Absolute Batman has only been around for 21 issues, but Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta’s ongoing series has already laid the brickwork for many fascinating character developments and unique story beats in Batman’s topsy-turvy mythology. This includes Scarecrow and Joker literally authoring Batman’s origins, and classic rogues’ gallery villains like Killer Croc, Penguin, Riddler, and Two-Face being Bruce Wayne’s close childhood friends.
Despite not playing a massive role in the run thus far, Selina Kyle’s Catwoman makes huge splashes in Absolute Batman when she does appear—helping Batman recruit Harley Quinn and defeat Bane, for example—and it’s neat that she’s also a significant part of Bruce’s friend circle. Bruce and Selina are quite similar, though their lives have taken different paths, and the curtain being lifted on Selina’s solo adventures now gives readers insight into how alike they truly are (or how alike she is to the classic iterations of Bruce, anyway).
Absolute Catwoman #1 dedicates one page and a chase scene to the depiction of Selina’s accumulated wealth and resources via a Cat Cave and her extraordinary Wildcat vehicle. It might not have all the bells and whistles of Batman’s traditional Batcave, including a giant coin, T-Rex statue, and Joker playing card, but Catwoman’s Cat Cave in London, U.K., is an impressive, modern compound with an exoskeleton, camo suits, and high-tech security system that requires her retinal scan for access.
Interestingly, Selina is celebrating her 25th birthday in this issue by referring to the Cat Cave as a “museum” of equipment that she no longer needs (half of which she admits to never having even used) and declaring that she’s retiring. The Cat Cave is a great illustration of how far she’s come in the world, especially with Absolute Catwoman #1 providing intermittent flashbacks to her life as a teenager in Gotham City who dreamt of ascending so high that nobody could reach her.
But that’s not the only Batman parallel she has in this issue. It’s revealed that Selina used to run with a crew called the Calicos, which essentially amounts to her own Cat-Family, as a play on Batman’s Bat-Family, and wields an AI system named ‘Jonesy’ that behaves like Iron Man’s J.A.R.V.I.S. in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Catwoman’s Wildcat motorcycle is incredibly advanced, featuring an Apex mode that allows the motorcycle to shapeshift into a feline form and maneuver any obstruction or uneven terrain with exceptional agility.
Selina reflects on all the fighting styles she learned on her own, as well as the ones that she learned from Waylon Jones. This is an excellent way for Absolute Catwoman to reference Absolute Batman without making the whole book an unabashed spin-off of Absolute Batman, as Way is a friend of hers, too.
There’s no telling how much or how little Selina will appear in Absolute Batman hereafter, yet Catwoman receiving her own book does make some sense of why she hasn’t been around a lot. Sadly, Absolute Catwoman isn’t an ongoing series like Absolute Batman is, and is currently only slated as a six-issue limited series.
As a character who has run the gamut of being a villain, hero, and antihero, Catwoman has as much potential for her own ongoing run as Batman or any other iconic DC character. It’s interesting to see her basically becoming her own version of Batman, at least in terms of the resources and iconography that Batman commonly has.
Meanwhile, Absolute Batman’s Joker—Joseph “Jack” Grimm—is an even more explicit parallel to the mainline Earth-0 Batman, and looks more like Bruce than the Absolute universe’s Bruce does, relatively speaking. Still, Absolute Catwoman having a finite number of issues already might suggest that Selina is returning to Absolute Batman soon, and that’d be thrilling all on its own.
