We had the Huntress in the 1970s, Batgirl in the 1960s and Batwoman in the 1950s. But did Batman have a female counterpart in the 1940s?
Why yes, but DC didn’t publish her. Harvey Comics did.
The Black Cat was to Batman as Wonder Woman was to Superman. Or at least, so it seemed to me when I was 8 and saw Harvey Comics’ all-too-brief, intriguing revival of The Black Cat, drawn with a Caniff-ish touch by Lee Elias.
Both Wonder Woman and Black Cat successfully modulated a superheroic template created for a male character into a different key.
The Harvey heroine was a masked, athletic crime-fighter like Batman. Linda Turner, a stuntwoman turned movie star, was also presumably wealthy, like Bruce Wayne. When a masked wonder boy who’d been a circus acrobat was added to the feature, the resemblance became unmistakable. Batman had his Robin, and the Black Cat had her Black Kitten. Turner’s stuntwoman background gave her plausible crime-fighting skills, and her film star status lent itself to backup romance/glamour stories in which the Black Cat need not figure.
I remember being intrigued, if slightly unsettled, by the implication of the feature when I was a boy. After all, the Black Cat did not exist in the world of the Justice League. As far as we could tell, she was the only superhero operating in her universe.
A world where the only superhero was a woman? In 1962? What an astounding (but kind of fascinating) idea!
You could write a book just about the feline females of popular culture. They seem endless, from Harvey’s Black Cat to DC’s Catwoman, Cheetah, Golden Age Huntress and Wildcat II.
Johnny Williams wrote, "I Loved 'The Black Cat'! I too was absolutely captivated by her because of that same Harvey revival that you speak of.
ReplyDeleteI had an early fascination with the Asian martial arts long before they became commonplace and mainstream here in the west. The fact that she not only used judo and jiu-jitsu in her stories, but also had side features where her character demonstrated some techniques from those two martial disciplines had me from square one."
Russell Rubert wrote: The Black Cat has all the elements to make a great series of Hallmark TV movies. The beautiful forthright able heroine, the older widower parent, the faithful (secretary) sidekick, the handsome columnist love interest. Mystery, adventure. It even has a handy appropriate title they could use. "Black Cat Mysteries".
ReplyDeleteDamon L. Fordham:
ReplyDeleteI remember disliking Harvey comics as babyish as a boy (Sad Sack aside), but I would have enjoyed this one.
Johnny Williams:
ReplyDeleteDan, there’s something about feline energy that seems to connect associatively, correspond to, and/or correlate with the (human) feminine.
I replied:
Grace, litheness.
Bob Doncaster:
ReplyDeleteI was going for a black belt in comic book judo techniques when they suddenly stopped featuring them
I replied:
On the advice of lawyers, I should imagine.
Mandy O'Toole:
ReplyDeleteI'm a huge Black Cat fan!!! She's extremely underrated and obviously inspired the Black Canary character!!!!!
Wayde Weston:
ReplyDeleteI didn’t even know until recently that Harvey did anything but Sad Sack and the “kiddie comics” like Casper (which I read enthusiastically; Stumbo the Giant was one of my faves - I just didn’t let anyone see me reading them!). Black Cat looks pretty cool.
Bob Bailey:
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed Harvey’s original Black Cat by Haney and Elias. Those three giant issues were wonderful. thanks Dan
Fraser Sherman:
ReplyDeleteThe graphic novel "Double Life of Miranda Turner" is a riff on the Black Cat. Quite good.
Scott Rowland:
ReplyDeleteThe great Lee Elias and the writers made Black Cat feel like a list DC golden-age heroine. I was delighted when I discovered her via the Lorne-Harvey reprints in the late 1980s.