The Catwoman We Deserve

Brazen?  Was that my billing?  I thought I was “Section Deleted.” –Cattitude

Seriously, the more we see of Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises, the more  it looks like we’ll finally be getting “The Catwoman We Deserve,” heck maybe even the Bruce and Selina relationship we deserve.

 

 

The Dark Knight Rises is Christopher Nolan’s third and final installment of his Batman trilogy, starring Christian Bale (Batman/Bruce Wayne), Anne Hathaway (Selina Kyle/Catwoman), Tom Hardy (Bane), Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and other Nolan alums Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard, to be released by Warner Bros. July 2012

Or, put it another way…

Catwoman steals Avengers Buzz

Today, I’m taking time out from spotlighting lovely Catwoman artwork in the Cat-Tales gallery in order to spotlight this other Catwoman, because seriously, this third Dark Knight Rises trailer is the Catwoman Show! ME-OW!

(Btw, is anyone else amused that Selina is stealing the Avenger’s net action this morning?)

Now we’re talking…

So he's all "I don't think those jewels belong to you" and she says "I salute you, world's greatest detective."

So he's all "The easy way or the hard way" and she says "Why Batman, how hard do you want it to get?"

The Gotham Post... pinheads

We’re Back, Baby

Cat-Tales had an eventful weekend. Our hosting server was attacked by some nasty malware – which was found almost instantly by two Cat-Tales readers who were kind enough to let me know, so we had it squelched in record time. Yesterday our hosts reset everything and last night, I republished the whole site from uncorrupted backups.

Whew! Let’s try not to do THAT again.

Wasn’t any trouble, but it did involve several hours of “waiting around for the cable guy” while they got to our server. Nothing like sitting around waiting on a Monday, so I took the time to whip up a little preview for the next chapter.  Considering how popular the Selina Kyle, Fashionista posts have always been, whether it’s in Cat-Tales or news of Anne Hathaway on The Dark Knight Rises set, I figured this would be of particular interest…

Still, much as we love to see Selina dressed up when she’s not in her Catwoman costume, regular Cat-Tales readers are aware that clothes and jewelry tend to be plot points, not fantasy fripperies in the tales, so in the upcoming installment of The Gotham Rogues, A Knight at the Opera… well, perhaps I should let B take it from here

As she spoke, all emotion had drained from Batman’s eyes, leaving only a gaze of focused control and icy detachment. It held for a heartbeat, then the ice melted and emotion slowly returned… and with it, a long, slow smile of deep and quiet menace.

“Not green for the opera,” he said in a poisonous voice that was barely human. “That purple and black thing you’ve got, the strapless that’s almost the same shade as your costume. Hair up, nothing to pull focus from your neck. We might have to improvise the jewelry…”

And we thought Mr. Nolan was too busy to get us anything for Christmas…

A much more detailed trailer to The Dark Knight Rises than either the teaser of a few months ago or the prologue.

Merry Christmas, Bat Fans

Batman and Catwoman and All Things Gotham

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Blogtalking about Batman, Catwoman and all things Gotham (What else is new?)

I had such a blast last night appearing as a guest on Blogtalk Radio and talking about all things Catwoman: Purple Catwoman, Reboot Catwoman, Catwoman and Batman, all the actresses who’ve played Catwoman in the movies… well you get the idea. Seriously though, we talked about other stuff. Harley, Ivy, Joker… Meow

You can download the podcast here.

Goggles Bad: Catwoman’s new costume (No not THAT one, in Arkham City)

Once again, because I have a HISTORY OF THE CATWOMAN COSTUME on this blog, folks are coming here for information on the Catwoman skins for Batman: Arkham City.  As with The Dark Knight Rises and Catwoman reboot, I’m going to do my best to supply what you came for.  This isn’t any inside scoop though, I’m just telling you what I know:

Arkham City is the sequel to last year’s Arkham Asylum, and Catwoman is a playable character.  They put her in the goggles, and only then found out that for a lot of fans who love Catwoman and would love to PLAY AS Catwoman, that costume would completely poison the experience for them.  And then too, when Anne Hathaway’s first pic from The Dark Knight Rises showed her in goggles, the world went “Boo, hiss. That ain’t Catwoman” (despite the fact that she’s riding a motorcycle, which I repeat is the one place you kind of want some eye protection!)

Anyway, the game learned faster than DC did:  goggles bad.  And now that the game is being released, we discover there are skins to put her in different costumes where she looks, you know, not terrible.

An early review at someplace called Game Masters apparently referenced unlocking a costume from The Long Halloween, but how to unlock it is unclear.  There is also something about it only being on new games – the game isn’t released yet, aren’t they all “New” ?

Then there is this skin with the costume from Batman: The Animated Series.  Friend of mine says that is downloaded, which I assume is different from being unlocked.

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I have NO IDEA if there are more out there.  I will say this to those hoping for the Iconic Jim Balent costume or the classic silver age costume:  they both have hair, and as someone who spent two years crafting a Catwoman look in Second Life, hair is a bitch.  What the goggle disaster, The Long Halloween and BTAS have in common are tucked in hair.  Do I hope they’d put in the effort, sure.  But with TLH she is purple and with BTAS she is at least in a proper cat mask.  Let’s rejoice and be glad.

Selina Kyle the Fashionista Returns, this time on the set of The Dark Knight Rises, and the Final Word on the Catwoman Costume Controversy from none other than Christian Bale

Selina Kyle: Fashionista Under the Mask has to be one of the most surprise-popular entries in this blog.  I only made that particular fashion spread because there was some disappointment with Selina dressed so casually on the cover of A Girl’s Gotta Protect Her Reputation (although to be fair, backstage and out of costume is a place for t-shirt and jeans… maybe one of these days I’ll add her show jacket.)  Anyway, looking at the popularity of those pictures and the upsurge in readers on stories mentioned where Selina’s wearing Chanel or the Dior Red Goddess #6*, it’s obvious there is a real desire for the classy Selina Kyle, who has been missing from non-Cat-Tales Catwoman appearances for far too long.

Which brings us to The Dark Knight Rises and these wonderful pictures of Anne Hathaway’s Selina, dressed to the nines for day and evening.

In the words of the gal who sent me these, and believe me she speaks for all women :  I WANT THAT SUIT!  I know you guys will be more interested in that hailing a taxi long-shot that shows off Selina’s famously sexy legs, but I really wanted to include that OOC shot with the jacket off so you could see the beautiful lines of the sleeveless dress underneath.

Of course for evening, you want something more formal.

Meow.

Now, before we leave the set of The Dark Knight Rises and the subject of how Selina Kyle is dressed, I have some sad news for the goggles-are-practical crowd.  It is, quite simply, the final word on the Catwoman Costume Controversy, and it comes from none other than the Batman himself, starring as Bruce Wayne in all three Chris Nolan Dark Knight epics, Academy Award winner and my favorite human: Christian Bale.

“Let me say whichever superhero first came up with the idea of wearing a cape, he wasn’t really onto anything good. The number of times I’m treading on that damn thing or I throw a punch and it ends up covering my whole head. It’s really not practical.”

That’s it, guys. Game over.  Either you must now get rid of Batman’s cape, or you have to come with some other reason you want Catwoman to wear Snoopy the Dog’s goggles, subverting the whole notion of what a mask is and how it works, while making her look like a bee.  Good luck with that.

The rest of you get some art:

Click for full-size (i.e. legible) image

And finally, for anyone who is still taking the whole thing too seriously, despite the send-up of Selina ranting against the Post-goggles in the last tale, you can now revisit the classic Clayface-as-Selina scene in print or ebook form.  Cat-Tales: Comedy of Errors is now available for download in print-quality PDF, Kindle/Mobi, and Epub the universal ebook format.  Enjoy.

*No, seriously, more people are currently asking which tales have the fashion plot points than which stories contain the suggestive Batman-Catwoman stuff.  *looks around, concerned* This is still the internet, isn’t it?

Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com