Ann Nocenti is making Selina Kyle smarter and even more manipulative. The Catwoman writer was part of DC Comics all-star team of creators at Emerald City Comicon on the 75th Anniversary of the Batman’s debut in Detective Comics.
Catwoman #30 is the start of Race of Thieves as Selina enters a global contest to become the best thief on the planet. There’s no honor among thieves and Selina is outgunned against more super powered criminals.
We talked one on one with Nocenti about the next big storyline in which Selina faces the Rogues, learns from her past and figures out how to beat her criminal competition.
“She’s basically learning how to be more manipulative…more calculating. She’s upping her skills when it comes to raking, you know, lock breaking, her weaponry. She’s now got Tesla the steam punk girl that is kind of her Q you know who comes up with tech for her. So she’s gotta go to a party so she’s figuring out where on her outfit like in a dress so she ends up putting all these trip wires in her belt and her charm bracelet becomes a little bomb. She’s basically learning how to win through smarts because she doesn’t have powers. In this issue she goes up against Mirror Master and Glider and the Rogues have really insane awesome powers so she has to outsmart everybody. During the Penguin War she screwed up. She tried to expand her crime turf and the blow back was huge. People died. She didn’t really win anything. She fell down in the Gotham underground and that’s when she really learned everybody down here has more than power than me so I have to get them to destroy each other. So basically she’s become a master of pitting people against each other. And she’s learning that information is power. She’s starting her little black book (smiles)”
Nocenti is famous for her Daredevil run in which she created Typhoid Mary. She gave us X-Men villain Spiral in the original Longshot mini-series. Selina Kyle is the latest in a long line of Nocenti’s femme fatales.
With all versions of Catwoman over the years what does she consider Selina’s core and what guides Nocenti as she writes the most infamous villainess/anti-heroine in comics:
“I think one of the interesting things about strong iconic characters is that they’re very flexible. You can stretch them in different directions and they snap back. So you can have a Selina Kyle story where it’s been implied she’s been a prostitute – some people did those stories. She’s a street urchin. She’s a femme fatale who can wow a room. Whatever you do it’s like Batman, Daredevil Spider-Man, Superman – if you have an iconic character you can look at them from all these different angles and they snap back into shape. So Catwoman is just…she’s Catwoman. You can do whatever you want and she’s still Catwoman. She’s a very strong icon.”
As DC Comics celebrates 75 years of Batman I asked Nocenti how she feels about writing the most famous female in the Dark Knight’s gallery.
“I’m kind of just in love with her. I relate to her. I’m a very adventurous girl. I taught film in Haiti. I shot a film in Pakistan. I’ve done a lot of crazy stuff in my life. Sometimes I fling myself places that are quite dangerous because I wake up. I wake up when things are dangerous so I relate to her what she feels like when there’s nothing happening. I know how sleepy and bored and how she’s gonna start something because she doesn’t like life when it’s passive. And she’s empowered. She goes after what she wants. Is she a role model if her main thing is that she wants your wallet or her wallet? She is – because she goes after what she wants and she has a plan and a strategy and she has mad energy she can go and go and go.”
Race of Thieves begins in Catwoman #30 out April 23.
You can find Nocenti at the DC Comics booth or at her own table near Arthur Adams, co-creator of Longshot.
By Editor