WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Batman/Catwoman #4, by Tom King, Clay Mann, Tomeu Morey and Clayton Cowles, on sale now.
The Batman/Catwoman miniseries has taken much inspiration from the classic animated movie, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. Andrea Beaumont plays a key role in this series, echoing her animated counterpart’s feelings of loss and tragedy. To emphasize Andrea’s devastating experiences, Batman/Catwoman just returned to the scene of Mask of the Phantasm‘s explosive finale.
Batman/Catwoman #4, by Tom King and Clay Mann, features the Phantasm reflecting on the Gotham World’s Fair. Andrea talks about how the World’s Fair is a “dream of the future. A bright tomorrow full of hope and promise for humankind,” as well as several other positive, optimistic ideas. This monologue is very familiar, since these are the exact words spoken in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.
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Mask of the Phantasm features a version of the World’s Fair in a flashback, where a young Bruce Wayne and Andrea Beaumont are on a date. There, the announcer describes the world of the future using the exact same words that Andrea later uses in Batman/Catwoman #4.
In the comic, Andrea is also listening to a recording of herself, telling her son about the futuristic aspects of the World’s Fair. Andrea talks about rocket cars, robot dogs and robot cooks cutting carrots, which are the exact visuals of the Fair featured in Mask of the Phantasm. In both the film and the comic, the Fair is initially a symbol of hope and youthful innocence. When Bruce and Andrea go to the World’s Fair, they’re looking forward to spending their lives together. In the comic, when Andrea shows the World’s Fair to her son, she’s looking forward to giving him a bright future.
Both of these hopes are corrupted later on. In Mask of the Phantasm, the World’s Fair is shut down, and the site of the fair becomes an abandoned hideout for the future. The robots rust and the technology breaks down over time. Only the Joker remains, using the old World’s Fair as his own personal hideout. The Joker’s presence symbolizes his part in destroying Andrea’s future by killing her father. This also becomes the site of Andrea’s vengeance, where she confronts the Joker for her father’s murder.
Everything becomes more bleak and hopeless, as Andrea becomes consumed by vengeance. Despite Batman‘s intervention, the Phantasm loses herself to hatred. The World of the Future Fair symbolizes this corruption and the rot which has controlled the future. In Batman/Catwoman #4, the idea remains the same.
Andrea is once more consumed by vengeance, seeking the Joker for the murder of her son. Moreover, Andrea is using the World’s Fair, a site that continues to symbolize her wasted future. Of course, this time, Andrea is seeking revenge for her son’s death, rather than her father’s.
This makes vengeance more about the loss of a child than it is about the loss of her future with Bruce. In a way, this loss is even worse than before, since Andrea has lost the chance to see her son grow up in the years to come. Even worse, it seems that everything that happened to Andrea in Mask of the Phantasm already happened in Batman/Catwoman.
In Batman/Catwoman #1, by Tom King and Clay Mann, Catowman mentions how Andrea was supposed to have died in a fire with the Joker. This probably alludes to the climax of Mask of the Phantasm. If this is true, then Andrea has lost both her father and her son, continually using the World’s Fair to symbolize her broken future.
It makes sense, then, that Andrea has become more ruthless in her sense quest for vengeance. In Batman/Catwoman #4, for example, Andrea has taken Catwoman hostage, hoping to trade her for the Joker. Before, in Mask of the Phantasm, Andrea only came to the World’s Fair seeking the Joker, with no one else involved in the climax. Now, it seems that Andrea will do whatever it takes to get the Joker, including taking a hostage. No matter how things change, the tragedy of Andrea Beaumont will always manifest itself in the Gotham World’s Fair.
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