Catman haters united

Gail Simone dropped by an all-in-good-fun Catman-haters thread on Newsarama to talk a little about the character and the upcoming Secret Six mini-series:

This won't change anyone's mind, really, but Catman wasn't supposed to be a vanity character, although I understand why it came off that way for some people.

Catman was a POV character. The idea was to have an outsider to both the hero and villain worlds, a guy who hadn't been involved in recent events in any way, and who had little history worth remembering, and follow him through the formation of the Society and the lead-up to the Crisis, so we could see it through his eyes.

It wasn't so much, "let's shove Catman down people's throats," as, let's make Catman the POV character for the larger events. Like the photographer in Marvels, say, or the old guy whose name escapes me in Kingdom Come.

Catman is by no means the perfect invincible guy I see claimed a lot. He gets his ass handed to him several times in VU and more is coming. But I do like the idea of a semi-noble savage in the DCU, which is, let's face it, sometimes way too polite.

On the upcoming Secret Six mini-series, Simone writes:

This coming mini focuses more on Scandal and Deadshot. I think it's big fun, and lameness will be shown the door as best as possible.

and about the Villains United Special:

Yeah, LOTS of peeps in the Special, good and bad. Some haven't been seen in a good while, and I totally agree about Deadshot. He did get overshadowed a little teeny bit in VU, but that's not the case in ss.