Catwoman- Black Widow
Lemme say that I’m delighted that someone I assume to be a real live woman has read and commented upon some my posts. I look forward to hearing from you again, Darci!
Here we have one character that most likely was intended at first to be a Soviet spy-style femme fatale common to the James Bond film franchise in the 1960s. The Black Widow was quickly written with more texture, which has persisted since.
I reckon that Catwoman is not only, due to representations on film and television, the funny book anti-heroine best known to non-nerds. She’s also the woman that Batman ultimately cannot forget. Being that he’s essentially a well-adjusted midwesterner, Superman can settle down with Lois Lane. But Batman is not well-adjusted, and he cannot help but have his heart forever captured by an occasionally “villainous” woman that’s just as tough and complicated as he.
Commonalities:
Both are key femme fatales to their diasporas: you fuck with these women at your peril.
Differences:
Only that the Black Widow was introduced with a distinctly “commie” bent.
Alternate histories:
CW: Selina Kyle is an agent of a european power known as Catwoman who at first is opposed by Green Lantern and comes to America and enlists Green Arrow to her cause. She reforms and joins the Justice League, works as an agent of the government agency Checkmate and then partners with the Question. Catwoman is currently a member of the government sanctioned Justice League.
BW: Natasha Romanov is a russian-american criminal known as the Black Widow, often crossing paths with Captain America. For years, she has vacillated between antagonizing and amorously pursuing Cap; similarly, she has allied with both superhuman champions and criminals when doing so suits her purposes.
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I dunno, Rob, but given the Black Widow's early history with Hawkeye, it would seem more natural to have Catwoman supplanting the Black Canary as Green Arrow's sidekick in your alternate history. By the same token, in your alternate history for the Black Widow, substituting Daredevil for Cap (she was more or less DD's sidekick in the early '70s during the period where he relocated to San Francisco) seems a little more logical--either that or, perhaps, having her replace Mockingbird as a more longterm player in Hawkeye's life. Of course, these things could just be an attempt to make things conform with the established history, which would basically mean that I'm missing the whole point.
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