Batman #197 (December, 1967)



Back in the fall of 1967, fifty years ago, it’s highly probable that virtually every kid in the U. S. of A. was familiar with the comic book character Catwoman. But at the same time, it’s highly doubtful that that widespread familiarity had much, if anything, to do with the published output of DC Comics over the last thirteen years.

For, in the pages of Detective Comics #211, way back in 1954, Selina Kyle — Batman’s preeminent female foe, who’d made her debut in 1940 (in Batman #1, no less), and gone on to nineteen more appearances in the next decade-and-a-half — had made one last, futile attempt at defeating the Caped Crusader, and then had hung up her cat-o’-nine-tails.

But even if the brass at DC thought that Catwoman no longer passed muster as a recurring Bat-villain — perhaps, as many have suggested, due to the longstanding romantic tension between the Bat (a crimefighter) and the Cat (a criminal) having been deemed inappropriate in the wake of DC’s adoption of the Comics Code Authority in 1954 — the makers of the 1966-68 Batman live-action TV series had no such compunctions. Having decided on an approach that depended on a continuous succession of “Special Guest Villains” from week to week, they needed as many code-named, costumed criminals as they could scrounge up. Catwoman — the beautiful “bad girl” who maybe wasn’t even all that bad, deep down (otherwise, how could she have affection for Batman, and vice versa?) — obviously filled the bill. Whether or not she’d made an appearance in comic books during the lifetimes of most of the show’s fans was immaterial.

And so, with Batman‘s 19th episode (first airing on March 16, 1966) the Cat came back. In a big way.

The actress playing Catwoman in that first appearance was Julie Newmar (see above left), who went on to portray her throughout the show’s first two seasons, for a total of 12 episodes. Somehow, however, Newmar wasn’t available for shooting the almost-immediate cinematic version of the TV Batman — in which Catwoman would be one of four villains faced by Batman and Robin — so, the role of the Feline Fury in her big-screen debut was filled by Lee Meriwether (see left).

But by the latter half of 1967, even after two full TV seasons and a feature film of Batman, Selina Kyle still hadn’t made her return to the pages of Batman or Detective. She had, in fact, returned to DC Comics — but in the pages of Lois Lane #70, of all things. Apparently, the editor of the “Superman” family of comics, Mort Weisinger, was more eager to cash in on Catwoman’s new notoriety than was the “Batman” family editor, Juliius Schwartz — rather mysteriously, since Schwartz had been more than willing to feature most of the other Bat-villains prominently featured on the show; had tipped his hat to the show’s camp sensibility in numerous other ways; and had leaned in hard in exploiting Batman’s TV-fueled popularity in Justice League of America, to boot. It was hardly as if Schwartz could have thought his Bat-books were “too good” for Catwoman.

Still, for whatever reason, it took until the fall of 1967, and the start of the TV show’s third season — which would, by December, introduce yet another actress in the role of Catwoman, singer-actress Eartha Kitt (see left; sadly, I did not get to see Ms. Kitt in the role in her three episodes’ original airings, as my local TV station dropped Batman after the second season) — before we got to see Selina’s return to her old home ground.

It started in late September, in the 369th issue of Detective Comics, with a Batman story that guest-starred Batgirl (a character who, like Eartha Kitt’s Catwoman, was making her live-action debut on the Batman TV series that fall). Readers of that issue such as my ten-year-old self got nearly to the end of the story, and then, turning to the last page, got this nifty surprise:



Those three panels (along with the rest of the story they came from, of course) were drawn by Carmine Infantino, who also drew the cover of Batman #197 — and, I think it’s fairly safe to assume, also designed Catwoman’s brand-spanking new duds. For most of her comic book career, Selina had worn an ensemble consisting of a purple dress, with matching boots and cat-eared cowl, accessorized by a green cape — but the TV/cinema Catwoman, the one that most 1967 comics readers knew best, wore a sparkling black bodysuit — a catsuit, if you will — with a cat-ears headpiece and (sometimes) domino mask replacing the cowl. For her 1966 Lois Lane appearances, the dress had been replaced with a catsuit, but the rest of Selina’s classic comics look had remained intact.

Infantino’s new design was, obviously, inspired by the TV costume, without being a direct replication of it. The most significant difference — and, in fifty-year hindsight, the least successful — was the decision to make the new costume green. Obviously, this gave a nod to the color of the character’s traditional cape; and sure, lots of cats have greenish-yellow eyes. Probably more to the point, it also provided more of a contrast to the black, blue, and yellow of Batgirl’s costume than a costume colored more like the TV Catwoman’s would have. Unfortunately, however, the texture of the new comics catsuit — probably intended to suggest the screen version’s sparkly fabric — came across as scaly, and, combined with the bright green color, had the overall effect of making the costume seem rather more serpentine than feline.

That cover is rad af.

IAWTP