Warning: SPOILERS for Batman - One Bad Day: Catwoman #1It's often debated whether or not Catwoman is an anti-hero or just a common criminal, but it's clear how money factors into her actions.
When Catwoman was a little girl, her mother had a cherished family heirloom. It was passed down through her family because they believed it to be a treasured piece of jewelry made by artisans in Nazi-occupied France. However, when her mother tried to sell it, she learned that it was a fake and not worth the thousands of dollars she thought it was. Instead, it was only worth two hundred dollars, which wasn't even enough for rent.
Catwoman Only Cares About Money.
Years later, when Selina was Catwoman in Batman - One Bad Day: Catwoman #1 by G. Willow Wilson and Jamie McKelvie, Selina broken into an auction house to steal the heirloom back. A collector found it and realized that it wasn't a fake at all. It was indeed real. After she had it, she called her sister to let her know, but Selina's sister didn't even care about the heirloom anymore. So Selina decided to sell it for tens of thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, the pawn broker was right in the beginning. It was a fake and the auction house was duped.
These twists and turns of events highlights a lot about Selina's character. Many times Catwoman is viewed as an anti-hero who fights injustice and against the system. That's how this issue started out. Selina viewed her mother losing her brooch as sign of a world that took advantage of people in a vulnerable position. And her motivation in stealing the brooch back was to right that injustice. She viewed the world as a system that is rigged against people like her.
However, Selina's main aggravation came from learning it was a fake and that the brooch was really worthless. She never cared about the brooch until she falsely learned that it was valuable. It was the cost of the brooch that she ultimately cared about, not the fact that it was a family heirloom that was wrongly taken from her. This means that fighting a corrupt system was never her ultimate goal. She might have said that it was, but in the end the money and how much she could pawn the brooch for herself was ultimately what she wanted. This shows that despite claiming to fight for the little guy, Catwoman is a greedy criminal first.
Batman - One Bad Day: Catwoman #1 is now available from DC Comics.