History
A famous freelance gossip columnist with an eye for the amazing, her stories captivated the big minds up at the Daily Planet offices in Metropolis. Metropolis is the home of famed heroic icon Superman who on a regular basis, is fending off domestic and intergalactic threats to Earth. So naturally when she was offered a job at the most respected syndicated news office in the DCU, she accepted with an absolutely gleeful smile. And the offer couldn’t have come sooner at a better time. She was anxious to get out of her home city of Los Angeles. The reason was her abusive and alcoholic ex-husband Joe Morgan. Joe had driven her to drinking herself into a stupor to ignore the mental pain he inflicted upon her. She had a son with Joe, who is the love of her life. She took her son, Adam and fled immediately to Metropolis.
Upon her arrival at the Daily Planet offices, she takes notice of the infamous Clark Kent, and falls head over heels for him. And despite Clark’s love for Lois Lane, he becomes romantically involved with Cat. However, the relationship is a short lived one, once Clark realizes how much he cares for Lois. Clark, while staying with Lois, feels genuinely sympathetic for Cat, and becomes a prominent figure of stability in her life, in the attempt to help her straighten it out. Jimmy Olsen has a crush on her but his romantic effort fall either unnoticed or ignored by the lovely Cat despite her looking for love.
She has been the focus of jealousy or anger from both Lois Lane and Perry White due to her overly sexual habits around the office. She joins Galaxy Broadcasting and goes undercover to help in the exposing of Morgan Edge‘s connection to Intergang. As a result of this, she is then in desperate need of a bodyguard, a position which is filled by the vigilante known as Gangbuster, who disguises himself as Jose Delgado. This is all the result of her feeling like she needed to prove to Clark, Perry, and Lois that she is more than just a “Glorified Smut Reporter” and that she is indeed a “Real Reporter”.
Sometime through the previous events, she becomes romantically involved with the Gangbuster, very much to the dismay of her son. Her son despises Jose because he still worships his birth father Joe like an idol.
She eventually gets her own talk-show via WGBS, which she has joined. The “The Cat Grant Show” show becomes extremely successful. At the height of the show’s success, she has a one on one exclusive televised interview with the one and only Superman. Whilst on air, the show is interrupted when Doomsday attacks. This leads to Cat and her news crew being the first on the scene for the battle between the two powerhouses, and she airs it live on television, allowing the world to witness the death of the man of steel.
Though Cat works for WGBS, she still gets information from the Daily Planet. At this point, Cat has finally earned the respect and friendship of Lois Lane. In a kind gesture, she even gets Jimmy Olsen hired on WGBS and works closely with him through his tenure there.
Cat becomes the station manager for WGBS. Many believe she attained this position through a sexual relationship with Morgan Edge’s father, Vinnie Edge, who is constantly harassing Cat in inappropriate ways. She is eventually able to dispel the controversy by having Vinnie arrested and removed from WGBS for sexual harassment; this move gives her his position as head of WGBS.
The Justice League of America extends an exclusive invitation for Cat to the Watchtower when they accept several new members, so she can cover the whole story. However she never makes it there; Selina Kyle (Catwoman) renders Cat unconscious and takes her uniform and press badges, hoping to infiltrate the Tower undercover, and rob the JLA blind.
Cat’s life is at a turning point, free from her ex-husband, a new job, a new city, new friends, and now the most famous reporter in Metropolis. This however is all brought crashing down around her when Toyman kidnaps several Metropolis youths. Her son Adam is among the abducted. Adam, full of bravery and resolve, leads an attempt to escape the Toyman. This move proves fatal when Toyman foils the children’s escape and stabs Adam to death for leading the escape, to make an example of him. Cat is on the scene and identifies her sons mutilated body. This destroys her mentally, and she completely breaks down. Everything she worked so hard for means nothing without the life of her son. After Superman captures and incarcerates Toyman, Cat visits him in prison. Cat confronts Toyman only to have him call her a “bad mother” and says that he took her son’s life. This drives her back into alcoholism, although she is helped to recover from it by her close friends Perry White and Jimmy Olsen. Cat uses her career to help in numbing the pain.
During Lex Luthor‘s presidency, she is personally promoted to White House Secretary. However, when Luthor is impeached, she makes her return to Los Angeles and works for a small new reporting office called the L.A. Tattler.
When subjects develop in the case of her murdered son she makes her return to the golden city of Metropolis. Toyman tells Jimmy Olsen that and android he created to replace himself during the event that he should be incarcerated was actually responsible for the death of young Adam, that he would never intentionally harm an innocent kid and that it must have been a malfunction in the android’s programming, and it gained a personality of it’s own. This was confirmed as the truth.
Cat makes her triumphant to the Daily Planet as the new of the Entertainment and Arts section of the paper. Her sexual behavior has returned as well, and stronger then ever. She acts more provocative and flirtatious than even when she first arrived. She reveals that she also now has breast implants in a flirty conversation with Clark Kent. Lois often teases that Cat has lost and refers to her as a “cougar”. Clark and Lois converse in private where he voices his opinion that she is using this behavior to cover up the pain of her loss.
Recently Cat has been at odds with Supergirl, Blaming her for being a negligent heroine. Due to her carelessness in a fight with a group of Metahumans, Cat was slightly wounded. Cat runs a slander campaign against the would be super heroine. Causing a large portion of Metropolis’ population to turn against Kara. Kara retaliates by sending her a nasty note, and going undercover to the Daily Planet as Linda Lang, the teenage niece of Lana Lang. But her relationship with Supergirl got better when Kara saved Cat from the Dollmaker. Cat Grant even made a new article titled “The Day I Needed Supergirl”.
Cat Grant’s View on Toys
Supergirl and Cat Grant enter Arkham Asylum in order to have a sit down with the Toyman. It seems Cat has been receiving a doll on her doorstep each time a kid in Metropolis is reported missing by the papers. Cat wants to know why Toyman has been sending the dolls to her. Toyman confesses he loves children and he would nothing to harm them. Supergirl uses her brute force to get any real answers out of Toyman but she has her own reasons for interrogating Toyman. Kara uses her x-ray vision to see if Toyman is a robot or the real Winslow Schott but the real reason why she is threatening Schott because Winslow had a hand in the destruction of New Krypton. Schott was the one who triggered Reactron’s self-detonation.
Unfortunately, Kara can tell from Schott’s vitals that he is telling the truth but Cat refuses to let Toyman go so she waves one of the dolls in Schott’s face. In an instant, Schott recognizes the craftsmanship of the doll and just as Schott was about divulge some information, the doll became animate. The doll attacks Toyman with a knife and it begins to stab him in the chest. Kara holds back Cat and watches as the doll nearly kills Schott. Kara destroys the doll with her laser beam eyes and rushes Schott to the infirmary.
Cat insults Supergirl by saying her rash actions could have cost them any possible lead to finding the children. Kara leaves Arkham and takes her anger out on Riot, Shrapnel, Baroness Blitzkrieg as well as Composite-Superman before returning them to Ryker’s. Later on, Supergirl meets with Lana Lang because Kara could tell Cat has her personal vendetta against Toyman. Lana reveals that one of Toyman’s robots accidentally killed Adam Grant, Cat’s son and Superman was the one who held the boy in his arms but he still allowed Schott to live. In recent months, Lana has noticed Cat has been directing a lot of her anger toward teenagers who are ruining their lives.
Meanwhile, Cat returns to her apartment after visiting her son’s grave but suddenly a doll-like figure with claws for hands appears out of nowhere and attacks Cat. Cat uses her tazer gun to stun the doll but Cat soon realizes that the doll is actually one of the missing children. Someone has surgically altered the child and turned them into a cybernetic doll assassin. It is at this point, Cat’s front door opens and the orchestrator of these kidnappings reveals himself as Anton Schott aka the Dollmaker. The Dollmaker is accompanied by two other doll assassins who bound and gag Cat as they all head back to Dollmaker’s base of operations.
Anton reveals his origins to Cat as his assassins make Ms. Grant more comfortable. It turns out Winslow was more compassionate towards other children than his own son even though Anton showed great promise as a skilled toymaker. As for Anton’s mother, she took off with Anton because she was under the impression that her husband was a pedophile but later she abandons Anton, leaving him to fend for himself. With nowhere to go, Anton found one of his father’s abandoned toy factories and began to adapt his father’s motif in order to make a name for himself. This turn of events only enhanced Anton’s sadistic compulsions which was brought on by abandonment issues.
Anton kidnapped Cat because he knew what his father did to her so he asks Cat if she wants to be his new mother. Cat spurns Anton’s heartfelt plea so in a fit of rage, Anton decides he will shutdown all of his doll assassins which will kill them. Cat swallows her pride and calls out to Supergirl because she refuses to let her anger towards Supergirl to endanger the children. Supergirl crashes through the Dollmaker’s hideout, uses her laser eye beams to free Cat and she disarms the doll assassins. Cat knocks out Anton with her right hook and Anton is most likely sent to Arkham Asylum to work out his issues with his father.
Post-Flashpoint
After the events of Flashpoint, Cat is still journalist for the Daily Planet and was there, as the new Daily Planet building was opened and the old on was destroyed.
Other Media
Animation
The Death of Superman and Reign of Superman
Cat Grant appears in the movie, voiced by Toks Olagundoye.
Lois & Clark : The New Adventures of Superman (TV series)
Cat Grant was a regular cast member of Season One, played by Tracy Scoggins. She appears as Daily Planet gossip columnist. She is scantily clad and shameless. Cat Grant often flirts with Clark, trying to seduce him, but to no avail.
Smallville (TV Series)
The character Cat Grant was split into separate individuals by the producers of the series. There was Cat Grant the talk show host in season nine and Cat Grant the Daily Planet journalist in season ten.
Clark Kent was set up on a blind date with Cat Grant to cover the story of how blind dates work for the talk show “Good Morning Metropolis”. Cat was nervous because she never had a blind date before because of her very busy life: she had just come from abroad to Metropolis to do her PhD in Sociology and Social Justice at the same time. Later, Cat gets the job at the new host for “Good Morning Metropolis”.
This version of Cat Grant appeared in one episode of season nine and was only mentioned one time during the rest of the series. She was played by the actress Emilie Ullerup.
Cat Grant replaces Lois Lane while she is in Africa in season 10 of Smallville. She is Clark’s partner for the time being.
At first Cat comes off as extremely nice and sweet sort of girl, to the point that it becomes obnoxious. With a cutesy and high-pitched voice, she is obviously a girly-girl, and adores the color pink. She’s clearly a loving sort of person, though, particularly to her son who she goes out of her way to protect. Cat is also somewhat intelligent, despite her “dumb blond” appearance and personality, apparently having become valedictorian in high school or so she claims.
However, Cat also appears to make harsh and unfair judgments about people’s “lifestyle” choices, in particular, vigilantes like the Blur and Green Arrow who she deems menaces to the world who are morally against the “natural order” of things. She gets most of her opinions from Gordon Godfrey, a controversial shock-jock. She also seems to particularly despise Lois Lane, claiming that her “liberal” opinions are corrupting the people. She’s also shown signs of wanting to disrupt Clark and Lois’ relationship both romantically and in regards to work. Whether its because she actually has a romantic interest in Clark, or because she just like provoking Lois is unknown however.
They go out to find a story and a assassin tries to kill her with a bullet to blow up her car. Clark gets suspicious that she is hiding something. Clark finds out she is hiding from her baby’s father and changed her name. Clark also finds out that the assassin was not trying to kill Cat but, him. Cat was just an easy target. As the assassin tries to kill her, she is saved by Clark, and she says that normal people are better to save people than these vigilantes. She says that Clark is her hero.
When Booster Gold arrived in Metropolis, Cat saw him as the hero she’s been waiting for and wanted to interview him, as that may be the opportunity she needed to earn the promotion Lois was up for with her vigilante articles. While Booster was trying to contact Lois, Cat met him at an autograph signing, where she offered to interview him, however Booster declined wanting Lois to do it, as she was the one who made the Blur famous.
During the rehearsal for his presentation of the key, he was in the middle of choosing which one of his showgirls would present him with the key, Cat walked in dressed as one, much to Booster’s approval, who chose her to do it. During the later rehearsal, Jaime, trapped inside the Scarab, started attacking Booster Gold. Cat shielded the mayor, and asked Booster to help, who waved her off. When the Scarab pointed one of it’s energy blast at her and the mayor, Clark came in between the blast, and blurred away. Cat instantly recognized the Blur as the one who saved her.
Later, when Lois earned the promotion, Cat offered her a box of cookies, each blue with the red and yellow House of El symbol. Cat told Lois she was taking her desk, and Lois told Clark about his new deskmate. Clark knocked down Cat’s box, and in a bumbling manner, picked them up. Cat told Lois Clark may be great, but he is no Blur.
This version of Cat Grant appeared in the 10th season of the TV series and was played by the actress Keri Lynn Pratt.
Superman Returns (Movie) Prequel
Cat Grant only had a cameo appereance at the Superman Returns Prequel issue number 2. She appeared as as television reporter for “Metro4News Early Edition”. She never appeared in the movie.
Supergirl
In Supergirl, Cat Grant has moved on from the Daily Planet and has created her own organization, Catco Worldwide Media. Kara Danvers, AKA Supergirl, works with her as Grant’s assistant. She isn’t afraid to speak her mind, and can’t even remember most of the names of her closest employees. Still, she shows her good qualities at times. She is played by Calista Flockheart.