What is it about a 6ft-something chap in black rubber with a few bob to spare and a whiff of danger about him that attracts the wrong kind of women? Dunno? Think about it...

Even in the 1960s, when Batman wore his belly outside his pants, Bruce Wayne's lady-count was copious. Adam West had his bat-gloves full: Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether and Ertha Kitt all poured and purred into Catwoman's skintight suit. Female villians are the most difficult ones. They're usually quite attractive and may cause strange stirrings in your utility belt. But come Tim Burton's 1989 Batman, it was the vampish assistant doing the belt-stirring. First based by Bat-doyen Bo Kane on a purring bombshell called Norma Jean, Wayne's lady-partner was Vicki Vale, an ace reporter ushered into sexy life by Kim Basinger after original star Sean Young fell out with a horse. Basinger's attempts to sex Vale up ("I wanted to take off my dress but they wouldn't let me") didn't come up to much but she did get into the Bat cave, the Bat-pants and even the Bat-kitchen. Perhaps Wayne had seen 9½ Weeks? Meanwhile, poor Jerry Hall is merely omelette in the joker's kitchen...

Ditzy dame Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer) upped the ante in Batman Returns. Introduced as an archetypal single working gal, Kyle is killed by curiosity but mystically saved by a pussy-licking. She becomes a slinky symphony for the eyes in perverse PVC and cuts through Gotham City as a kind of post-feminist floating voter. And her allegiances? She shows concern for the Ice Princess, but mostly it depends on who's got the fish. Paul barrett-Brown designed Catwoman's clobber after his rubber-wear was spied in fetish-mag Skin Two, but Michelle Pfeiffer didn't see any S&M fetishism in the spectacle of her tussling with a big chap in black rubber. "I look at the movie more metaphorically, in that it's a statement about empowerment," Pfeiffer argued. Doesn't everyone?

With Catwoman let out of the bag, Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever required some fresh lady-fur. Enter the sultry Dr. Chase Meridian, a criminal psychologist whose thing for "abnormal psychology, multiple personalities" goes way beyond professional interest. "Chase loves the chase," Nicole Kidman cooed. "She's very into rubber and she's relentless..." Kidman fairly bursts at the seams in the role and while she doesn't manage to come between Bruce and Dick, she is rescued during the final-act tumble (yet not from an unflattering up-the-skirt camera shot). Two-Face's arm-candy dames receive considerably lesser shrift in Batman Forever. Debi Mazar and Drew Barrymore drool and slink over big bad Harv and... prepare his dinner.

Batman & Robin dropped the Chase in favour of gardening time. Uma Thurman emerged from venomous sex-fronds as Dr. Pamela Isley, an eco-warrior who survives chemical assault to become man-trap Poison Ivy, a dame whose kiss can kill and whose smutty quips could fell an army of Graham Nortons at 80 paces. First planted in a 1966 comic, Isley's seed didn't take root plot-wise until the early 1970s. Thurman lovingly tended the role, drawing on Japanese Kabuki theatre for her gesturalism, but to no avail: she looks like a Walnut Whip-haired drag queen and winds up as an excuse for the boys' quips about her "stems" and "buds". Elle Macpherson is barely there as Wayne's girl Julie Madison, despite a comic history stretching back to 1939. But Alicia Silverstone bonds with the big boys as Barbara, Alfred's niece (aka Batgirl). "I had no idea there were so many young girls out there who were Batman fans," Silverstone said. "Fortunately Batgirl did exist, so we recreated her in a 1990s image." Ergo, she has a rubbish lady-scrap with Ivy.

If Batman & Robin moved Bats into evolutionary reverse, returning him to 1960s camp, Batman Begins rediscovered his black roots. Katie Holmes' Rachel Dawes is the only weak link in Chris Nolan's tough-talking film, though. It's not all her fault: an otherwise-sharp script hobbles her with homilies and renders her sweet but sexless. It's a tough baton for Maggie Gyllenhaal to pick up, but the trailer implies that Rachel has a meatier role this time round. Final impressions? Gotham is largely a (Bat)man's world, but it'd be nothing without a woman to rescue or shove off tall buildings. Perhaps Mr. Nolan could revive Talia Al Ghul or Catwoman to raise the stakes...