Nineties Bat/Cat

[sailorlibra.insanejournal.com]

One of my favorite moments between Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne, showing the romantic tension they have both in costume and out.

Totally a repost from the old SD, in case anyone recognizes this scene. (Who hasn't read the issue.)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

It's a shame they didn't really do much with this scene. I would have liked to see more of Bruce Selina in the 90's series. Rumor I heard was Denny O'Neil forbade it because he was pushing Talia as a love interest.

I don't see why so much hate for Balent. He drew a very pretty Selina as far as I'm concerned.

[chipsnopotatoes.insanejournal.com]

oh there it is...i thought my comment disappeared into the ether

[janegray.insanejournal.com]

Rumor I heard was Denny O'Neil forbade it because he was pushing Talia as a love interest.

O_o

If that's true, so much rage.

Oberfurer O'Neil

[(Anonymous)]

Denny's "mandates" to sabotage Bat/Cat goes way beyond this one story. When he became Bat-editor, he shut down the serious romance going on in the main Batman and Tec titles. You can tell with phrases like "She didn't know why she was doing this" that it was something forced on the writer. When that breakup wasn't conclusive enough, they "revillainized" her, and then all of a sudden "Bride of the Demon" comes along.

At the time, I remember sniggers about BotD, how out of character Bruce was in that story, and that it was just done to get Denny to calm down and do his job. It didn't work, it was an Else World and he spent the next several years trying to make it continuity.

He couldn't stop the Catwoman title from exisitng, but he did mandate that they not use other Gotham characters i.e. keep her away from Bruce. That rule was eventually overturned, but to an extent the damage was done. It had the rep of not being a "Gotham" title. It was all very transparent and common knowledge at the time.

Re: Oberfurer O'Neil

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

WTF DENNY O'NEIL I LOVE YOU BUT TALIA OVER SELINA WTF

Re: Oberfurer O'Neil

[chipsnopotatoes.insanejournal.com]

I really liked the Bruce/Selina stories somewhere between Batman 300-400. I'm still missing a number of issues though.

I haven't read Bride of the Demon and have only seen a few scans of Son of the Demon, with the celebrated Bruce/Talia coupling scene. I guess I am supposed to find that romantic and believe that they are meant to be. LOL.

The interesting thing is I've also heard a conflicting rumor that Denny hated Son of the Demon and proclaimed it to be Elseworlds. Now what was up with that?

Re: Oberfurer O'Neil

[janegray.insanejournal.com]

...

SO MUCH RAGE.

[kenn_el.insanejournal.com]

O'Neil created Talia to be Batman's ULTIMATE love interest, and he disdained most of DC's female lineup when first arriving from Marvel, where 'strong' women like the Wasp, Scarlet Witch, and Invisible Girl were seen as highly independent compared to DC's Catwoman, Batgirl, Supergirl, and Hawkgirl (no one actually seemed to have READ the characters =, simply reacting to their names)! His obligatory Catwoman issue from the 70s, his Justice League #72, with it's diss of Shayera, and the lazy insertion of Black Canary into Earth 1 were all examples of his attitude. Hate.

[chipsnopotatoes.insanejournal.com]

That's a shock to me. Granted, I've only read a few stories with pre-crisis Talia, but I would never have associated her with the phrase "strong woman". I honestly thought Denny might have been a bit more traditional and was going for the feminine, subservient type as a love interest.

I'm curious about his obligatory Catwoman issue from the 70's. How was she portrayed?

[kenn_el.insanejournal.com]

It wasn't so much that Talia was strong, but that he disliked existing DC females, and Catwoman was one of those. The 1975 story was "The Curious Case of the Catwoman's Coincidences!" from Batman 266, and Catwoman spent most of the issue suffering from amnesia and accidentally falling into becoming Catwoman again just in time for Bats to capture her. Possibly her most anemic portrayal and nothing in it to detract from the Talia propping that Denny was doing.

[queenanthai.insanejournal.com]

I like Jim Balent's art! I never understood the hate. I mean, sure, T&A, but not a massive ton outside of his Broadsword work.

[sailorlibra.insanejournal.com]

TA I can live with. But his anatomy is really screwed up and his faces are all scrunchy. I think it's possible to have a basic grasp of anatomy and still have a strong focus on T&A. (I'm mainly thinking of Adam Hughes here, as he tends to let things like having breasts of a realistic size suffer in favor of the opinion that girls can only be pretty if they have huge breasts. But I still think his art is basically good. Amanda Conner also fits, but her T&A is much less anatomy-stretching than his.)

You can notice him get worse if you read the Catwoman v1 series all at one time. It starts out like this and ends up like this:

(http://tinypic.com)

I can draw faces more realistic looking than that. And I suck at art.

[queenanthai.insanejournal.com]

I own the whole run of the series, and let me tell you, Jim Balent's art is very heavily dependent on his inker. From #8-10 it was done by Ande Parks, who was very heavy and thick. Jim does kind of a looser pencil style, so you can really tell that the inker carries a lot of the work. In the OP's above scene, it was Dick Giordiano, who no one can really deny is excellent at detailed work.

John Stanisci did the inking in #62, which is where your example came from. I'm not as familiar with his work enough to compare this to what he's done over other pencils, but it does look like Balent put in a bit of a rush this issue.

Ultimately, Jim's pencils do look much better with a very detail-oriented inker who can finish the art in clean, thin lines.

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

He started out okay, and then just got worse and worse and oh God stop it.

[foxhack.insanejournal.com]

See, he can do nice art, whenever he's not drawing women which would make even Larry Flint say "Okay girls, I think you're going just a tad overboard. Put some decent clothes on."

I don't hate the guy. He bases his drawings off photos of models he hires (or who volunteer), which is fine, but sometimes they go off into uncanny valley.

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Huh. Bruce/Bane. That's a new one on me.

I miss this era of Catwoman. It's a good scene when the fact that Selina is portrayed as Bruce's equal, just as unfooled by his facade as he doubtless is by hers, is not even the most satisfyingly pleasant part.

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, I've been reading a lot more purple-era stuff over the past few months, and it's got a very different vibe then the modern stuff. I mean, the art is nowhere near as good as now (Cooke! Stewart! Gulacy! Woods! Lopez!), but she's so much more competent and morally ambiguous and fun.

[mrbear.insanejournal.com]

Yeah. So far as I'm concerned we haven't seen the real Selina since Ostrander handed over to Carlton. "Competent and morally ambiguous and fun" is about the best description of what Catwoman should be that I've seen for a while.

If you're enjoying purple-era Selina and have a fondness for Bruce/Selina then you should go and read Cat Tales (http://catwoman-cattales.com/) a huge fic that I can't recommend enough.

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm really starting to love Cat Tales. I mostly got into them because FANFICTION NOT BLOCKED BY SCHOOL CENSORS, but they're shockingly good 0_0

[mrbear.insanejournal.com]

I've been following it on and off since it started. It's always just got better and better.

[thebigapricot.insanejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. I like Selina more in this run. But it's taken me forever to read through the series again -- I forgot the art is so bad that at times it hurts my eyes. Also it's nice to read a Catwoman story and not "see" Audrey Hepburn or Rachel Weisz (who I thought Lopez's resembled).

[earthelemental.insanejournal.com]

I'm so glad the Zatanna multiple mindwiping/Identity Crisis thing actually served to properly explain this Batman #499/Catwoman #2 crossover scene.

Selina doesn't remember any of her true past with civilian Bruce Wayne at this point, so he and Alfred are just playing along with what little she thinks she knows.

[sistermagpie.insanejournal.com]

Bruce looks quite the smoothie pouring that Perrier.

[foxhack.insanejournal.com]

Balent. At his best, in my opinion - when he's not going overboard on the T&A.

I really liked the composition of that second scan. It made me think I wasn't reading a superhero comic... instead something like a cross between Archie (the poses, Bruce's face) and a Silver Age Superman book.

[thandrak.insanejournal.com]

I didn't like the anatomy, but man, the panel composition in the old Catwoman was great. The costume was horrid, but the way she moved in the art was beautiful. So...

[retro_nouveau.insanejournal.com]

Yikes, Alfred is miffed. If he raises that nose in the air any more, it's going to scrape the ceiling. XD

Selina had to crush on Bruce, his suit and her lips are the same color. :)

I loved Balent until I saw Witchblade for the first time on scans_daily, and now it can't be unseen.

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Very sweet!