Having nothing to the Golden Age superhero of the same name, or the Batman villain, or the gag character from Fairly Oddparents, Catman was an Australian comic book hero created by Frew Publications. He was another feline-based good guy with an assortment of gizmos that were also all feline-based, similar to how a certain Caped Crusader had all his gear labeled the Bat-something-or-other. The Aussie Catman was a combination of both the Dark Knight and another popular American superhero, The Phantom, a King Features Syndicate comic strip who has enjoyed success in various media including a decent live-action movie. The Phantom's fandom in Australia was bursting at the seams and was reprinted in 1951 for kangaroo country in the anthology series, Super Yank Comics, which is also where this version of Catman first premiered. This is like a foreign publisher republishing Spider-Man comics for a compilation along with installments of their own original creation named "Spider-Buddy", a Canadian lumberjack with spider powers. Catman was shown in all 19 issues of Super Yank Comics, and then got his own series called The Adventures Of Catman that after a dozen issues changed its title to just Catman which reprinted stories from previous issues. To differentiate between the American and Australian version of Catman, the down under one has a male sidekick named Kit instead of the female Kitten. Catman had a green-clad outfit that actually covered up his legs which probably helped and hindered his various exploits in the outback, at least it acted as better camouflage than The Phantom's purple attire. This Catman didn't have any superpowers to fall back on like the American incarnation, so if he got killed, he couldn't use one of his eight extra lives to get him back on his feet. The Catman of Oz has his own hideout inside a mountain with a huge cat head for its summit, as well as his own fighter jet which might have been ripped off years later by the Swat-Kats. The freedom fighting feline duo of Catman and Kit each had their own utility belt filled with gadgets including the most revolutionary weapon for a superhero, a gun! A Luger pistol to be exact, which makes you think that Catman's undisclosed origin had some connection to WWII. Catman also sports a notable pair of night goggles that creates a flash to blind his opponents. The book never discloses Catman's secret identity, despite the fact that unlike most superheroes he has a fiance, Terry West, an attractive reporter for the United Nations Press, who also happens to have a widely known professor for a father that acts as a plot point in some of their shared chronicles. Even though the Aussie Catman was highly inspired by his American counterpart, he established his own particular vibe by confronting villains like South American dictators, evil Atlanteans, pirates, cold war spies, fake mummies, rowdy robots, mob bosses, and witch doctors. Catman and Kit weren't the Dynamic Duo by a long shot, but they created an idiom that is enough for them to hold their own as a knockoff of a knockoff.
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