Catwoman (White Queen)
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KNI_05_p01 CS6.indd 1 10/09/2020 10:41 IN THIS ISSUE YOUR PIECE Meet your white queen – Gotham City’s 3 ultimate femme fatale Selina Kyle, better known as Catwoman. PROFILE From the slums of Gotham City’s East 4 End, Catwoman has become one of the world’s most famous thieves. GOTHAM GUIDE A examination of Gotham’s East End, a 10 grim area of crime and poverty – and the home of Selina Kyle. RANK & FILE Why Catwoman is the white queen and 12 how some of her moves are refl ected in those of the powerful chess piece. RULES & MOVES An essential guide to the white queen 15 and some specifi c gambits using the piece. Editor: Alan Cowsill Thanks to: Art Editor: Gary Gilbert Writers: Devin K. Grayson, Ed Brubaker, Frank Writer: James Hill Miller, Jeph Loeb, Will Pfeifer, Judd Winick, Consultant: Richard Jackson Darwyn Cooke, Andersen Grabrych. Figurine Sculptor: Imagika Sculpting Pencillers: Jim Balent, Michael Avon Oeming, Studio Ltd David Mazzucchelli, Cameron Stewart, Jim Lee, Pete Woods, Guillem March, Darwyn US CUSTOMER SERVICES Cooke, Brad rader, Rick Burchett. Call: +1 800 261 6898 Inkers: John Stanisci, Mike Manley, Scott Email: [email protected] Williams, Mike Allred, Rick Burchett, Cameron Stewart, Alavaro Lopez. UK CUSTOMER SERVICES Call: +44 (0) 191 490 6421 Email: [email protected] Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger Copyright © 2020 DC Comics. CATWOMAN and all related characters and elements © and TM DC Comics. (s20) EAGL26789 Collectable Figurines. Not designed or intended for play by children. Do not dispose of fi gurine in the domestic waste. Visit our website: www.eaglemoss.com KNI_05_p02.indd 2 10/09/2020 10:56 YOUR PIECE CATWOMAN The white queen is the most important piece next to the king. In the life of Batman few people are more important WHITE than Catwoman, the femme fatale who stole the Dark Knight’s heart and moves with a deadly grace... QUEEN 3 KNI_05_p03.indd 3 01/02/2012 18:27 PROFILE QUEEN OF NIGHT Catwoman is Gotham City’s premier thief and many of her heists are legendary. She also has a morality all her own, stemming from her violent childhood and hard life in Gotham City’s vicious East End... atwoman is the undisputed ruler of burglar, but her criminal career is not the night. Like her feline namesake, solely driven by a desire for wealth and CSelina Kyle is a barely glimpsed material possessions, but also by a thirst predator, prowling her nocturnal territory for excitement and adventure. The thrill of – the crime-ridden streets of Gotham the hunt, and the adrenaline rush at the City’s East End district – draped in thought of being caught in the act of inky-black shadows. From out of the thievery, helps Catwoman blot out the darkness she strikes, snatching up only the memory of a traumatic childhood. most valuable of treasures. Jade and gold statuettes, priceless items of antiquity, ALLEY CAT sparkling gemstones and feline-shaped Selina was the eldest of Brian and Maria Rough childhood. Selina finds her mother dead. antiques are amongst her favourite Kyle’s two daughters. Brian was a violent objects of desire, which she stealthily drunk, who would often take out his purloins and then conceals in one of her frustrations on his wife. Maria shielded strain of this eventually proved too much many secret lairs. Catwoman is a Selina and her sister, Maggie, from the for her. Maria Kyle took her own life – and remarkably skilled and determined cat worst of their father’s brutality, but the her husband drank himself to death soon afterwards. Separated from her younger sister, the headstrong Selina was remanded to the Sprang Hall Juvenile Detention Centre – a notoriously harsh state facility for orphaned or delinquent girls. While trapped behind Sprang Hall’s formidable stone walls, Selina began to see how unjust the world could be. The powerful preyed on the powerless – and only the strong survived. When she was thirteen, Selina discovered that the Hall’s administrator was embezzling state funds, and she confronted the woman about her crimes. Fearing her illegal activities would be exposed, the administrator tied Selina in a bag and dropped her in a river, to drown like some unwanted – and unloved – kitten. Thanks to her strength of will and natural athletic abilities, Selina escaped from the deathtrap. She returned to the orphanage to steal documents exposing Objects of desire. Priceless jewels are among Catwoman’s weaknesses. the administrator’s corruption, which she 4 KNI_05_p04-09.indd 4 08/07/2020 10:34 PROFILE Gotham. She also received training in the noble art of boxing from the grizzled Ted Grant, a former heavyweight champion of the world. Selina Kyle grew into a ferocious lioness, QUEEN OF NIGHT protecting the downtrodden and destitute of Gotham’s urban jungle, often sharing her ill-gotten gains with those less fortunate than herself. She became particularly close to a young street girl called Holly Robinson. Selina watched over Holly like she was the little sister that she’d lost years earlier. When Holly became embroiled in an altercation on the street, Selina instinctively leapt to her defence – and found herself fighting a young Bruce Wayne, who had been patrolling the lawless East End in the hopes of Protective. Selina and Bruce Wayne meet for the first time... in combat. then sent to the authorities. She also took cruel mistress, however, and Selina the opportunity to erase all record of her eventually ran away – taking her young past existence. Selina Kyle no longer friend, Sylvia Sinclair, with her. The two Rough childhood. Selina finds her mother dead. officially existed – she was now a ‘non- drifted apart soon afterwards, with Sylvia person’. blaming Selina for the deprivations they’d Selina soon found herself in Alleytown been forced to endure while eking out – a small network of cobblestone streets an existence on the mean streets of the that was nestled between Gotham’s East End. historic old town and the poverty-stricken East End. She was taken in by Mama THE DARK KNIGHT Fortuna – the elderly leader of a gang of Selina did what she had to do to child runaways – and taught the art of survive. She honed her burglary thievery. Selina soon became the slickest skills, and learned numerous and slipperiest burglar that the Gotham martial-arts techniques from City Police Department had ever been the near-legendary forced to deal with. Mama Fortuna was a Armless Master of Crooked upbringing. Selina and Sylvia with Mama Fortuna. 5 KNI_05_p04-09.indd 5 08/07/2020 10:35 PROFILE Geared up. Catwoman is born. combatting crime. Later, Wayne perfected his crime-fighting strategy and donned the mantle of the Bat. On seeing Batman in Partners against crime. Harley Quinn feels Catwoman’s fury in the hunt for Hush. action for the first time, Selina was inspired to CAT’S GOT THE CREAM Catwoman was attracted to Batman create her own Equipped with a deadly whip, Catwoman from the moment of their first meeting. costumed clawed her way to the top of the criminal Her feelings were reciprocated – but the identity – tree. She committed only the most Feline Fatale and the Dark Knight proved Catwoman. audacious robberies and, thanks to her to be too incompatible. The Bat and the animal cunning, was never caught and Cat came from different sides of the caged. She stole from the rich – particularly tracks, and each seemed incapable of the corrupt politicians and mob bosses – and compromise necessary for a truly loving made it a point of honour never to kill relationship. Still, their liaisons on the anyone rooftops of Gotham City continued, and unnecessarily. It was Catwoman occasionally helped Batman perhaps for this thwart the evil ambitions of Gotham’s reason, more than deadliest villains. She fought against any other, that Joker, Two-Face and Harley Quinn – and Batman pursued was a valuable ally when Batman found Catwoman less himself the target of the mysterious Hush. relentlessly than he did other CASUALTIES costumed Samuel Emerson ‘Slam’ Bradley was a criminals. He hard-nosed private detective hired by knew that she Gotham’s sleazy mayor to track down the also protected mysterious Catwoman. He did as asked, the vulnerable but got more than he bargained for when citizens of the he finally cornered Selina Kyle. The pair East End, so he became lovers, but Slam grew to realise often turned a that Catwoman’s heart would always blind eye to her belong to Batman. criminal activities, Shortly after encountering Slam for the giving Catwoman first time, Selina’s life was thrown further every opportunity to into chaos by the return of her sister. After permanently change her being adopted, Maggie grew up to be spots. Sister Magdalena of the Gotham Catholic 6 KNI_05_p04-09.indd 6 08/07/2020 10:36 PROFILE enemies. Sylvia Sinclair – still harbouring a grudge from when they were both teenagers – betrayed Selina’s secrets to Black Mask, the undisputed ruler of Gotham’s underworld. Smarting from Catwoman’s constant interference in his ‘business’ affairs, Black Mask attacked Selina’s closest friends and family – putting Slam Bradley in the hospital and driving Maggie insane by forcing her to bear witness to her husband’s savage murder. Pushed to the edge of reason, Catwoman retaliated by shooting Black Mask in the head. Catwoman had violated her own moral code by murdering Black Mask, and her often precarious sense of identity became even more tenuous in the months that followed. When her apartment was firebombed and her fence and dear friend, Lola, was murdered, Catwoman enacted brutal revenge on the man responsible.