Gotham Adventures #4

[inexpediency]

So this is one of my favorite issues of Gotham Adventures, #4, titled "Claws". It's set in the DCAU if you didn't know already. There were a LOT of good pages I had to cut out, so it's kind of butchered, but I think I managed to leave the best in here.



Batman naturally goes after the carjackers.



Yes, Catwoman (in the grey suit, I might add, which is easily my favorite version.) The two exchange small talk and flirtations, which gives one of the carjackers the opportunity to run. Catwoman goes after him, and scares him enough that he offers her information about an illegal animal testing lab (at Mercedes Cosmetics) if he lets her go. He takes her there, and...



She then calls the Animal Rights League, who come get all of the cats, but the director tells her that they might end up needing to be put to sleep, because they had a tight budget and limited medicine. Catwoman decides to take care of them herself, and enlists some special help: Amy Mercedes, of Mercedes Cosmetics. She kidnaps her, and threatens her with death if any one of the cats doesn't survive.

Meanwhile, Bats is doing some sleuthing, and finds scratch marks on Amy's bedpost, then goes to Mercedes Cosmetics and finds out about the testing lab being trashed by "animal rights loonies." The connection isn't hard to make, which leads back to our heroine. (Note: it's a little cut off at the bottom, but Amy's calling Catwoman a "liberal weirdo".)



Batman eventually tracks them down, and tells Catwoman that he admires her too much to let her continue holding Amy hostage. However, this doesn't go quite as smoothly as he'd probably hoped.





:(

Yeah, I guess if you're not much of an animal person this might strike as a little self-righteous, but I think it's really a perfect story for Catwoman (seeing how she's, y'know, Catwoman) and it also digs down to the heart of why I love the DCAU. It's emotional but not pretentiously dramatic (like some comics tend to be), and it's a nice little stand-alone issue that still manages to tell a good story in twenty-something pages.

Tags: title: Gotham Adventures, creator: Ty Templeton, creator: Rick Burchett, char: Selina Kyle/Catwoman, char: Bruce Wayne/Batman, theme: DCAU

Comments

[punishermax]

Well shit, I'm no fan of testing cosmetics on animals but a lot of important medical breakthroughs were gained through testing on animals so I'm kinda torn here

[seriousfic]

I'm anti-stupidity, so if you punt a cat in front of Catwoman, after she's spent a long while lecturing you on how she loves cats and hates people who abuse cats, well...

[autumn_lily]

There's a difference though. Legitimate research facilities have a standard code of humane treatment for any of the animals being used for testing. No random cruelty like what's going on above.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Important medical breakthroughs, yeah. I'm not sure 'testing the latest lipstick on a helpless animal to see if it hurts them' really counts as an ANYTHING breakthrough. Anyway, Mercedes is an utter cow, so in my opinion, she deserves what's coming to her.

[janegray]

As psychopathicus_rex pointed out, there is a HUGE difference between testing medicine on animals, and testing cosmetics on animals.

[deepspaceartist]

Am i the only one who finds it hilarious that in the "with an unfamiliar look in his eye" panel, it's just a picture of DCAU Batman's default expression? Really, the frowny face is pretty much the most familliar face Batman has.

[nezchan]

[nezchan]

"The kind of cruelty I'm capable of."

Hon, you lashed out when someone abused one of the creatures most important to you. It's not like you tortured her for hours or something.

[midnightvoyager]

I like to think that her train of thought was a misunderstanding, and that he actually was just giving her a "No, too far, back down" look, not a "YOU MONSTER" look.

...I mean, it's Batman, it's hard to tell those apart.

Also, I <3 Batman catching the cat.

[icon_uk]

Yeah, but the cosmetic queen was performing her cruel acts for profit only, she didn't care about the suffering, that's not malevolence, that's indifference. Catwoman is FOCUSSING on the suffering she can inflict, that's cruelty.

[minyandu.livejournal.com]

Really, woman, even bio teacher nowadays would require their students to respect test animals, well-planed their test and reduce unnecessary pain and cruelty. I know that still sounds very lame but even the lab worker won't approve your attitude here......

[icon_uk]

And sweatshops are wrong, doesn't mean they don't happen with depressing regularity.

[jelly_ace]

Wasn't this posted already?

[jelly_ace]

Yup, it's already posted here.

[fungo_squiggly]

I always thought that Amy Mercedes had to be unbelievably stupid, and not just because of the "she hit a cat in front of Catwoman" thing.

I mean, she kept refusing to take care of the cats as Catwoman demands because she "knows" that Catwoman won't actually kill her. As if "not going to kill you" somehow translates as "will never harm you in any way."

[an-idol-mind.livejournal.com]

You know, at the risk of sounding preachy, I'm not a big fan of this issue. Labs that test animals generally have a very high code of humanity and respect in treating animals. That's not to say that people like the villain here don't exist, but it seems every time animal testing is brought up in the media, the people performing it are shown to be cruel, heartless bastards (Grey's Anatomy, I'm looking at you). That's bad because it ruins the general public's perception of people who really do an important job, and it's doubly bad because there are certain nutjobs who actually will try to cause harm to the people who work in those labs.

Okay, rant over.

[lyraeinne]

I really would put experimenting on animals in the same category as experimenting on prisoners or retarded people or sick orphans. It shouldn't be acceptable to lock them up and poison them on the off-chance that humans might benefit from the results. Even if it was the only way we could advance medically (which it really isn't), I think I'd rather die of cancer than live like that.

But that's just my hyper-liberal soapbox. Heh.

[silverzeo]

And her dye continued affected her entire body when she was turn into a WomanCat how?

[espanolbot]

SCIENCE, of course. :)

[sailorlibra]

This is one of my favorite Catwoman stories. I especially love that is answers why her hair color changed. And that Batman catches the cat after Amy punts it.

[retro_nouveau]

Motto on the hair color thing, with extra squee for black being the natural color!

[chipsnopotatoes]

what's the big deal. it's only a few scratches on her face. as a cosmetics maven, she should know some pretty good plastic surgeons who can fix her up.

[merseybeatler]

Rather aesthetically pleasing scratches, too....I mean, as far as facial scars go.

[thatnickguy]

As a cat owner (who is cuddled up in my lap at this very moment...gah, or WAS two seconds ago...), I approve of Catwoman's actions.

[espanolbot]

Yay, brunette Selina. ^^

Prefer her with dark hair, sorry. I liked how in the original comic that Selina didn't really seem to notice the deal with cosmetic animal testing until she came across this specific example, for instance, in the comic itself she expresses her anger that she (paraphrasing) "dyes her hair with your crap!" to that Mercedes woman.

The DCAU version of Gotham seems to have a really top heavy amount of evil/incompetant businesspeople and industrialists.

What with the guy responsible for Mr Freeze, and that guy Roland Daggett, who amongst other things caused the creation of Clayface, tried to blow up Crime Alley so he could buy the land cheap and replace it with luxury condos (he got his hired goons to threaten the people to leave first, but in the end he made them go through with it despite knowing that there were still people there) and attempted to manufacture a plague so he could make money and improve his image by selling the cure.

Later you end up with Derek Powers in Batman Beyond, who sells nerve gas to terrorists and dumps nuclear waste in Gotham Harbour, and in the DCAU comics you have Roman Sionsi, whose incompetancy for busy causes him to need a Wayne Enterprises bailout, so he turns to crime to spite Bruce.

Then you go to the rest of the DCAU, and you have... well... Lex Luthor.

That's kind of it. Probably because his personality keeps the competition out or something.

[tsunamiwombat]

http://www.collider.com/2009/12/08/how-to-fire-someone-in-gotham-city/

This sums it up.

[retro_nouveau]

... in the grey suit, I might add, which is easily my favorite version ...

I like it a lot. I used to hate the goggles until I saw Watchmen.

In my fanon, Selina has one grey, long-necked Siamese cat named Isis.

[icon_uk]

Yes, much love for this Catwoman costume, the pseudo-"Batman Returns" look was never as classy as this one was.

But then, I also liked the more exagerrated look she got in "The Batman"

[jkcarrier]

Ty Templeton is the forgotten genius of Batman writers. He was doing awesome stuff month after month, but because it was in the alleged "kiddie" book, not a lot of people saw it. Did any of the Batman/Gotham/Batman & Robin Adventures stuff ever get collected in TPBs?

[espanolbot]

At least some of it did, though not all of it.

[v_various]

To be fair, you usually want to treat test animals super well, because if they come down with ANYTHING (even stress related illness) it reflects badly on your product and possibly fucks up results.

but ya, comic book. And DAWWW Batman catches a kitty.

[greenygal]

...wait, why is the Mercedes woman trying to sue her? Selina kidnapped and assaulted her; if you can find her to sue, can't you find her to arrest?

[lyraeinne]

Yeah, I'm with Catwoman on this one. There's no excuse for that, ever.

But Batman rescuing the kitty = <3