Nerding Day: Catman Eats a Single Egg

I love comic books because the right combination of artist and author can produce a work with layers of intricate detail and meaning in every single panel. There's a single comic book panel that has lived rent free in my head for at least five years. It's Cat Man, alone in a kitchen, in full costume preparing a dinner for himself of a single, incredibly smokey, egg. Look at this art.

There is not a single seasoning anywhere near this man in this panel. There's no butter. There's no olive oil. There's not even a spatula! At first glance, you might think, "My God, this man has simply cracked an egg into this pan with no further plans. Or, perhaps more terrifyingly, he's going to slurp it right into his mouth when it's done."

If you look closer, you'll see Catman has what looks like a sword handle sticking out of his utility belt, except Catman isn't a big sword dude. He has knife claws built into his gloves. Carrying an extra knife would be excessive when he has five right there. I think that is a spatula handle, my friends! Catman has tucked a spatula into his utility belt.

Here's a (horny) close up of his buff waist from one issue earlier. Note the lack of a knife handle in this picture:

He's got to have an exit strategy for that egg, and I think it's putting the utility belt to good use for once. Maybe those pouches are full of chives and paprika?

The idea that all Catman is eating for dinner is a single fried egg with no butter, oil, or seasoning actually makes sense with his character's history, though. You see, Catman is kind of Bizzaro Batman. Thomas Blake is another bored rich guy in an animal costume, but instead of fighting villains, he becomes one due to his lack of murdered parents. Catman is who Batman would be if he had grown up another spoiled rich kid instead of a sad spoiled rich kid. He's even introduced to us as a member of Bruce Wayne's social club, The Gotham White Guys Society For Progress (No Women Allowed).

For a long time, Catman was a punching bag in the DC universe. It's pretty clear that Bill Finger was phoning it in the day he introduced him. For instance, they could have come up with a better name for his tame black panther than "Felina." Look I'll do it, Big Catina, no, Pawsetta? Shit, that was harder than I thought. Hot Tub? The cat's name should be Hot Tub.

Also, Catman was introduced in 1962. I know comics weren't super woke back then, but "She was a mere woman! Imagine what I, a man, COULD DO!" Is clearly a formal invitation to fucking hate this guy, which I humbly accept!

Instead of a batmobile, Catman has a catmobile! Instead of a bat-o-rang, it's a cat-o-rang; instead of self-respect, he has a whole bunch more cat-themed items. His origin story is that nobody wanted to come up with new stuff that day, so they copy-pasted Batman and added an extra pinch of cringe.

At the end of his first encounter with Batman, Catman sort of drowns but also, maybe not. Batman just doesn't care enough to look into it more, and is sort of like, "He'll probably come back and steal more stuff, but I'm super tired today and, like, it's cold. I feel like that's enough Catman for everyone."

DC writers went on to bring back Catman to make fun of him over the years. The worst offender is Brad Meltzer's Green Arrow where Catman appears at Green Arrow's fake funeral and is subsequently hunted down and beaten up by another member of the Bored Rich Guy in a Costume Club. A solid third of that comic book is just making fun of Catman as a concept, beginning with Green Arrow new-phone-who-thissing the entire concept of Catman.

Once Catman's existence is explained to Green Arrow, he's like, "God, that sucks. What a sucky sounding guy. Good thing DC only has cool boys like me now." He and his sidekick do a whole routine about how the entire concept of Catman is dumb, and FYI, Catman is fat now, so they can call him a "fat cat," thus falling into the cat pun-based trap C(F)atman laid for them. Fools! They sound as dumb as his original character did now!

I love these two panels because we now have established a precedent for Catman bumming around his house in his costume. This is a thing that he does! And yes, it is sad and weird, but it's Catman canon baby, which is another piece of why this is brilliant:

Just wanted to remind you, this article isn't about Catman. It's about the single panel, which happens to include Catman and his spatchy-spatch, and his weird habit of wearing a very tight spandex outfit all the time, even when no one can see him. You need to understand the mythology of Catman to understand the egg.

Writer Gail Simone rehabilitated Catman's image in her Secret Six series. Instead of hunting big cats, he's been living alongside a pride of lions in Africa. He's lost the weight, and he's a buff, bisexual anti-hero who kind of became the star of Secret Six, which is the amazing power of Gail Simone. She took this nerdy punching bag and made him cool without ever forgetting who he was (a total weirdo).

A lot of people loved Catman after Secret Six, so Gail Simone brought him with her into the fold of one of her most popular titles, Birds Of Prey, for a brief shot at romance with Huntress. They were a real will they/won't they murder each other for a few issues, even getting a cover kiss.

Catman ends up deciding that he's not good enough for Huntress, so he creates this elaborate psychological ruse to convince her not to like him anymore, and it works! One issue after that is where we get this:

Oracle calls him for help with Huntress, and we find him here. Is...is this supposed to be his home? There's not a single picture on the wall. Not a novelty sign that says, "No Bitchin in my Kitchen," not a picture of a cat, or a cat tchotchke to be seen. Where's Felina? Maybe it's not his house at all. Maybe he just got too comfortable in an IKEA display?

This is the home of a sad man. This is the dinner of an extremely sad man who has to watch his weight but grew up wealthy, so he never learned how to make his own food. He's using a twenty-four-inch frying pan to make a single egg with a foot tall flame like some sort of indoor caveman. And that amount of smoke? He's burning that egg for sure. It looks like a weird throwaway panel, but it's woven with the rich history of a troubled man.

There is, however, one hitch in this panel which makes it imperfect. One tiny detail that troubles and mystifies me, and that is the, I want to say tea kettle? What is this guy's story? It looks fairly normal at a glance but up close...

I haven't read a lot of Secret Six, so I'm going to assume there's some deep Catman tea kettle lore in there that I'm missing out on. The bottom is huge, but the spout is so tiny. It's made for someone who wants a LOT of tea as slowly as possible. Also, there's no visible lid. Where does the water go in? Maybe it's a steel hat? Or a cauldron with a carrying handle and a laser pointer.

I don't understand how someone could try to draw a tea kettle and fail this hard. It's what happens to a tea kettle during a game of telephone where part of the way through, someone started describing a kettlebell instead.

My theory is that Catman is punishing himself with the worst possible tea kettle. Remember, he's seething with self-hatred at this point in his storyline. He wants to suffer. What at first might have seemed like a mistake committed by someone who's never entered a human kitchen before is actually another stunning insight into the psychology of Catman. He would choose the worst possible kettle!

Anyway, what’s your favorite single comic panel that weaves a tale of tragedy? What, you don’t have one? Ok, nerd.

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