Late at night, Selina Kyle visits a tiger exhibit at the Gotham Zoo, telling the tiger that she finds it cruel to keep it in captivity. Suddenly, an apelike man shoots her with a tranquilizer dart and carries her off, knocking a guard into the tiger's enclosure.
Bruce Wayne waits to have dinner with Selina, and learns that she took a detour at the zoo. When he arrives, the rescued guard is recounting to the police what happened to Selina. Bruce notices the tranquilizer dart.
Selina awakens in a lab where a humanoid cat-creature approaches her. A man called Dr. Emile Dorian introduces the creature as Tygrus and notes that Tygrus likes her. Dr. Dorian explains that he is a geneticist who creates various animal and human hybrids, such as Garth, the ape-man who kidnapped her and serves Dorian, and Tygrus is the pinnacle of his art. Dr. Dorian is very fond of cats, hence why he chose Selina for his next experiment; he injects her with a serum.
Batman consults Dr. Kirk Langstrom about the compound in the dart. Langstrom identifies the compound as T-99, a compound used in splicing created by Dorian, whom Langstrom used to work with. Langstrom explains that Dorian combined cat DNA with other species, but people protested his gruesome studies, so he retired to an island off the coast to continue his work. Batman flies the Batwing to the island, where Dr. Dorian reveals Selina as a literal Catwoman.
Batman is horrified and demands Dorian fix her, but Dorian thinks he did Selina a favor. Tygrus appears and looks lovingly at Selina, but she just glares at him. Seeing Batman as a rival, Tygrus attacks him as Dorian likens Tygrus to William Blake's poem. Selina intervenes and Dorian notes that her human side is still more dominant. He plans to give her another injection and use Batman to test Tygrus's skills.
Batman fights Tygrus and discovers that he can talk. Tygrus says Dr. Dorian, his "father," told him that with Batman gone, Selina would love him. Batman tells him not to count on it. Selina escapes Dorian's clutches and tells Tygrus that Batman is not the enemy and killing him will not win her affections. Tygrus, having learned the opposite from his father, runs off torn and confused.
An angry Dr. Dorian scolds Tygrus for not killing Batman. When Batman and Selina show up, Dorian blames Selina for ruining Tygrus and tries to shoot her. Tygrus stops Dorian, who then threatens to kill him. Enraged that his father has turned on him, Tygrus goes on a rampage, destroying the lab.
Selina and Batman escape with an unconscious Garth. Tygrus emerges from the ruins carrying the unconscious Dr. Dorian for Batman to take to the authorities. Tygrus invites Selina to stay with him on the island, but she says she needs to be human again. Tygrus gives her the antidote and walks off as it starts to rain. Selina doesn't have it in her to just let it end like that, and tries to stop him.
Batman: [voice over]
Tyger, Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Tropes in this episode include:
- Abusive Parents: Dorian winds up being this to Tygrus. Dorian even beats him when he fails to kill Batman, and all Tygrus can respond with is a whimpered "Father, please!"
- Artificial Animal People: Dr. Dorian not only uses his talents to create various human/animal hybrids from scratch, including the ape-man Garth and the cat-man Tygrus, he even goes so far as to make Catwoman a literal... well, cat-woman.
- Bittersweet Ending: Batman retrieves Catwoman and the antidote, but Tygrus is left to his solitude.
- Call-Back: Kirk Langstrom's line, "He likes cats better than people", is incredibly similar to what he said about his father-in-law Dr. March in "On Leather Wings", "I think he likes bats better than people".
- Cat Girl: Taken to extremes with Catwoman, as Dr. Dorian kidnaps Selina Kyle and mutates her into an actual catwoman. It should also be noted that the episode also had a cat-man (man-cat?) who liked how she was and wanted Selena to stay. At the end of the episode, he gives her the cure, but doesn't take it himself.
- Despair Event Horizon: Selina can't and won't love Tygrus - at least, not like this. Dorian, for all intents and purposes his father, deceived him. Tygrus winds up going berserk and destroying Dorian's lab out of frustration.
- Dumb Muscle: Garth. Dr. Dorian even describes him as "crude, but serviceable."
- Expy:
- While primarily based on Dr. Moreau, Dr. Emile Dorian bears a striking resemblance to Dr. Pretorius from Bride of Frankenstein and has a very similar role.
- The zoo security guard is also voiced by Jim Cummings (1952) and his voice sounds almost exactly like Sarge from Army Men series who was also voiced by him.
- Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: Despite the pre-WWII aesthetic of the series' Retro Universe setting, Dorian is said to create his Moreau creatures with genetic engineering rather than vivisection or grafting (as was the case in the novel the story is inspired by).
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: After realizing that Selina won't be his and wants to be human again, Tygrus gives her the antidote, and resigns himself to living the rest of his life alone.
- Heel–Face Turn: Catwoman reasons with Tygrus that Batman has done no wrong against him, and Tygrus soon realizes his fault in blindly following Dorian.
- Literary Allusion Title: The title is a reference to the William Blake poem of the same name, which Batman quotes at the end.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: Dorian specializes in half-feline.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Tygrus's solution to Batman and Catwoman's relationship. Selina tells him flat out that it doesn't work like that.
- Not Quite Dead: At least twice, Tygrus escapes certain death. At the end, he emerges from the burning laboratory carrying an unconscious Dorian, who's also lucky to be alive.
- Rope Bridge: Batman fights Tygrus, a giant half-human cat man, on a decaying rope bridge. The bridge snaps when Tygrus deflects one of Batman's batarangs, cutting the rope.
- Shout-Out: Selina quotes The Empire Strikes Back when talking down Tygrus.Selina: Search your feelings, Tygrus. You know he's wrong.
- Suddenly Voiced: To Batman's surprise, the feral Tygrus can speak English.
- Ultimate Lifeform: Dorian says Tygrus is this, but then again he loves cats more than human beings, so his opinion may be subject to... bias.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To The Island of Doctor Moreau. Includes Selina Kyle as a literal Catwoman.
- One act is also this to The Most Dangerous Game, when Batman is given a headstart and Tygrus released to hunt him.
- You're Insane!: Selina tells Dr. Dorian this:Selina: Mister, you're crazy!
Dr. Dorian: Sticks and stones, Miss Kyle. Sticks and stones.
