Eartha Kitt: Femme Fatale #1

Eartha Kitt: Femme Fatale #1

writer- Marc Shapiro

artist- Felipe Montecinos

I grew up with Batman and Robin on television. The comics never interested me but when it came to beating the snot out of villains, nobody did it better than Adam West and Burt Ward. Nobody got Batman's goat better than the sexy slinky Catwoman. Catwoman was hot. For a kid growing up in the midwest, she and Batgirl were the finest eye candy on the tube.

She walked the cat-walk, she talked the cat-talk, and she lit up fantasies all over over Gotham City. So what's Eartha Kitt doing right now? Despite her passing on Christmas day, 2008, she's the main character in a comic book published by Bluewater Productions. Marc Shapiro and Felipe Montecinos stick this sexy sassy femme fatale in a heroic role in a book titled (what else?), Eartha Kitt: Femme Fatale.

The book is cute. The art is similar to the style of Disney's Kim Possible cartoon, so it makes the action hero concept feel natural with the team of Shapiro and Montecinos. It also makes the book feel like it was produced for kids. I'm fine with that. I'm a big kid at heart. Felipe Montecinos has a lot of fun with this. He bends and twists the character of Eartha Kitt with wild surfboard action, insane karate punches and kicks, and martial arts moves that would surprise a sea dwelling dinosaur. But he doesn't make the character look like Eartha Kitt. This Eartha Kitt is young and plucky. She wears a kitty cat style mask when she's fighting said dinosaur, but she's really just a teenager in a costume.

I'm sure the writer and artist are fans of this gorgeous icon, but I don't think they represent Earth Kitt very well in this book. Marc Shapiro throws a few purrs into the dialogue and clumsy announcement that her name is “Kitt... Eartha Kitt,” but other than that, she could have said her name was Lee Meriwether or Julie Newmar and nobody would have been the wiser. And what of the children this book was made for? There's nothing mature or grown up about the story. It's Eartha Kitt and some kids trying to reunite a baby dino with it's mom. So this was made for children, but children aren't going to know who Eartha Kitt is. There just aren't enough purrs, meows, or Catwoman references to educate them.

I expected to love this comic, because it's Eartha Kitt, but I don't. The missing Catwoman reference takes away all Earth Kitt context for me and I find this book lacking the fun I thought it would have. Good try Shapiro and Montecinos. Better luck next time.

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Bob Hefler is a writer at Comic Reviews Outside The Cube and can be reached at heflerbob@yahoo.com or on his facebook page.

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