Possible Catwoman discrepancy with "Year One"/"The Long Halloween" continuity?

[Relish in Chaos]

Now, I'd been reading some of my Batman comics that I'd purchased over the last two years, and something has always been bugging me. If Year One and The Long Halloween are apparently in the same continuity, how come Catwoman looks so drastically different in each of them? I mean, I'm not just talking about a change in art style, obviously.

In Year One, Catwoman is vaguely dark-skinnned (tan or, at least, mixed race) and has very short black hair. In The Long Halloween, she has long black hair - of course, I accept that people can grow their hair - but she now has white skin.

Not to mention, where did Holly Robinson, Catwoman's teenage prostitute friend in Year One, go by the time The Long Halloween (which, I've heard, occurs at least six months after Year One and goes into Batman's second year of crimefighting)? I read on Wikipedia that, in the 1989 Catwoman miniseries, Catwoman left Holly at a convent where Catwoman's sister Maggie is a nun, but is that canon?

 

[Thaluikhain]

Er, would this be due to the rebooted new 52 stuff?

Skin colour could be simply due to different artists, though, not be the first time that's happened.

 

[EeveeElectro]

Year One was quite dark. Literally, it was all set at night and Catwoman only came out at night (If I remember right? I have the comic but I can't remember seeing her in the light).
I've just skimmed through my copy and I just think it's the artists. The colours make her look darker than she is, it's just the style of that comic.

Her outfit is different in TLH too.I just think it's down to the two different artists and colour schemes.

 

[Queen Michael]

If there's no specific reason to consider the miniseries, which I admit I haven't read, canon then I'd say it is canon.

Er, would this be due to the rebooted new 52 stuff?

Skin colour could be simply due to different artists, though, not be the first time that's happened.

Both Y1 and TLH were published before anyone had even thought of the New 52 reboot, athough.

 

[Silvanus]

This is purely an example of the differences between artists and writers. Frank Miller and Tim Sale are night and day to eachother, but bound to the same continuity.


If I'm perfectly honest, there'll be far greater artistic discrepancies than this awaiting you, if you plan to read more. Some artists depict Penguin as a quasi-mutant, flippers and all, while others depict him as an almost-normal looking businessman. Some artists show Scarecrow (without his mask) as an intellectual professor-type, while I've also seen him as a complete grotesque even without the mask, his lips sewn shut and his eyes without pupils.

Hell, I've seen Cheetah depicted as both just woman in a Cheetah skin, and as a bizarre half-Cheetah, half-woman.



I'd recommend picking up "Catwoman: When In Rome", by the way, if you're interested in Jeph Loeb's character arc for Catwoman. It's often overlooked.

 

[Pyramid Head]

Er, would this be due to the rebooted new 52 stuff?

Skin colour could be simply due to different artists, though, not be the first time that's happened.

If it's in continuity with "Year One" that means it's part of the All-Star continuity. The All-Star continuity was a little like D.C's answer to the Marvel Ultimate continuity where you got to see modern versions of character origins.
In case you were wondering, around the time of the start of the All-Star continuity was when Frank Miller went fucking insane and completely destroyed the image of Batman with his horrible writing, horrible concept of what a good dark story is, and most stupidly of all his depiction of almost every woman as a "Whore." Frank Miller is a little like George Lucas in that he got lucky but as time went on you saw just how little talent he really had.



Anyway if i remember correctly the Year One and All-Star continuities are not tied to the main DC one. In the main DC continuity Batman never kidnapped Dick Grayson, doesn't kill cops, and apparently the main continuity DC Batman views rock and roll as inherently evil, or at least he did before that stupid reboot thing while in the All-Star continuity he references Aqualung.









Now to answer the original post, i don't know but i think Holly may have been dead in The Long Halloween. She was randomly killed off in one of Catwoman's stories and i'm not sure if she was retconned back in at that point.

 

[Hazy992]

Well The Long Halloween was written 12 years after Year One and by different writers with different writing styles, so there's bound to be incongruities. Moreover, it's hard to have a consistent continuity for 70+ years, even with various events and reboots trying to tie things up.

As for Selina Kyle's appearance, I'm gonna chalk that up simply to differing art styles.

 

[Hazy992]

snip

With Year One and 'the Millerverse' things get a little complicated. You're right in saying that Frank Miller's Batman stories are supposed to be in one separate universe, but as for Year One looking around on the internet I'm getting mixed messages. Some places are saying Year One simultaneously fits into Miller's continuity and in mainstream DC continuity, whilst I'm seeing people elsewhere state that Year One's place in Miller's continuity is uncertain. At any rate Year One seems to be part of the main DC Universe.

As for Miller, he went insane long before All-Star Batman & Robin. Just look at The Dark Knight Strikes Again for evidence of that

 

[Relish in Chaos]

This is purely an example of the differences between artists and writers. Frank Miller and Tim Sale are night and day to eachother, but bound to the same continuity.


If I'm perfectly honest, there'll be far greater artistic discrepancies than this awaiting you, if you plan to read more. Some artists depict Penguin as a quasi-mutant, flippers and all, while others depict him as an almost-normal looking businessman. Some artists show Scarecrow (without his mask) as an intellectual professor-type, while I've also seen him as a complete grotesque even without the mask, his lips sewn shut and his eyes without pupils.

Hell, I've seen Cheetah depicted as both just woman in a Cheetah skin, and as a bizarre half-Cheetah, half-woman.



I'd recommend picking up "Catwoman: When In Rome", by the way, if you're interested in Jeph Loeb's character arc for Catwoman. It's often overlooked.

Interesting. I do know about the discrepancies between, for example, Scarecrow's appearance and personality between comics (Loeb seems to have a weird thing about making Scarecrow talk almost exclusively in nursery ryhmes, due to apparently being raised by his fanatically religious grandma), but I'd always notch it up to a mere costume change.

And yeah, I do hope to pick Catwoman: When in Rome at some point. I've got a lot of books to read at the moment. I want to finish my Hellsing manga collection, buy Watchmen (the graphic novel), buy Watchmen and Philosophy, buy Dark Victory (I read it in the shop; I like it equally as much as The Long Halloween), buy Legends of the Dark Knight #50 (so I can finally read the story of Batman and the Joker?s first meeting, as well as look in full depth at the artwork of the guy that drew Bats in the 70s), buy some stuff on psychology and sociology and feminism and sex and gender roles...so yeah, I've got to save up a crapload of money to indulge in some quality "me time".