Callidus

I’m sitting here in the hotel room, waiting on my sweetie to drag herself out of bed (she’s not a morning person). In a little over an hour we’re going to meet thrall and spend the day with her. But first, I thought I might share some more comic-mind-control hotness, which I teased you with a little last time.

About ten years ago, in the Batman monthly comic, DC ran what is, to date, probably my favorite Batman story arc: Hush. Written by the famed Jeph Loeb and with artwork by the legendary Jim Lee, Hush was sold, at the time, as exactly what it would become: a blockbuster. Hush featured some of the best villains from Batman’s acclaimed rogues gallery as well as some of his greatest allies. It also has, for my money, the definitive Batman-Catwoman romance arc.

And speaking of Catwoman…

In the first issue of the series, Batman is on the trail of a boy kidnapped by Killer Croc. Bruce finds the circumstances suspect as kidnapping and ransom fall far outside of Croc’s typical methods and motives. The issue culminates in an epic throw-down between the two, but while they’re fighting, someone sneaks in and burgles the ransom money.

Batman is surprised, but not too surprised, to find Catwoman fleeing across Gotham’s rooftops with the briefcase of ransom-cash strapped to her back. Just as he’s about to catch her, an unseen foe snaps his grapple line and Batman tumbles towards the street leaving Catwoman to escape to a plush penthouse where she hands over the money to…Poison Ivy.

Now, for certain romantic reasons, its a great idea for Catwoman to be under Ivy’s control and to be stealing, not for herself, but for the green-thumbed goddess. For certain erotic-mind-control reasons its a great idea for Catoman to be helplessly under Ivy’s mind-control and to be stealing not for herself but for her Mistress. See what you think:

A few issues later, there’s another bit of business that really tweaks my fetish button when Catwoman catches up with Ivy in Metropolis:

Now, that last panel is a bit of misdirection. At the time, Catwoman is working with Batman to track down Ivy but Bruce, as well as the audience, isn’t quite certain of her motives. So, when Catoman drops in and…lets savor it…proclaims that she can’t resist Ivy, its not clear whether Ivy’s pheromone control is still in play.

However, in the next panel, the two ladies bust out the kick-ass in a cat-fight (wacka wacka) rivaling anything Bruce himself might get mixed up in. Things are cut short when Batman arrives but Ivy isn’t about to let herself get double-teamed. She’s got an ace up her sleeve…in blue and red tights:

While Superman helplessly obeys Ivy’s command to attack Batman and Catwoman, Ivy makes her escape and the plot, as they say, thickens. How did Ivy infect Clark? She’d need kryptonite-laced lipstick for her kiss to have any effect, but where would she get kryptonite? And for that matter, since when did she care about money more than her plant-children?

All these questions and more lead Batman into one of his most challenging adventures. Ultimately, Ivy’s pheromones are not the only mind-control featured in Hush, there’s another bit of business that’s revealed late in the series that is far more subtle, yet also quite a bit more insidious.

That, I’ll leave to your imagination as I don’t want to completely spoil the ending for those that might be intrigued enough to go give it a read.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this installment of EMC-in-comics. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go meet thrall.

See you next time 🙂