Limited Collectors' Edition #45 (1976)

More Secret Origins Super-Villains
"The Secret Life of the Catwoman": The gang czar Mister X terrorizes Gotham City, and decides he wants to work with Catwoman. Batman and Robin are shocked to hear from Commissioner Gordon that Catwoman has been broken out of jail with dynamite. Mister X offers to plan heists and have Catwoman commit them so they can share the loot. Catwoman works with X's henchman Dipper, and they make fun of a wannabe crook named Mousey. When Catwoman leaves her hideout, she finds Batman and Robin waiting for her. They try to give chase, but she throws a box at them with angry cat inside it. Batman runs towards falling debris, and Catwoman realizes he will be killed. Instead of escaping, she leaps to save Batman's life and gets hit in the head by a brick. They wake her up in the Batcave, where she feverishly screams about airline rules. It's revealed that Selina Kyle was a stewardess, who fell out of a crashing plane and got amnesia. Kyle is horrified to hear that she's become a criminal in her amnesiac state. Batman asks about her obsession with cats, and she explains that her father used to own a pet store. He taught her all about cats, and she subconsciously remembered that through her amnesia. Gordon asks Kyle to go undercover and help them take down Mister X. Mousey is brought into the station and hears their scheme, so Gordon has him put in jail. Mousey breaks out with a hidden file, swearing revenge on Catwoman. Catwoman pulls several heists for Mister X, although crime now disgusts her. This includes distracting a record company with cats while she steals gold-plated records, and opening a bank vault with cats. Batman and Robin fight her on a Giant Cash Register, but this is a ruse so they can fake being captured. Catwoman takes them back to Mister X, who locks them alone with a time bomb. Mister X tells Catwoman he knows about her treachery, and has her dragged off a cliff via tractor. Batman and Robin escape in time to rescue her and punch out Mister X's thugs. It's revealed that Mousey was Mister X all along. He wore a bulky costume to make other crooks respect him. In the aftermath, Selina Kyle officially retires from her career as Catwoman. However, Batman insists that the police may still need her as an operative -- sooner than she thinks. (This story is reprinted from Batman #62.) "The Master of Mirrors": At the Central City bank, Sam Scudder walks in with civilian clothes on and walks up to bank teller, Mr. J. Wilkins, to exchange larger bills for singles. As the banker is distracted, Scudder takes out a small pocket mirror to capture the individuals 'image' from all angles before leaving the bank. Outside the city, Mirror Master develops the bank teller's image with his "camera mirror". Sam thinks about his original discovery of these gimmick mirrors when he was in jail years ago. He remembers he painted the wrong material onto a mirror and thought he had ruined it. When he looked into it and saw images the mirror was looking at earlier, he found that this mirror retained an image for several minutes before disappearing. Since leaving jail, he's improved his techniques and can now print 3-D images from the mirrors. He prints up a mirror image of Mr. J. Wilkins from the bank and sends him back to the bank to steal money for him. Barry Allen, happening to be at the bank at the time, notices that there is something amiss about the manager as his hair is parted differently than before, and his wedding band is on his right hand, so he decides to follow him. Barry transforms into the Flash to follow Wilkins but soon finds Wilkins moving just as fast as the Flash can. He soon finds himself at a secluded house. Flash finds many mirrors around the house and cannot tell which is the real Wilkins and which is just a mirror image. Flash grabs a paint bucket and starts painting the walls to remove the mirror illusions. Flash follows Wilkins into another room where he encounters a gigantic mosquito. By moving at the speed of light, the Flash causes a strange affect on the mosquito and disables it. Next the the Flash is chased by a Minotaur. He turns off the power in the house and the Minotaur instantly disappears. Flash finds the Mirror Master in the dark and quickly captures the crook and turns him over to the police. The Flash explains he realized these were items powered by light so if he turned of the power and lights, he figured his mirror creations would disappear. Later, resuming his civilian identity, Barry goes on a date with Iris and fills her in on the story. (This story is reprinted from The Flash #105.) "The Ghost of Jor-El": When Mxyzptlk, a 5th dimensional teenager, is penalized by his parents for playing too many pranks with his magic, he goes illegally through a space-warp to Earth's dimension. There he sees Superboy and decides to bedevil him with pranks, including an illusion of Jor-El's ghost telling him to leave Earth. But Mxyzptlk's father, observing the incident, sends Superboy a message revealing that he can banish the sprite back to the 5th dimension for 90 days by getting him to say his name backwards. Superboy does so, and Mxyzptlk is warped back home, where he faces punishment from his father and vows vengeance on Superboy. (This story is reprinted from Superboy #78.) "Wonder Woman and the Cheetah": Wonder Woman headlines a much-awaited charity performance, but her popularity inadvertently angers program spokeswoman Priscilla Rich. Consumed with near-psychotic jealousy, Priscilla secretly sabotages Wonder Woman's main act, a complex water-tank escape; though she nearly drowns, the Amazing Amazon improvises quickly enough to escape, winning even more accolades. After the performance, Priscilla's ego continues to deteriorate, reaching a nadir when event treasurer Courtley Darling cancels a date in favor of partying with Wonder Woman. As she broods at her bedroom vanity, Priscilla is suddenly confronted by her repressed "secret" personality: a snarling, ruthless, beastlike woman. This alternate personality quickly dominates Priscilla, driving her to create a costume from a cheetah-skin rug, and become a new villainess, the Cheetah. Possessing all the stealth and grace of her namesake, the Cheetah effortlessly steals the money Wonder Woman's performance had raised, then sneaks into Wonder Woman's bedroom and prepares to knife the sleeping Amazon. Only a last-second whim convinces her to forgo the murder, and instead frame her enemies for stealing the money. The next day, Wonder Woman and Darling are charged, but the former accepts all blame, leaving Darling free. Hours later, Wonder Woman is sent bail and a lawyer's card by an anonymous "friend". The card leads her to a local granary, where she finds the Cheetah and a bound Darling. At gunpoint, the Cheetah forces her enemies to jump into the main wheat-bin, meaning for them to suffocate in its millions of grains. Meanwhile, Steve and Etta prepare a real lawyer for Wonder Woman, only to learn about her "friend" from the police; the pair find the granary just as Wonder Woman is starting to free herself, and help her save the near-suffocated Darling. As the quartet escape the building, they find the Cheetah trying to burn it down. Upon seeing her quarry free, the Cheetah is paralyzed with anger, and falls into her own blaze. The case now seems closed, Darling claiming to have a confession of the frame-up; nevertheless, Wonder Woman continues to ponder the truth behind her latest opponent. (This story is reprinted from Wonder Woman #6.)
Release Date: 1976