Selina Kyle

**Selina Kyle** (セリーナ・カイル, *Serīna Kairu*), also well-known as **Catwoman** (キャットウーマン, *Kyattoūman*), is a fictional character and deuteragonist from the *DC* series. She is a morally ambiguous master thief whose goals range from pure self-interest to large-scale charity depending on her mood. She prefers to grow up on the mean and violent streets of Gotham City instead of her broken home, used her stealth, martial arts skills, and sex appeal to steal numerous treasures and objects of value as the cat bugler.

Never shying from a challenge, her stealth and agility as a world-class criminal, and her mastery of the martial arts, make her a formidable opponent. While on the opposite side of the law, Batman still sees the good in Selina due to her principled code of ethics with the pair becoming close allies at times. Both of them are strong allies. Although she began her career as an amoral burglar, she has since somewhat reformed and begun protecting the less fortunate in Gotham City's East End district.

"*Hey! You stick with the tough-guy brooding, I'll be the one to handle the wise cracks.*"

—Detective Ellen Yin.

## Appearance & Biography

*Voice Actor*: Grey DeLisle (English), Ayumi Fujimura (Japanese), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (French), Not Known (German), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Poland), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (Canadian French), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Latin Spanish), Not Known (Spain-Spanish)

### Biography

An orphan who learns to survive on Gotham City's streets, Selina Kyle took to thievery to survive... but determined to do it in her own style, she learned martial arts and trained extensively to perfect her own skills at cat burglary. Her criminal activities are often tempered by a reluctant altruism, making her an inconstant villain and occasional heroine. She regularly eludes capture by the Dark Knight, and maintains a complicated, adversarial relationship with Batman that frequently turns flirtations and occasionally romantic.

### Appearance

#### As Selina Kyle

Her hair is somewhat longer and it is a mixture of black and a lighter shade of brown. She gains scars run on her left cheek and right eyebrow following the explosion of her home in Arkham City.

#### As Catwoman

Catwoman wears a black, skintight catsuit with a cat-like helmet that is accompanied with a pair of spy goggles above her eyes with red lenses which are always covering her eyes. When covering her eyes, these goggles provide Catwoman with the Thief Vision ability.

There is also a choker with a cat pendant attached to the helmet. Catwoman's suit includes a zipper that shows her cleavage and sports a much smaller collar on the top back. She also wears black gloves with cat claws and black high-heeled boots. She seems to have a different cat pin on her cat suit. Her whip is wrapped around her waist, in the kind of way of a cat's tail.

* Hair Color: Black
* Skin Color: Not Known
* Eye Color: Green
* Age: Not Known
* Birthday: Not Known
* Height: 5' 7"
* Weight: 125 lbs.

### Attributes:

* Trained gymnast and athlete.
* Expert hand-to-hand comabatant.
* Highly skilled with her specialized whip , a cat-o'-nine-tails.
* Capable of astonishing stealth.
* Obsessed with (and adept at) stealing famous and well-protected items.
* Drawn to cat motifs.

## Personality

Drawing the fine line between hero and criminal, Selina Kyle is a master thief, ambiguous hero, deadly adversary and advantageous ally to Batman. Caring for own wellbeing above all, Selina went by less than favorable means to survive growing up on the streets of Gotham from a young age, such as looting and stealing. Penultimately, Selina is with morals but seems to prefer pretending to not have as she learnt to ignore scruples for the sake of survival and as it suits her alignment between both sides better for her own benefit rather than remaining on one side alone. That said her self-serving nature does not limit her from caring for another person such as fellow street urchin, Holly Robinson. Since her alignment with Batman, her burst of conscience surprise Selina herself. For a thief, Selina does her best to avoid killing enemies and only non-lethally incapacitates them although her more bendable morality makes her just as capable of killing as she seriously threatened Hugo Strange with death when he threatened Holly to get her to comply.

She seems to get along well with most of Gotham's criminals as she usually gives most of them affectionate if not slightly demeaning nicknames and comes to them - or them her - for help with her burglary. Selina hates the fact that other criminals believe her to have principles by feeding Batman information based solely on altruism, implying she enjoys her reputation as a criminal within Gotham.

As Hugo Strange divulges through Arkham City Patient Files, Selina has a deep distrust towards men due to her own father abandoning her from childhood. Like most Gotham Sirens, she is portrayed as the pinnacle of the domination over men as her attire and combat skills employ her own sexuality to gain an advantage. Despite this level of misandry, Selina has displayed a close if not complex relationship with Batman. Given her reaction during Patient Files, she has obvious romantic feelings for the Dark Knight and this is displayed before Batman initiates the Knightfall Protocol outside of Riddler's orphanage. Her relationship with Batman has also caused her growing morality due to the two of them first encountering one another as an even more unscrupulous thief which implies the altercation between the two changed her personality. Amongst her more criminal traits that she still retains is her tendency for revenge such as destroying Poison Ivy's plant in reprisal for attacking her earlier and robbing the Riddler of his funds for kidnapping her in his orphanage.

Although originally adopting cat burglary as means of survival, Selina grew to enjoy the thrill of the chase and continued to steal further for no other reason than sheer thrill-seeking. Finding her games of cat and mouse between her and the ethical law of Gotham and Batman himself to be invigorating, she would willingly place herself within dangerous and life-threatening situations for little reason the thrill of it, even though she was perfectly capable of escaping Arkham City after almost being shot by Joker and realizing the dangers of the maximum-security prison allows herself to stay, seeing the advantage of further stealing within the city. Despite being relatively unapologetic about her thieving lifestyle, Selina is not necessarily ungrateful as she showed genuine gratitude when Batman was risking his own life to help her, even if she usually responded with more sarcasm.

## Relationships

### Friends/Allies

* Bat Family
	+ Batman - Enemy turned love interest and ally.
* GCPD
	+ James Gordon - Ally.
	+ John Blake - Enemy turned ally.
* Lucius Fox - Ally.

### Family

* Maria Kyle (mother; deceased)
* Brian Kyle (father; deceased)
* Magdalene "Maggie" Kyle (younger sister)
* Holly Robinson (adopted)

### Enemies

* Bane
* Joker
* Penguin
* League of Assassins
	+ Talia al Ghul
* Max Shreck
* Rough Cut

## Powers and Abilities

Catwoman is a much more flexible character and her combat sequences are faster, requiring skill and precise control. However, Catwoman is limited to three gadgets: a whip, caltrops, and bolas. Also, she cannot use the special disarm takedown, and can only do a normal takedown, and two special takedowns. In combat, Catwoman uses her acrobatic abilities to take down her enemies, ranging from flexible kicks, to jaw-breaking knees to the face, sharp claws to scratch her enemies, and bone-breaking punches to knock out her enemies. Catwoman also seduces her enemies: one of her counters involves her kissing her enemy before throwing him over, and another involves a takedown where she puts the enemy's head between her knees before cracking his neck. In Riddler's Revenge, Catwoman taunts her enemies by saying things like, "Seriously, you boys don't stance a chance," and "Don't make me humiliate you boys." In stealth gameplay, unlike Batman, Catwoman can run behind her enemies without alerting them of her presence. This can prove advantegeous for players who like to take out enemies quickly and effectively. Unfortunately, it is much more difficult and time-consuming for Catwoman to jump up to a vantage point, requiring a few leaps to do so, as opposed to Batman who can fire his grapel gun in one go.

### Powers

* Immortality/Nine Lives:
* **Superhuman Speed**:
* **Superhuman Strength**:
* **Enhanced Intellect**:
* **Enhanced Relflexes**:
* **Enhanced Senses**:

### Abilities

* **Hand-to-Hand Combat** (Advanced): Catwoman can hold her own with Gotham's thugs, being able to render them unconscious just as well as Batman can.
* **Gymnastics**:
* **Martial Arts**:
* **Thievery**: Capable of breaking in to practically anywhere, Catwoman is able to crack security codes and steal from display cases without setting off alarms.
* **Acrobatics**: Selina trained herself in gymnastics and the like for years to hone her abilities. She is capable of maintaining her balance on ever the thinnest object, such as a guardrail. Catwoman is capable of great acrobatic feats, such as dodging the Riddler's electric blasts from his cane.
* **Firearms**: Selina was seen wielding a gun when she joined Fish Mooney's gang
* **Driving**:
* **Stealth**: Catwoman is skilled in hiding, using her dark suit to her advantage. The claws on her suit and the toes of her shoes allow her to crawl on ceilings with grates on them.
* **Espionage**:
* **Therianthropy**:
* **Tactical Analysis**:
* **Thievery**: Selina Kyle has shown amazing thieving abilities and can leave a crime scene without leaving a trace.
* **Throwing**:
* **Deception**: Selina Kyle tricked Batman into trusting her. Kyle then handed the hero over to Bane who in turn broke Batman's back.
* **Animal Training**: Selina trained her pet cat Isis to steal valuable objects without being detected by the security measures.
* **Music**: Selina took piano lessons under her mother's instructions.
* **Therianthropy**:
* **Artistry**:
* **Dancing**:

### Weaknesses

* **Kleptomania**: Catwoman has a strong impulse to steal things.

### Equipment

* **Catsuit**
* **X-Ray Goggles**: Also called Thief Vison, Catwoman's pair of orange goggles that resemble the eyes of a cat, can shore her where people are and where objects of interest are as well. Unlike the Detective Mode used by Batman, her goggles cannot discern armed people from unarmed ones.

### Weapons

* **Pistol** (formerly): Selina had a pistol to use in case of emergencies. Batman kicked the pistol out of her hands in one of their fights, discouraging the use of guns.
* **Trained Cats**:
* **Whip**: Catwoman carries her multi-purpose belt-like whip (that resembles a tail) that she can confuse, disarm, and trip enemies with. She can also climb vantage points with the whip as well.
* **Explosives**:
* **Claws**: Selina Kyle uses gloves with built-in claws. Catwoman's gloves and boots contain special retractable claws which are formed of a strong steel which extend from and retract into her gloved fingertips and boots when she triggers pressure switches. They can shred a bullet-proof vest, punch through an aluminum frame car door, or dig into porous surfaces to climb.
* **Bolas** : Used for tripping up enemies and cause noise far away to distract targets.
* **Caltrops**: Catwoman uses a custom handheld ball known as a caltrop. When the caltrop hits the floor, it breaks apart into many jack like spikes. If a henchman steps in the trap, they will fall to the floor in pain.
* **5-U-93-R Pill**
* **Bolas**:

### Transportation

* **Motorcycle**:
* **Batcycle**: When Selina Kyle became an ally of Batman's, she was given the Batpod to help and flee the city.

## See also

* Cat Avatars
* Gotham City Sirens

## External links

* Catwoman *Wikipedia*
* Catwoman *DC Database*
* Catwoman *Batman Wiki*
* Catwoman *Arkham Wiki*

## Notes & Trivia

* Catwoman first appeared in Batman #1 (1940).
* While she has many bolt-holes and stash-houses, Selina kept her most personal "trophies" in the basement of the building where her mother grew up. Amongst these keepsakes was her childhood diary, some toys, pictures of her family, five thousand dollars in emergency cash and the golden doll house of the Egyptian Queen Anunaki.
* Krypto, the super-powered canine companion to Superman, has taken a liking to Catwoman, much to her immense displeasure.
* The motto Selina lives by "*Never quit. Never let them see you're afraid. Never let them see you're hurt. Never let them see you cry. Never.*", was taught to her by her mentor in the traveling carnival before his death.
* Selina and Bruce Wayne first encountered each other when Wayne attempted to start his vigilante career in East End but, after attacking a pimp, he was attacked by various prostitutes (one of whom was Holly). Selina attacked Bruce for hitting Holly but was quickly defeated by the superior trained rookie vigilante.
* Selina has a habit of sheltering stray cats, seeing in them kindred spirits from her own time on the streets.
* Catwoman has a unique Martial Arts style in legends and can somewhat confuse a player who uses the normal Martial Art fighting style.
* Catwoman is a big fan of jazz music. Amongst her music collection is John Coltrane and Don Cherry.
* Catwoman has a cat named Isis.