Harley Quinn Season 2 Introduces Catwoman: How She’s Different In The Show

Warning: SPOILERS ahead for Harley Quinn, season 2, episode 3 “Trapped.”

Harley Quinn season 2, episode 3, “Trapped,” introduced Catwoman into the world of the popular DC Universe series. The episode centers around the first official team-up of the Feline Fatale, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn in this reality, but the interactions were far different than is normal for the anti-hero trio.

Collectively known as the Gotham City Sirens, Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn have been infrequent allies over the years in animation and comics. Their team-ups first started in the year 2000 with Gotham Girls, an animated streaming series from the same team responsible for Batman: The Animated Series. Writer Paul Dini and artist Guillem March would later bring the partnership into the comics’ mainstream with the 2009 Gotham City Sirens comic book. A Gotham City Sirens movie set in the DCEU is currently in pre-production, with Suicide Squad director David Ayer attached to direct and Margot Robbie playing Harley Quinn.

The main plot of “Trapped” sees Harley and Ivy needing to break into the museum lair of Doctor Trap – a villain who, as his name suggests, is a master of designing deadly traps. This leads Harley to seek out Catwoman, who is known as the best burglar in the city and more than a match for whatever lethal safeguards Doctor Trap can throw at them. Ivy has reservations, however, having previously worked with Selina Kyle on a scheme in the Amazon jungle. Rather than helping Ivy shut down a deforestation campaign, Catwoman ditched her to steal a giant diamond and left Ivy stuck with a hefty hotel bill from a luxury resort spa and charges for “all kinds of scrubs that I’ve never heard of!“

This version of Selina Kyle proves to be quite catty, pun very much intended. There are a number of mind games worthy of Regina George from Mean Girls, with Selina opening a lunch meeting held to discuss the heist by complimenting Ivy’s jacket. This sets Ivy to stammering about how she thought she liked it but wasn’t sure and then asking Catwoman if she really does like it or was just trying to be nice. Her enigmatic answer is to purr, “What do you think?”

Harley is immediately put on edge when she sees Catwoman flaunting the arrogant behavior Ivy warned her about earlier, such as ordering food for everyone and casually stealing everything around her just because she can. Ivy excuses all this, however, to the point of being downright submissive, because there’s something about Selina’s aloof persona that draws people in and leaves them wanting to prove they’re as cool and confident as she is. Catwoman even goes so far as to steal Ivy’s jacket right off of her body and leaves Ivy excusing the theft because “it looks so much better on her.”

This is quite the contrast to the Gotham City Sirens comics, where the team is more egalitarian and Catwoman is probably the most overtly heroic and friendly of the three anti-heroes. Here, Selina Kyle is unapologetically in it for herself and she doesn’t understand why Ivy is going out of her way to help Harley Quinn with a heist when there’s nothing in it for her. This marked difference in Catwoman’s behavior between mediums goes on to affirm how strong the bond between Harley and Ivy is, and how Ivy has changed for the better since befriending Harley.

About The Author

Matt Morrison
(1835 Articles Published)

Matt Morrison has been writing about comics since before the word
“blogging” was coined. He got his start writing for the
legendary DC Comics digital fanzine Fanzing,
before receiving his own column, The Mount. Since then he has gone on
to write for over a dozen websites, including 411
Mania, Comics
Nexus and The Cult of Nobody. He holds both an MS in Information
Science from the University of North Texas and a BFA from the
University of Texas at Arlington. Known as a font of comic book
history trivia, he has delivered lectures on the history of American
Comic Books, Japanese Manga, Doctor Who, and Cosplay at over a dozen conventions
and served as an Expert In-Residence for a course on Graphic Novels
for Librarians at the University of North Texas. In addition to his
work for Screen Rant, Matt is currently the Editor In Chief of
Kabooooom.com and writes reviews for No
Flying, No Tights – a graphic literature and anime review site
aimed at teachers and librarians. He also maintains a personal blog –
My Geeky Geeky Ways –
which hosts his extensive episode guide for the television series
making up The Arrowverse as well as his
comedic Let’s Play videos. What little spare time he has is
devoted towards acting, role-playing, movie-riffing and sarcasm. You
can follow his adventures on Twitter, @GeekyGeekyWays.

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