crushing on selina kyle

So I picked up all three available trades of Ed Brubaker's version of Catwoman (which you should know is universes away from the sad and sordid "movie" that came out last year) and just within the first few pages of the first book, I crashed and crushed heavily.

"Wow," I told Nikki, who was enjoying the Rucka Wonder Woman trade we also got (what can I say? It was comic book heroine grrl power night apparently). "Look at her. I'm in love."

What's not to love? Trading in her too-boobsy (did I actually just write that?) purple costume for a more practical sleek black leather dominatrix attire, Selina Kyle is one of the most interesting characters I've encountered in a long time. She's intelligent, she's beautiful, she's hot and her layers of complexity make for riverting reading - my kinda gal.

I find myself in the unthinkable situation of slavering like a teenage fanboy geek over a fantasy girl. But gadz, just look at her. She now joins the other fictitious babes I've had more than a purely literary interest in (a lot of them muties): Shanna the She-Devil (nippled or non-nippled as illustrated by Frank Cho), Black Widow (by Jim Lee in that old X-Men flashback comic with her as a teenage agent with Captain America), Psylocke (despite the mess of Revanche/Crimson Dawn whatever, she can't be dead forever, right?), Kitty Pride at 14 (I know, I know, but remember that this was in the 80's so I was young too - actually, this showed that the boobs are secondary to intelligence for me), Brandy of Liberty Meadows, Karma of the New Mutants (when she dehydrated in the Asgardian desert), and Ishtar (the goddess not the movie dud) when she danced and died in the Brief Lives arc of Sandman. And, okay, fine, most of the Danger Girls and Red Monica from Battlechasers (who redefines the term "headlights").

But Catwoman, oh man. She rocks. She's number one. And even if I strip my last bit of dignity and pretension and throw away the writing, she is SO easy on the eyes.

And so Nikki laughed whenever I'd stop every few pages to show her my new crush. It'd great having a wife. But it's even better having a wife who is a friend who understands the occasional inanities of being a comic book reader.