Batman: Caped Crusader is purposefully serious. It’s a Batman show, after all, but part of the goal of series co-creator Bruce Timm was to craft something that delved further into the psychology of The Dark Knight than his previous series, Batman: The Animated Series. And it is dark and moody… Except for one delightful moment in the third episode of the first season, when we get a quick glimpse of Catwoman’s Catmobile.
The scene happens about 14 minutes into “Kiss of the Catwoman,” which has a story by Ed Brubaker and Bruce Timm, Teleplay by Adamma Ebo and Adanne Ebo, and is Directed by Christopher Berkeley. In the episode, we’re introduced to a version of Catwoman (Christina Ricci) that harkens back to her earlier appearances in the 1940s (albeit without the cat head mask she briefly wore). There’s the flirting with Bruce, the stealing from the rich to give to herself, the works.
But what the episode underlines is how Selina Kyle is inspired by Batman, slowly building her supervillain personality around his superhero personality. He has an animal-themed costume, so she gets one. He has gadgets, so she gets gadgets. In the best scene in the episode, she uses the inspiration of the Batmobile to reveal her own Catmobile.
Reader, when I saw the headlights pop up in a dark alleyway, I gasped. And when the Catmobile pulled out of the darkness, a grinning Selina behind the wheel, almost running over Batman, I giggled and kicked my feet. The joy Selina is feeling at that moment — the viewer feels it too, just an absolutely over-the-top visual in the middle of a series bent on plumbing the depths of human psychology.
Catwoman’s Catmobile Comes Straight From DC’s Comic Books
The Catmobile isn’t an original creation for Caped Crusader, though. It was first introduced in Detective Comics #122 from 1947, created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane. It was originally called the Kitty Car, and was drawn like a giant cat that Catwoman sat in:
If anything, the design here looks closer to what Catwoman drove in the previous animated series, Batman: The Brave and the Bold. And while it doesn’t explicitly have a cat face, it does look similar to what Cat-Man (a different, unrelated character) drives sometimes in the comics.
Wherever the design origin, it’s a blast of fresh air three episodes in. Catwoman is down and out by the end of the episode, and we don’t see Selina again. But we need her to pop up in Batman: Caped Crusader Season 2… And hopefully behind the wheel of the Catmobile.
