Nothing specific in Catwoman's history precludes her from being a black woman. So for over 50 years,Selina Kyle has occasionally and casually shown up as African American, proving colorblind casting is nothing for fanboys to be up in arms about.
Issue #81 established that Selina had a Cuban mother and white father. This made her one of the few Latine superheroes in Big Two comics. It's also something that's stuck with the character through other iterations.
Catwoman was first portrayed in the 1960s series by Julie Newmar in the first two seasons. Lee Meriwether and Eartha Kitt replaced when she was unavailable for the movie and season three. Marilyn Watson was Newmar's stunt double.
The series also told her tragic backstory, with Catwoman's parents having died when she was a child, with her mother dying by suicide and her father from alcohol poisoning; Carlton in the series's 81st issue added to it, depicting her mother as a dark-skinned Latina, making Catwoman a half-Latina.
You Gained Control Over This Trickster Consciousness! This Is Unheard Of
What race is Catwoman Zoe Kravitz?
Kravitz was born in Venice, Los Angeles at the home of her parents, musician Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet. Both her parents are of half African-American and half-Ashkenazi Jewish descent.
Selina Kyle/Catwoman is often depicted as bisexual in the comics, but the character's LGBTQ sexuality has never crossed over onto the big screen in iterations of the character played by Eartha Kitt, Michelle Pfeiffer, Halle Berry and Anne Hathaway.
Catwoman, then called "the Cat", first appeared in Batman #1 (spring 1940) as a mysterious burglar and jewel thief, revealed at the end of the story to be a young, attractive (unnamed) woman, having disguised herself as an old woman during the story and been hired to commit a burglary.
In the post-Flashpoint Earth 2 continuity, Helena Wayne was the daughter of Batman and Catwoman (Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle Wayne). She was also the only Robin to her father's Batman identity and a more ruthless character than previously seen.
As a woman of both explicitly Arabic and Chinese ethnicity, Talia serves as enemy and reward for the explorative Batman comics of the 1970s. Though Talia moves easily between the two contrasting character tropes, that fluidity is rarely mirrored in individual stories.
Her heritage, and especially ethnicity, is not really relevant in her potrayals and storylines. Selina grew up as an orphan, making a life for herself in the big city. She doesn't live by any particular cultural background! The first mention of Selina's parents appears in Catwoman, vol. 2 #69.
Casting directors surely faced a dilemma when it came to who would play Catwoman in Batman Returns. Since her origin story provided in 'Her Sister's Keeper', Catwoman was presumably a mixture of Latino and white, but the last visual representation of Catwoman on the small screen was Black.
In 2004, director Pitof chose Halle Berry for the leading character in his feature film Catwoman, making for the second black actress to be given the role, 36 years after Eartha Kitt.
Below the surface Catwoman and Black Cat are far different individuals. As stated before, Felicia Hardy grew up wealthy and steals for fun and the thrill of it. Selena Kyle aka Catwoman is the exact opposite. She grew up poor and steals for money.
The first feature film to include an adaptation of Catwoman was Batman, produced immediately after production of the first season of the 1966 television series. When the producers realized that Julie Newmar would be unavailable due to prior commitments, they cast Lee Meriwether to portray the character.
Black Cat (Felicia Hardy) is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Marv Wolfman, Keith Pollard, and Dave Cockrum, the character first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #194 (July 1979).
It is then revealed that the Joker's real name is "Jack Oswald White." Martha then shares that she visited the Flashpoint universe's version of Jack Oswald White, discovering him to be a struggling family man supporting his wife and a child as a janitor at Wayne Casino.
Nothing specific in Catwoman's history precludes her from being a black woman. So for over 50 years,Selina Kyle has occasionally and casually shown up as African American, proving colorblind casting is nothing for fanboys to be up in arms about.
If you haven't heard of the Golden Retriever / Black Cat phenomenon, the term describes a relationship between a friendly, extraverted, energetic golden retriever person and their more reserved, introverted, quiet black cat counterpart.
In the recently published Iron Cat #2, the publisher narrates the origins of Black Cat and makes it clear that, if Catwoman (Selina) steals out of necessity and to help the oppressed neighborhoods, Felicia does it for the opposite. She comes from a wealthy family and undertakes her acts for pure fun, for excitement.
Through her aggression, deceitfulness, theft, and serious violation of rules, Selina displays traits of conduct disorder, the childhood precursor to antisocial personality disorder. This could mean she's on a somewhat familiar trajectory.
Catman was Thomas Reese Blake, a world-famous trapper of jungle cats who turned to crime because he had grown bored with hunting and had squandered most of his millions. He became a burglar who committed his crimes in a catsuit made out of an ancient African cloth. His costume was modeled after Catwoman's disguise.
She became a thief for survival and eventually turned into a vigilante, partnering with the vigilante Batman. The two developed a romance and she unexpectedly became pregnant, which left her unhappy as she thought she would have to settle down.
