their much attraction from Batman. Catwoman flirts with him because he’s a strong, handsome weirdo and because he’s part of the nightlife she wants to join. But she’s fundamentally a spoiled party girl, the exact type of person that Batman avoids because Bruce Wayne has to put up with them.

There’s no grit, no tragedy to this Selina Kyle, a welcome and fresh direction for the usually tortured character. This Catwoman does get some help from others, namely District Attorney and Mayoral Candidate Harvey Dent (Diedrich Bader), who gets her off of burglary charges at the behest of gangster Rupert Thorne (Cedric Yarbrough). But rather than play along with these powerful men, she goes her own way.

The episode cuts from Bruce and Alfred (Jason Watkins) glaring at the television news about her release to Catwoman taking jewels (and a pet cat) from a wealthy couple’s bedroom. She grins as Batman chases her across rooftops, and even though she plants a smooch on Batman when he rescues her from a mistimed jump, she clocks him with electric knuckles when they get back on the ground.

There’s a playfulness to this Selina that gets overlooked in too many modern versions, from the defenders of the downtrodden played by Pfeiffer and Anne Hathaway to the troubled soul in Tom King‘s Batman run. She’s not a hero, she’s not a tragic villain. She’s just a girl who does whatever she wants, even if the episode ends with her destitute after her housekeeper takes everything.

To be clear, the party girl take on Catwoman isn’t necessarily the best version. Creators such as Darwyn Cooke have been able to tell fantastic stories with a more tragic, noir-influenced version of the character, who wears the catsuit inspired by Pfeffer’s tight duds.

But the party girl aspect allows Caped Crusader to tell a good story starring Catwoman. As one of Batman’s oldest and most interesting villains, she deserves good stories. And if making her an arrogant kid who wants to flirt with Batman is the way we get them, then Caped Crusader is is doing the right thing.

Batman: Caped Crusader is streaming now on Prime Video.