Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Catwoman (Vol. 1) Issue #2 – “Downtown Babylon”! In the previous installment, Selina Kyle is a young prostitute whoring it up on the mean streets of Gotham City. There’s also something about nuns, but I don’t care much about that yet.

After she was discovered out-cold in a rainy convent alley, a vice cop gives her the number of a man named Ted who is training her how to fight back. Meanwhile, Stan, her shithead abusive pimp, hooks her up with a cat fetishest and throws her a cat costume, WHICH BECOMES VERY IMPORTANT!

Since the events of this limited series runs concurrently with the Batman: Year One storyline, we see snippets of that as well: Bruce Wayne encountering Holly (and the first brief Batman/Catwoman fight) from Batman #404, and Selina/Holly watching the police standoff with Batman at the abandoned building from Batman #406. It’s the latter where Selina gets the idea to don the cat costume and deal with Stan. And that’s where we are now!

Catwoman (Vol. 1), Issue #2 [March, 1989]
Written by: Mindy Newell
“Downtown Babylon”

“She has her revenge. But it’s only the beginning…” claims the cover, which also shows a smiling arms-akimbo Catwoman like she’s posing to advertise cat food. If revenge is only the beginning, what comes after revenge? PRO-venge? Preemptive revenge? Eek, outright villainy?! Heavens to Betsy!

“We be of one blood, thou and I.” – Rudyard Kipling

BOOORING! Kipling’s dead. Let’s move on.

Stan the Pretty Pimp kicks a cat on the street. Next, he’s wrapped up and bound by Catwoman’s cat o’ nine tails. “Nice outfit,” he says. “I wore it just for you,” she responds. And then she kisses his gross pimp mouth. Stan doesn’t seem very phased by any of this, but then she scratches him across the cheek with her claws.

“You cut me, woman. You crazy? Now I gots to teach you a lesson again,” Stan scowls angrily. Catwoman welcomes another lesson, but Stan hesitates.

Then she throws a dang trashcan at him, knocking him to the ground. Then she boots him in the face with her high heel. “Don’t kick the cat again, Stan. Ever.”

Ope. That’s awkward.

This is all happening in the alley behind the convent, the same location where she was discovered passed out at the beginning of Issue #1. The back door opens, and she is discovered (unmasked) by Sister Magdalene.

BUSTED!

The nuns now speak to Flannery about Sister Magdalene’s encounter with her long-lost runaway sister and the pimp. When Magdalene approached, Catwoman scurried away. Flannery asks why she would run away from Magdalene if Catwoman is indeed her sister, as she so eagerly professes! Magdalene responds that this is how she has always been: “She’s frightened, confused, embarrassed–”

Flannery questions the costume, but the nuns, being nuns and not police detectives, aren’t sure why a woman would be running around late at night in a BDSM cat costume, and therefore throw the question back at him. He takes a stab at it: This town is full of looney toons! Gotham already has this weirdo who dresses like a bat and beats up alley thugs. Now we have another weirdo who dresses like a cat and beats up pimps! Case closed, bitches.

Flannery doesn’t believe that Catwoman is Magdalene’s sister for some reason. And he’s all smug about it, too, like nothing in the world could be more outlandish.

I believe the crazier part more than than the less-crazy part.

Sister Mary Elizabeth attempts to dissolve the tension by thanking the detective for his time, but Sister Magdalene jumps in and asks to talk to the pimp. “Sorry, legally couldn’t hold him,” says Flannery, “but maybe he’ll come to Bingo Wednesday night…” Magdalene pays no attention to the needlessly dickheaded police officer and vows to find one, or both. And she won’t stop walking the streets until she does. Flannery gets really furrow-browed and mean, and tells her to back the FUCK off and stick to praying.

Back in his pimp-shack, Stan the White-Faced Melting Pimp tends to his scratch wounds in the bathroom. With his hat off he looks like his airplane crash-landed in a pomade factory. “Hey pretty mama — Gots somethin’ for you — Maybe you like it — Maybe I share’t wit’ you — BCHOOO — BCHOOO –”

Son of a BCHOOO–

The “BCHOOO” is the sound of him pretending to shoot a gun. Most people say “bang”, but not Stan the Pimp Man! He’s got more character in his fishy limp dick than the rest of us do in our entire perfect muscular bodies.

In the morning, Sister Magdalene trots through Sleazetown, USA in search of a pimp or a whore, it doesn’t matter which! She asks some prostitutes if they’ve seen either with no luck. She bumps into Holly and asks her if she lives around these parts. To which Holly responds “My mother told me never to talk to strangers.”

At this point Magdalene starts pokin’ and proddin’ and interrogatin’, asking Holly how old she is and why she’s out here. Of course, that doesn’t work whatsoever, so Magdalene shows her a picture of Selina. Holly, presumably off-panel, goes “oh fucking hell shit” and kicks the nun in the shin and runs away. Presumably. Or I’m just being colorful. The very next panel shows Holly trying to talk to Selina through the closed bathroom door. “SELINA, she had a picture of you.” she tells her, but no response. Holly thinks Selina’s been acting really fucking weird lately, what with the Sex Cat costumes and the nuns.

Holly’s kind of pissed at Selina for spending all their whore-money on a new cat costume. Selina doesn’t give two shits, and she leaps out of the window into the night, leaving Holly whining at the window.

Cutting back to the Nun on the Street, Magdalene bumps into an irate Detective Flannery. “I told you to stay off the street, Sister Magdalene,” he warns her. Stan the Pale Ghostface Pimp-Ass Pimp is loitering at a nearby doorway listening to their whole conversation with interest. Magdalene stands her ground and dismisses everything Flannery has to say, including “the streets are mean” and “women shouldn’t be out here alone” and “nuns are better neither seen nor heard” and “damnit, Sister, get back to your nun-hole” and “hey, did you like those Whoopi Goldberg movies from the ‘90s?”. Flannery gives up and goes back to his car.

Flannery has a very FRANK conversation with his partner hahaHAHAhaha. Get it? Because his name is Frank! Ha! It’s funny to me, anyway. Flannery can’t put his finger on it, but something feels off about that nun. There’s something awfully familiar about her, he thinks. “Maybe you busted her sister,” Frank tells him, which gives Flannery his lightbulb moment. And that’s dumb, because Magdalene already told him Catwoman is her sister, so what the hell Flannery? This is what you get for not believing women, dummy. BCHOOO!

Believe me, I’ve TRIED.

It’s nighttime now, and Catwoman is creeping in the alley behind the nunnery. Sister Magdalene walks out with a bowl of cat food. “You really have a thing for those cats, don’t you?” scolds old lady Mary Elizabeth the Mean Nun from inside, and Catwoman ops in to startle Magdalene by responding to that. “It runs in the family.”

“I’ve been looking for you.” Magdalene tells her. Yeah, ok, Magdalene, you went down one street and called it a day. I guess it’s been a while since these two have really talked, because Magdalene starts rambling about how tall Selina’s grown and how dad always said coffee would stunt her growth but ‘fraid not I guess and all that. Catwoman essentially says “yeah, heh, cool, ok, well, you found me, so…bye forever.” But then Magdalene tells her that their father died. He died two months ago of heart failure.

Like the Grinch getting a wonderful, awful idea.

While they talk, Stan “Freddy Krueger” Pimpman is lurking behind a wall, eavesdropping, looking gross as shit. Maybe he’ll make fun of Selina’s dead dad next time she gets a taste of the ol’ pimp hand. She did look rather unhappy, but she pretends to not be affected by the news. “Stay off the streets, Maggie. I don’t need you on my conscience,” she tells her as she climbs up a fire escape. Magdalene yells her warnings, that she can’t run forever, that she’s acting like a child. “Mom didn’t die to punish you,” is the last thing she says before Waxy Dick Tracy starts speaking behind her. “She ain’t gonna lissen, Sister. She gots a stubbun streak, ain’ she–”

And then Magdalene gazes in horror at the walking melted candlestick before her.

Flannery and Ted (Selina’s trainer) are wearing their classiest wife-beater tank top shirts today! As you recall, these two are buddies, and Flannery is the one who hooked Selina up with this guy in the first place. Ted throws Flannery a beer, and Flannery asks what he knows about her. As in, where can he find her?

Looks like ol’ Georgie Flannery is starting to connect those delicious little dots, huh? That probably means he’ll be dead soon!

At the Château de Putain, aka Selina and Holly’s apartment, Holly is rummaging through some stolen jewelry. Selina’s a little peeved that none of her outings are making the news. She needs to commit more visible and/or high-profile crimes! A knock on the door prompts the two to hurriedly stash their loot under the bed.

I’ve got a good joke for you: a cop and a nun walk into a prostitute’s apartment…

Hi there! Is this a bad time? Just a cop and a nun out for a stroll! They’re here to ask about Magdalene. Flannery introduces them to Sister M.E., and Selina flippantly offers her some scotch. Flannery is not here for jokes! Magdalene is missing! And probably covered in gross pimp juice. Selina pretends not to know her. “Who? Oh, yes, the nun. I’m afraid someone has misdirected you, Detective. After all, do I look the type to consort with a Bride of Jesus?”

So, yeah, they get nowhere with this investigation. Mary Elizabeth and Flannery talk more in the car about why Flannery and Selina have already crossed paths, and Flannery comments that she was just as uncooperative then as she is now. He isn’t surprised, calls it “Jungle Law”. “Survival of the fittest”. It’s how they get through the day, see? So that’s why he wants to help her a little too? Is that so bad? Stop looking at me like that, you fucking nun. We’re all human! Stop it.

So yeah, Flannery is weird around the nun. “Okay. I confess. I’m negligent and cynical and a stubborn jackass and a lazy cop. I admit it.” And she just kind of looks at him.

Back at the apartment, Selina is beating herself up over the disappearance of her sister. The Sister. Her sister the Sister. “I let it happen…”

In the convent, Mary Elizabeth, hater of all things feline, tends to the cats in Magdalene’s absence.

Flannery’s beating himself up too:

Go throw your wife around about it, fuckin’ cop.

The next morning, Selina (donned in a very conspicuous fuchsia wig) and Holly patrol the streets looking for the “right customer”. Holly whines and wants to go home. But, quickly, Selina finds what she’s looking for and gets in a car alone.

It’s some rich guy with a nice car who seems to already know Selina by name. As well as Stan the Smelly Pimpface. AHA, it’s Jefferson Skeevers! Remember him? The drug dealer from Batman: Year One who was going to testify against Jim Gordon’s shit partner? Skeeeevy, my main man!

Selina tells Skeevy-Weevy that Stan stole something of hers and she wants it back. She’s not scared of him, as Skeevers hypothesizes, “I can’t find him, that’s all. I thought you’d know. Y’all being such good friends and all.” She rests her head on his shoulder.

Later in her apartment, dressed as Catwoman, she’s about to head out when the phone rings. It’s Loveable, Huggable Stan! “You likes talkin’ to my man candy? Don’t screw around with my friends, baby…they’ll stab you in the back every time.” CLICK.

Worried the next morning, Selina literally prays to a cross necklace. “God — help her — …”

And also…

♫♪ I thought that I heard you laughing / I thought that I heard you sing… ♫♪

Because, just as Selina likely suspects, Stan is holding Magdalene hostage and tied to a chair in some unknown location. Magdalene recites to herself a Psalm, and Stan tells her to just keep on praying.

Final Thoughts

Yeah, this story isn’t half-bad. Obviously not the caliber of its Batman counterpart story, but I’m batting 1000 on 1980s DC so far, as far I’m concerned.

Too bad they never made a 900-issue Stan the Pimp spinoff. They would’ve sold like hotcakes! Just page after page of “I gots me a Swanson dinna fer two, baby.”