Holy Whiligigs, Batman! The confusing world of Bat-Canon.

Thanks, Daniel. I'll look at it in a bit...it's still a little early for that right now. I love the hivemind though.

The important passages:

The Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale LONG HALLOWEEN/DARK VICTORY opus wasn't tied to mainstream continuity, allowing them the leeway to kill Year One-era characters (like Lieutenant Flass, who survived into the present in the core series' wedding of Jim Gordon and Sarah Essen) and portray a romantic relationship between Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne that post-Crisis continuity had prohibited. The revised history had declared that Catwoman had never been captured and that Selina had never met Bruce or Alfred (BATMAN #499 and others). That said, the aforementioned Ed Brubaker has included the Bruce-Selina romance as canon, anyway (in places like BATMAN #600, CATWOMAN (current) #10 and CATWOMAN SECRET FILES #1).

That same issue of SECRET FILES also officially banished a Catwoman story (ACTION COMICS WEEKLY #s 611-614) that has long been regarded as non-canon. The episode had killed off Selina's pal, Holly (alive and well in the current series), but the detail that threw everyone into an uproar was a scene in which Catwoman threw two security guards from a skyscraper window to their deaths in order to frame Holly's killer for the murders. Even setting aside Catwoman's aversion to killing, the sequence didn't make a whole lot of sense.

Batman: Year One indicated that the pre-Catwoman Selina Kyle had been a prostitute, a development that seemed a bit too adult for a character still being marketed to children. Perhaps in acknowledgment of this, DC has shied away from that characterization since Zero Hour. 1994's CATWOMAN #0, for instance, established that the young Selina had become wealthy as a cat burglar and that the hooker persona had been a subsequent ruse to separate potential customers from their cash the moment they were alone.

That's great...I made a note. But I also need a little bit of a primer or "Cliff's notes" or something, cause I haven't read a comic in fifteen years. (Y'all are gonna throw me a telethon now, right?) It doesn't seem possible.

Good heavens. And I thought Firefly was a fandom with complex canon issues.

However, in the latest storyline in Batman, the 12 issue Hush, Batman and Catwoman finally admit they want to have a relationship, and Batman reveals that he is Bruce Wayne to her.

Of course, these events haven't been reflected in Catwoman's own title yet, which has her in a purely physical affair with Sam Spade, an older private investigator.

It other words Ericka, almost anything has been canon at one time or another. The most common default has been Batman and Catwoman in a flirtatious relationship, well Catwoman being flirtatious, Batman being stoic but giving Selena some rope...

OK, thanks. A lot of effort to go to for one scene, but that's how much I love my audience. And yes, Am, wrod.

While we're doing canon questions, can I pick the hivemind on Smallville canon (I'll xpost this with the Smallville thread, probably): How old was Lex when Lillian died? How old was he when the meteor shower came down? (in other words-- which came first?)

AM!

I just watched The Prom again. Cindy was right (and when isn't she?). The Class Protector award still makes me cry.

However, my point...

When they're trying to figure out where the hellhounds came from, Buffy originally tries to send Wesley and Cordelia to check out the boy's home, and then says, "and go by The Magic Box." When they don't seem to understand, she says, "The Magic Box. It's right next to the dress store on Main." The dress store is the formal wear shop where Cordelia was working right before the Prom when her parents lost all their money so she could earn enough to buy her dress. Xander eventually goes instead, but I thought you'd like to know how she described its location.

I hope this is helpful.

Dude! It really is on Main Street!

Here's my drabble for this week. The theme is weather.

Sailor Take Warning (Angel, Gunn - no spoilers) The waves were coming in hard, whitecaps moving in fretful rolls, crashing on the beach. The wind was rising, a dark buzzing whipsaw; it tasted of rain. There was a scarlet tint to the horizon, visible even against the darkness.

"How's that old saying go?" Gunn, at his shoulder, squinted into the massing clouds. "About the red sky at night?"

"Sailor's delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning." Angel didn't turn. "You should head back, Gunn. The sucker's about to hit."

"OK. You coming?"

"Nope." Angel sounded regretful. "Someday I want to see the morning half of this weather."