Disclaimer: I’m not bashing Catlad’s concept, I honestly think it’s great! The idea of Tim working with Selina and being acrobatic and sassy is awesome! I’m analyzing whether it could happen in the canon universe and if Catwoman would be able to take on a teenager for a sidekick.
In my previous post about Damian and animals, I jokingly said that Catlad wasn’t possible because Selina would never take him on as her partner after he threw cats.
But then I thought, is it actually possible?
Context of Catlad:
A fanmade character where Tim Drake is taken on by Catwoman as her sidekick. Also dubbed as Catboy, Kitten or Stray. And unlike Tim as Robin, he’s acrobatic, flirty, unbelievably sassy and quick like his mentor Selina.
Some images to show you what he looks like as Catlad (I love Daunt’s interpretation of Catlad):
Couldn’t find the source for this one but credit goes to the original artist (signature in corner).
So on the more NSFW side of the Catlad spectrum, people love to emphasize Tim’s flirty nature, skin tight suit and sassiness.
But underneath the stacks of fluff, lemon, reader insert, slashfic fanfiction, is this alternate universe plausible? Or is it even possible in the same universe?
Let’s get down to the bottom of
this tight spandex suit wearing mystery.
Other
than the fact that most people who would love to see Tim in a black spandex
suit in the DC universe, Selina and Tim have partnered up a few times.
Not
like Nightwing and Catwoman though. Good god they’re notlike this.
She
later told Nightwing that she wanted to make Bruce jealous and he laughed at
her.
And
in the same universe this conversation happened:
So that’s a bit
weird. But I didn’t blink when I saw google suggest: Nightwing and Catwoman
lemon fanfic.
Anyways.
Tim Drake and
Catwoman have had moments where it felt like they could have a partnership (and
Tim has been told by Bruce before to stay away from Catwoman so there’s that
sort of forbidden aspect).
The shining example
of why people see them as potential partners lies in the story arc of Contagion
where Gotham had a plague and Tim was infected.
She
sees why Batman would take on a partner. She saw his bravery. She saw his
determination. She admired that.
But
there are major reasons why she wouldn’t take on a sidekick.
Like
Bruce, before Dick Grayson, she likes to work alone. But she also wouldn’t put
her own daughter in danger.
Granted,
Damian was trained by the League of Assassins and Bruce tried to keep him out
of harm’s way as much as possible.
But
Selina didn’t understand why he would have adolescent partners at all.
This
is shown when she’s with Tim and Bruce discussing what to do with Helena (her
own daughter and it’s implied strongly that Bruce is the father).
“Face it, Bruce… The world you and I live in? It’s not a safe place for kids.”
This one line shows her feelings about his past partners and thinks that children deserve to have a normal healthy life. Which is what she strives for with Helena.
But Helena gets repeatedly kidnapped and put into danger because she’s Catwoman.
Before
this discussion, she and Bruce had staged an incident where Bruce pretended to be a
terrorist that staged Selina’s and Helena’s deaths so that her daughter would be finally safe to live with Selina:
But she’s still scared for Helena’s safety.
Despite
faking their deaths, she knows it won’t be enough. She didn’t want to deal
with the loss that Bruce felt when he lost Jason.
She arranges a new plan with Bruce to make her safe
once and for all and in the end gives her up.
In the end, she was broken by this after the long struggle to keep her by her side despite the fact that she’s Catwoman.
I think that other than the fact that she finds sidekicks to be a hindrance (since she wouldn’t want anything to go wrong on a heist) that she wouldn’t want a child’s death on her hands (Tim was only 9 when he was recruited by Bruce in the first storyline) which is why she gave Helena up for adoption.
She felt like she couldn’t protect Helena, so how could she feel like she could protect a young sidekick that is constantly in the line of fire?
She would care so much about Tim and would eventually make him go away (like Bruce had initially done with Tim because of the death of Jason and turned Tim away).
TLDR Version: Catwoman had given up her child because she didn’t want her to be in danger. So it’s not plausible for Tim to be taken on except as a partner sometimes because she cares so much and believes that children’s lives should be healthy and safe from harm.
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