Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Catwoman (Vol. 1) Issue #3 – “Gothic Baptism”! And that title sounds like a Nick Cave song! In the previous installment, Selina starts Catwomaning around town, stealing jewels and scratching up pimps. As Catwoman, she encounters Sister Magdalene and they catch up for, like, six seconds.

Later, Magdalene disappears, and both Det. Flannery and Selina blame themselves for her disappearance. Selina’s hunch is that Stan is involved and attempts to look for him. Stan is indeed keeping Magdalene hostage in some unknown location.

And even God knows that Selina ain’t much of a praying woman these days, but she prays that Magdalene is alive and ok.

WUBBA LUBBA DUB DUB! Sorry. Had to break the tension.

Catwoman (Vol. 1), Issue #3 [April, 1989]
Written by: Mindy Newell
“Gothic Baptism”

“A perfectly normal person is rare in our civilization.” – Karen Horney.

lmao, “Karen Horney”.

Our favorite Pale Pimp has returned home with a bag of groceries. “Honey, I’m home — whas for dinner? I’m starved,” he says to the nun tied to a chair in a large, empty, shitty apartment. Stan thinks he cute, chiding the nun about not keeping the house clean or cooking while his man is out earning the bread.

“Firs’ you be prayin all t’ time, now you don’ say not’ing. Can’ you talk normal? Damn tight-lipped nun — talk to me!!” Stan drawls, unable to talk normally himself. Less normal than usual, actually!

Don’t you worry, Magdalene Magoo! “The Woman Whom Is a Cat”, as she likes to be called, is prowling the mean streets of Gotham solving crimes! And by “solving crimes” I actually might mean “doing crimes”. I get those two mixed up all the time!

Catwoman sneakily breaks into a rich lady’s house. The rich lady is in the middle of having a lavish rich-lady bubble bath. The lights go out, and Catwoman approaches the wet, naked woman.

Please… just… you’re creeping me out.

The rich lady is actually a call girl for one Councilman Crowly. She used to be one of Stan’s girls until Crowly set her up in this…uh, bubble bath. Catwoman hisses and snarls and forces Stan’s location out of her, which is weird because I would think Selina Kyle would have a better idea of Stan’s whereabouts than this woman who probably hasn’t seen Stan in weeks! Catwoman is satisfied with the information she gets. “Councilman Crowly has good taste. At least in jewels. Tell no one I was here.” Catwoman gets a snap in, steals some goods, and fucks off. The woman is shaken but at least there are still some bubbles covering her nipples!

Meanwhile, a shadowy Bat-shaped Man stalks Stan’s (now empty) apartment! Perhaps this Bat-shaped Man-shaped shadow caught wind of a missing nun? Perhaps a series of clues brought him to this particular apartment? He spies a cufflink on the floor and recognizes it, but from whence?! Ah! He remembers, vaguely, when a fucking pimp tried to slice and dice him on the street the other day. I suppose you don’t forget a thing like that, huh? The pimp had these shitty gold cufflinks on his sleeves. Perhaps the pimp is the key! Yes, yes. Find the pimp, find the nun. It all makes sense now. This pimp must have had a reason to kidnap a nun! Yes, pimps and their reasons… it’ll all come together. Oh indeed.

Back at La Casa de Selina y Holly, the phone rings and Holly answers. She thinks it’s Selina, but then some gross pimp voice comes through instead. “You still livin wit tha bitch, Sweet Chunks? I’m real disappointed in you Sugar Britches.” Bleh, this melted candle-looking motherfucker is getting on my nerves. I hope he gets hella murdered real soon.

Stan asks to talk to Selina, which is dumb because Holly answered the phone thinking it was Selina calling, so obviously she’s not there. Maybe this pimp didn’t graduate high school! Not sure! Holly tells him Selina is mad at him and doesn’t want to talk to him anyway.

Outside in a van, Detective Flannery and his partner who I forget the name of…uh..Smingers. They’re tapping the call, and lucky for them, Selina’s home and on her way upstairs to the apartment. They hear Selina ask Holly who’s on the phone, and when Holly’s a little brat about it, Selina grabs the phone and starts talking to Gotham’s Finest Pimp.

“An’ I says here, I says, lookin’ here bitch you dumb skank-ass l’il… gonna hav’ta wake yo-self up pret…jus’ done gon fuckin’ fuck you up damn skan-..skank-ass…zzzzzzz”

Stan the Smelly Pimp starts telling Selina about a nun walking the street looking for her sister. “And people, they sayin’ how this nun, she look like one of Stan’s.” And he keeps on talking, implicating himself further and further over the phone like someone with a negative amount of street sense for his line of work. Selina gets madder and madder, but she’s very vague about her anger. She says stuff like “I can smell your sweat, Stan, making me sick.” and “I’m right behind you now, Pimp. I’m ripping through your yellow spine.” which, in 1989, is hard to sound too threatening with landlines. Stan is starting to get nervous anyway, so he hangs up.

Flannery and Smingers are completely dumbfounded by what they heard; they can’t believe this pimp got scared and hung up the phone! Flannery already knows that she’s Catwoman, he knows what to expect.

Damnit, Selina. I miss my real mother. I’d take a crackwhore over you any day. At least she was home all the time.

Selina squeezes herself into her Catwoman latex and prepares to leave again, much to Holly’s surprise, since she just fucking got back. Holly protests and gives Selina two reasons to take pause: 1) Holly’s been hearing mutterings on the street about a cat lady prowling the night and breaking into Councilman Crowly’s place, and 2) Stan might be setting her up, so don’t make it easy for him. She listens to both of these points and removes the costume.

Flannery and Whozits traced Stan’s call to a downtown phone booth. Selina walks out of the apartment building as Selina-in-a-Coat-That-Looks-Like-a-Robe and the cops pounce. She tells them to go eat shit. Flannery grabs her arm and tells her they’re going downtown, which is illegal but I’m no lawyer!

In an interrogation room, Selina is uncooperative and annoyed. Flannery gets down close, reeeeeaal close-like to her ear, and whispers “I don’t really care if you and the nun are sisters or not, but I do care about civilians getting in the way of personal vendettas.” I’m sure he meant “in the way with personal vendettas”, because that sounds more obnoxious and it also better addresses that Flannery himself isn’t working out a personal vendetta. Or is he? I don’t know, I’m thinking too hard about this.

Selina blurts out that Magdalene shouldn’t have been running around the streets in the first place. Flannery wants this shit to end, so either Selina helps her or doesn’t. However, she owes him for the Ted Grant hookup. So nyah. She pretends she doesn’t know who that is and asks if she’s free to go. Flannery lets her leave, but he gets a bunch of cops on her tail as she walks the streets again.

She spends about three pages doing mundane activities like walking around and buying groceries before two cops realize that she’s playing games with them.

YOOO HOOOOOOO!!

So these pieces of shit leave the car and start chasing her on foot. She rounds a corner and loses them. The cops think she may have scurried up a fire escape somewhere, but all they hear in the alley is the sound of a “big hissing cat”.

Meanwhile, at Stan’s House of Pimpcakes, Sister Magdalene is being fed a plate of red sauce (?) with a spoon. She asks if she can feed herself and Stan shrieks “NO!”. And then “Shee– there I go, losin’ my temper ‘gain.” I laughed pretty hard at this! I don’t think it’s supposed to be funny though!

Don’t worry, darlin’. I ain’t nothin’ to be scared of. I just ooze sin, debauchery, wickedness, and strange fluids.

Next thing that happens, out of nowhere, Stan throws the plate against the wall and starts sobbing to her. He’s crying these big, oily, pimp tears while begging on his knees for forgiveness.

Magdalene forgives him perfunctorily, which Stan accepted with snarling pimp grace. “You a modern saint, sist’r. We goin’ for a climb.”

And a climbin’ they go! “You open the door to purgatory fo’ me.” Pimpilicious tells Magdalene as they move along some rafters near the ceiling of whatever theater or movie studio or gymnasium or circus tent that they are apparently in right now. Oh yeah, it’s the Bruzinsky’s Theatre. That’s where the naked bath lady told Catwoman he might be. Stan’s slurring through some nonsense about souls and pearly gates and “promisin’ paradise” and he’s clearly turned on in some weird, creepy, pimp way.

He doesn’t get to talk much. Catwoman is waiting for them perched on some railing ready to claw and hiss and bite and shit and play with some yarn! Stan the Pimp, or Stimp, gets furious and yells “I told you– she don’ give a damn ‘bout anyone but herself.” while throwing Magdalene over the railing. Catwoman growls and leaps!

Another day, another nun in distress.

Magdalene isn’t dead, as Catwoman assumes while she starts pimp-slappin’ her own pimp! Stop pimp-slappin’ yourself, she probably thinks! No, Magdalene is very much still alive and hanging on desperately.

Catwoman is preoccupied with pimp-wrasslin’ while Magdalene whispers prayers. Stimpy backs off and starts trying to explain himself, and I’m tired of transcribing his pimp-talk so there will be no more of that! He tries to say that he’s not to blame for Sister Magdalene’s disappearance. She came to him! She got herself in trouble! He didn’t go looking for her! Absolved of responsibility for any act-of-pimp that may befall our wandering nun.

Even though Magdalene is three itchy fingers away from falling 20 feet, even though Stimpy pulls out his pocket knife, Catwoman takes the time to listen to what this pungent pimp has to say. He talks about how the nun wants to “play a game”, the kind of game he and Selina play all the time. Stan says he told the nun no, but the nun insisted. Catwoman tries to seduce him by telling him that they don’t need her to have fun. Magdalene is hanging below them, and she’s starting to get pretty impatient with all this. Just fart on the pimp and run. Throw a brick at his head! This is taking forever!

Finally, after an endless amount of verbal footsy, Catwoman whips her cat o’ nine tails out and knocks the knife out of Stan’s hand. After giving him a single, delicate scratch on the cheek, and no further restraining whatsoever, she yells at Magdalene to hurry up before he gets up and takes the less than three steps it would take to stop them.

And wouldn’t ya know it?! Stan the Able-Bodied Yet Syphilis-Riddled Extravaganza of a Motherfuckin’ Pimp gets up and tries to crush Magdalene’s fingers with his shoe. Before Catwoman can stop him, Magdalene lets go and starts falling. Catwoman knocks Stan over the rail as she runs to catch Magdalene before it’s too late.

You think Michael Keaton could do this? That woman would be dead.

But it definitely is too late. They both fall.

Stan hits the floor head first. That sucka all kinds of deceased.

Magdalene doesn’t die. She doesn’t even get hurt. What happens to her is…well, you see. Do I gotta spell it out, son?!

Catwoman slowly realizes that her sister is not creamed on the floor. She and Batman meet her up on the scaffolding. She pretends she’s not pleased, kind of huffs at them, actually. She looks to Batman: “You saved her.” She looks to Magdalene: “But some people deserve to die.”

Magdalene looks horrified at what Catwoman is saying, who continues to take credit for Stan’s pimpdeath with an air of forced immoralism. “You’re not God — You can’t decide who lives, who dies.” Magdalene scolds the costumed lady, but The Cat retorts with “And I suppose you would raise him from the dead if you could. After all that’s happened, you still would, wouldn’t you — Unbelievable.” and she leaps out a window.

Batman asks Magdalene who’s fuckin’ side this broad is on. “Like you. Her own.” she says icily.

“I need answers, Sister. I need to know the truth.”

Final Thoughts

And like Fox Mulder after him, Batman ain’t gonna learn the truth. Hell no! Oooh, are there any alien invasion storylines in the Batman universe? Not counting that wack ass Superman?

Too bad that Stan the Stinky Pimp had to die, he was the greatest character in the entire history of comics by a really long shot! Oh well!

This Catwoman limited series ends with the next issue. Does Batman get his answers? Probably not. Do Batman and Catwoman ever get their bone on? That’s a question I’D like answered!

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.”