Top 100 Batman VILLAINS

11 - Catman

#11 - Catman
First Appearance: Detective Comics #311 (Jan 1963)

" Ah, the thrill of the hunt -- there's no feeling in the world like it!" ~Catman

Catman, my love affair with the Secret Six started thanks to you and you alone. Getting to witness the rise of Catman from overweight robber failing to knock over a convenience store thanks to the interference of Green Arrow, you went from being a joke to being a badass in the same amount of time it to for Punisher to do the same thing in Welcome Back, Frank. And man! What a welcome turnaround it was. Catman quickly became the poster child for a new type of character, one that I had to coin a phrase in order to describe: the "anti-villain".

Catman has always been a solitary creature, after all. Looking at his Silver Age and Bronze Age appearances, he was ready enough to tangle with Catwoman or Joker just as much as he wanted to take on the Bat. And even later on, such as during Cataclysm, he saved the lives of innocents by pissing off KGBeast and distracting his attention. His motives have always truly been his own. However, with the advent of Secret Six, there's been a noticeable change in his behavior. He's seen both sides of the system, and neither one is worth a damn to him. And that's why the Secret Six is really his team more than any other; he embodies a new form of rebellious counterculture that subverts even the current counterculture movement in the super-villain community. Catman is the anti-villain; chaotic neutral for you DnD folk.

Catman's clever, focused, humor-filled and yet remorseless if necessary. His relationship with Batman is one of quiet admiration, and his love affair with Huntress was one of the highlights of the pre52 prior to its end. I think for several years there, Catman was the most intriguing and fresh voice in the DCU, and its thanks to Gail Simone recognizing his potential and seeing the value of an unusual villain group operating on the fringes of the Bat world. Regardless, Thomas Blake is one of the characters that's a guaranteed sale for me. Put his name on a comic and I'm guaranteed to come running; that's how you know a character is good.

Greatest Catman Story Ever Told: Anyone who tells you that it isn't "Cats in the Cradle" is lying to you so hard. This is a vicious, brutal and emotionally-gripping story that makes Catman a must-read. Few characters come along in fiction that can pull off a story like this, and Catman is easily one of them. So so so so so good.