If Catwoman gets a spinoff show, here's what we want to see

The Batman arrived with the lofty ambition of reintroducing us not only to its title character, but to several other key figures who exist in the Dark Knight's orbit. Matt Reeve's sprawling neo-noir gave us a reinvention of Bruce Wayne, yes, but it also gave us new takes on Jim Gordon, Alfred Pennyworth, The Penguin, The Riddler, and of course, Catwoman, the cat burglar turned antihero played with seductive power by Zoë Kravitz. 

Giving us that many major players in one film, even a film that's nearly three hours long, is a tricky proposition, but The Batman always manages to feel like a fully-realized world, a vision of Gotham in the midst of great upheaval thanks to Batman's arrival. Likewise, its characters also feel fully realized, packed with potential that makes us imagine the lives they could lead in the next chapter of the franchise. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the journey of Selina Kyle, who goes from determined loner to Batman's reluctant partner, to woman who heads out in search of her own destiny.

Now, with the next phase of this version of Gotham set to move forward, it's worth examining where Selina might head next. 

**Spoilers for The Batman ahead**

When we first meet The Batman's version of Selina Kyle, she's a waitress at the Iceberg Lounge by night, and a cat burglar by later-at-night. She uses the information she gleans from Gotham's rich and powerful men in the club to her advantage. When her girlfriend/best friend turns up missing in the wake of the Mayor's murder, though, she finds herself teaming up with Batman after he tracks her down mid-burglary and asks for her help. What follows between the two of them is an unlikely tale of kindred spirits, as both Bruce and Selina see something in each other that they don't in anyone else in the city. 

Despite that connection, though, Selina ends the film with the decision that, given everything that's happened, it's perhaps better for her to leave Gotham. After bidding Batman farewell, she heads out with no clear declaration of where exactly she's going. But she does offer one possible destination: Bludhaven, the DC Comics city best known as the home base of former Batman protege Dick Grayson, aka Nightwing. 

It's worth mentioning that Selina never says she's definitely going to Bludhaven, so any future stories featuring this version of the character might not take her there.

It's also worth mentioning that The Batman is a story about the titular character's early days, and we have no idea if Dick Grayson is even alive in this universe, let alone if Bludhaven is the same city that exists in the comics. Just by saying the word, though, Selina brought up a whole universe of possibilities for herself and her future in this particular continuity. 

In the realm of DC Comics, Bludhaven is a city in New Jersey, just a relatively short hop from Gotham, where corruption and crime are often just as much, if not more, dangerous than they are in the larger city. Gotham has its share of gangsters and crooked politicians, but Bludhaven's are often more savage, taking advantage of being a big fish in a somewhat smaller pond to rip the city to shreds and milk its assets for all they're worth. It's one of the reasons Dick Grayson seems drawn to it as a place to carve out his own superhero identity. He sees it as a place where he can make a genuine difference in the lives of the people, and its villains as thugs who aren't quite diabolical enough to always catch the eye of the Justice League. 

So, what does Selina Kyle bring to a city like that?

Photo: Warner Bros.

Well, this version of Selina, with the lessons she's just learned and the perspective she has after encountering the Riddler, could make quite a dent in the corrupt portions of Bludhaven's wealthy population. If she wanted to just lay low and be a cat burglar again, she could do well for herself there, and even take her thing for stray animals and stray humans to new heights, funding a shelter of sorts through her exploits.

But of course, it's worth remembering that in the context of The Batman's ending, Selina is now much more than a cat burglar.

By the end of the film, Selina's also confronted her own legacy as the daughter of Carmine Falcone. This corrupt, murderous gangster was the father who never really knew she was there and treated her like just another pawn in his massive Gotham City chess game. It's easy to imagine Selina exploiting those connections for her own gain as well, either through organized crime or through vigilantism. By the end of the film, she was helping Bruce fight off Riddler's follows, and she might bring that same fighting spirit to taking down her father's associates in other cities. 

There's one other wrinkle to Selina's story, though, and that's her perspective on Gotham after the events of the film. Batman spends the whole movie struggling to feel that he has made any difference in his home city, until finally realizing that his presence has indeed changed Gotham (for better and for worse), and he has to see his mission through. Selina, after living through the same events, deems Gotham beyond salvation, and urges Bruce to one day save himself rather than go down with a sinking ship.

With that in mind, can fans expect that Selina will one day find a place that she feels is worth saving? Will she find a town of her own, or a group of people, that she feels she can save, a new group of strays, or will her instinct for self-preservation keep her on a more nomadic path?

Bruce and his alter ego comes through The Batman with a renewed sense of purpose, a re-framing of what was a symbol of vengeance into a chance to be a symbol for hope in a city that sorely lacks it. Catwoman comes through it with a renewed sense of isolation, and the next chapter of her story could be one that forces her to choose between that and her clear instinct for helping others, whether she likes it or not.