Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Catwoman- Running through the jungle in a gown and heels. Detective Comics #211



Even for 1954, this is a weird Batman story. Catwoman uses a live panther to rob a jewel shipment and then flies away in her cat-shaped plane. When Batman and Robin arrive at the airport, Batman finds some volcanic mud left by Catwoman's tire treads and deduces that she is using a volcanic island as her hideout. Somehow, the Dynamic Duo manages to find Catwoman and her plane before she can land. Catwoman uses her plane's claws to damage the Batplane and forces the Caped Crusaders to make an emergency landing on her island hideout.

Landing the Batplane near a mining operation they spotted from the air, Batman and Robin are told by the miners that they are afraid Catwoman is planning to rob their diamond mine. Batman offers to help set up some booby traps which the miners, who are really in cahoots with Catwoman, use to trap the Dynamic Duo.

The crooks are just about to off the Caped Crusaders when Catwoman stops them. She makes Batman and Robin trade their costumes for some homoerotic Tarzan get-ups (leaving them their masks) and then forces them to run through the jungle while she hunts them with the aid of her trained cat companions- a lion, a tiger, a panther and a leopard.

I won't give away the whole story, but of course the good guys win. Robin ponders at least three times how Catwoman could possibly be controlling these killer cats. Get over it! She just is! Also, there is a giant, killer gorilla involved.

Honestly, this story was kinda weak. It holds a certain weird fascination if only for the idea that Batman and Robin have to put on loincloths to play hide and seek with Catwoman. Also, the artwork by Dick Sprang is absolutely beautiful.

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