In Winds of Change, I spotlight retcons that I think should be implemented, like how I think Apocalypse should have been behind Wolverine getting his adamantium.
Today we look at Catwoman's origins and how a famous theory introduced in the pages of "Batman: The Long Halloween" should be implemented as canon.
Catwoman's childhood has been fairly consistently portrayed. Her mother (eventually named Maria, and also revealed to be Cuban) killed herself when Selina was young (likely due to being abused by Selina's father) and then her father (eventually named Brian) drank himself to death. We see this in "Catwoman" #0 by Doug Moench, Jim Balent and Bob Smith...
However, an interesting alternate theory debuted during Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's classic "Batman: The Long Halloween" mini-series.
Catwoman first encounter Carmine "The Roman" Falcone, the top mob boss in Gotham City, in "Batman" #407 by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli. She promptly left him with claw scars on his face...
This is then followed up on in "Batman: The Long Halloween," where Batman encounters Catwoman while she is trying to rob Falcone, and he notes that he always seems to run into her around Falcone...
Later, when Batman confronts Falcone at a cemetery, Catwoman is there again...
On Father's Day, Catwoman is mysteriously listening in and seemingly affected by Falcone spending time with his daughter, Sofia...
Batman just outright asks Catwoman about it when it happens again, but she puts off the question...
Things got a little more explicit during the follow-up mini-series by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale in 2004 titled "Catwoman: When in Rome", when Selina heads to Rome to find out the truth of whether Falcone really is her dad or not. She even dreams of him as her father...
In the end of the series, her story is not confirmed, but there is at least a possible theory offered up...
As the series ends, Catwoman notes that she has no real evidence, but she knows what she knows...
In general, I'm not really one for "everyone has to be tied in together!" stories in comics. In addition, the Huntress, Helena Bertinelli, is already a major Batman character whose father is a mobster. So I can certainly see the case for there being no need for Catwoman to also be the daughter of a mobster. However, when such a major Batman storyline revolves around Catwoman's connection to the Falcones and when her canon parents are so blah (I don't think either of them even has a single entry at any online wiki, and you know how devoted people are to these things, so that really does say a lot), I think that it is worthwhile to just make the Loeb/Sale stories "canon." They're already so famous, why not just go the next step? Especially when the current canon is so uninspiring.
But that's just me, of course! Feel free to argue against it in the comments!
And if you have a suggestion for another retcon that you would like to see written into the comics, just drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com. If I agree with you, I might very well feature it in a future installment of Winds of Change!