Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Normally, this blog is used to dispense opinions and information about comics that I think are good. There's far too many bad books in this marketplace for anything resembling proper coverage by the staff of BeaucoupKevin.com and we'd hate to take away market share from our blog allies, Dave Campbell and Chris Sims. However, something so vile that it's beyond comprehension dropped into my lap courtesy of my ally Roel Torres that it must be brought to light, so that others may avoid the mistake I made by sitting down and reading the first (and apparently only) comic featuring that singing sensation of the early 90s, Nightcat!

Yes, Marvel, always one to hop on board a fad right as it was petering out ¹, decided they wanted to a comic featuring the real-life Latina Lita Ford just as grunge was about to rise up and smite the last bit of glam metal from the face of the earth. Jacqueline Tavarez is a young woman who lives with her overprotective cop father. For years, pops has vowed to keep her out of show business because her mom drank a lot, auditioned about as much, and died thanks to this combination. One day in high school, he finds out that she's been playing with a "rock band" and explicitely forbids her from interacting with music in any way, shape, form or fashion and being a girl with little brain or backbone, she stayed meek and studied hard. The story really picks up when Jacqueline's in college and sees an audition for a singer at the sort of nightclub that only exists in Marvel comics and bad, bad direct to video movies featuring Tawny Kitean.

Of course, to overcomplicate the matter, she decides to take on an alter ego so she can be a pop sensation and keep her old man happy, despite the fact that she's clearly of legal age to do whatever the holy fuck she wants now.

Here's how the equation works.


No, seriously, we get to that exact point. Once Nightcat has gotten her record contract, the fancy pad, and has managed to get on the cover of Time and Rolling Stone without her dad finding out (despite the fact he's apparently the best cop in New York City) she stumbles upon a discovery that's horrifying: the music business - and I can't believe Marvel came up with something so unbelievable - is full of people who deal drugs. Deciding that we can't have glam metal associated with drug use, Jacqueline dedicates herself to wiping out the problem by hand. The only problem is that the woman in charge, Sharon Stone Amanda Gideon is a powerful woman in New York, basically Trump with a Vulcan haircut and her hobbies include collecting money, selling drugs by the truckload, and doing strange experiments involving animal blood-based serumes with the help of her pal, Doctor Ecstacy.

See?


Now, I don't need to draw a map for you here, do I? Nightcat goes in swinging, gets captured, gets recognized as a major pop star, gets injected with a cat blood serum, watches her dad (who's undercover) get shot approximately 43 times, displays amazing new catlike powers, and gives the audience a nice panty shot in the space of 3 pages.


Once Sharon Stone Amanda Gideon gets away in this first part, Jacqueline makes it back to her father, who tells her, of course, that it's quite all right that she's a major pop sensation because he's proud of her and now he's going to die. The cops who show up to clean up the mess tell our heroine that they can't take down Sharon Stone Amanda Gideon just because she says Sharon Stone Amanda Gideon is a major drug dealer. They'll need evidence and other stuff, you know?

Despite the fact that Jacqueline is studying criminology in college, she finds this completely unacceptable and decides that she'll take Sharon Stone Amanda Gideon's obviously-a-trap invitation to perform at some gala or event or whatever it could be that requires bad music. However, she's got a plan, which goes awry to hilarious results.


She doesn't die, of course, and we get something of a "climactic fight" just before she dedicates a truly mind-bogglingly awful song about never changing to her dead parents. All of this though, the stupidly chatty ninjas, the Cat-illac, the awful music, the costume, it's all worth it for one scene and one scene only:


I have this image of Stan claiming royalties on her album and owning a trademark on her likeness, but that's just me being catty.

Oh, dear, that's rather a pun, isn't it?

If you want to know more about Nightcat, check out this desperately-in-need-of-hard-returns biography here. Apparently, Jacqueline did release an album under the Nightcat moniker through RCA, but I've not found any samples. I think we're glad of that. Also: Not that I've done this, but a Google Image Search on Ms Tavarez reveals that she was topless in Tromeo and Juliet.

Further research has cropped up this blurb in a 1994 issue of The Comics Journal:

Jacqueline Tavarez, who dressed as Marvel's Nightcat at conventions, says she was fired by Marvel after appearing in a Joey Buttafuoco music video.

A Joey Buttafuoco music video. Truly a statement of how far any human being can fall.

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¹See: the Kiss comic's coming out just before the band's fractious solo LPs that led to Peter Criss's departure. See also: Dazzler's solo forays that came out right as stadiums were filling with people who wanted to burn records from The Trammps and The Bee Gees.