[ID: A picture of a Cat-Man comic, with a yellow background, showing Cat-Man, a buff man with red boots and a red and orange leotard, with a red cape, and a red mask that covers all but his nose and mouth. There is other text that is hard to read in such small, low quality print. End ID.] Today's Public Domain Character: Cat-Man
Cat-Man is a character that was sort of popular in the 1940s, an obvious attempt to capture the same feeling as Bat-Man. Cat-Man was raised by a Tiger and therefore has some abnormal abilities like climbing, leaping great lengths, seeing in the dark and also he has 9 lives like all cats. The spirit of his mother can revive him.
His civilian persona of David Merryweather is a private detective and he goes into his Cat-Man persona when things get too heated. He had a kid sidekick, a young girl named Katie Conn who went by the name The Kitten. Eventually the company Holyoke went bankrupt and the character has since gone into the public domain.
There was a truly baffling run by AC Comics in the 1980s which had a gross premise of Katie getting one of his lives but as a result her body becoming an adult but her mind is that of an 11 year old but eventually she ages mentally and then her and Cat-Man marry,its gross and like really uncomfortable and has not aged well at all.
DC Comics has used Cat-Man in some of their Bat-Man stories and he is sometimes used as a stand-in parody for Bat-Man such as in the Fairly Godparents. I think Cat-Man would make a good substitute if you want to publish Bat-Man type stories or just explore a really neat comic book character.
