Origin
Nicknamed the Cat, Catherine Allingham has a reputation as the smartest person in the world. She often assists in police investigations, and she is known as America’s foremost detective. Methodical, analytical, pragmatic, and with a keen sense of logic and unparalleled observational skills, she has a string of impressive solutions to infamous mysteries such as discovering the secrets of Stonehenge, and finding out the whereabouts of DB Cooper. Catherine became somewhat of an overnight celebrity after single handedly taking down a serial killer known as the Zodiac 2 in 2001. Decoding and deciphering several of the killers letters of confession to the police, she realized the true killer had framed someone else for the murders, however when she attempted to inform police of their mistaken arrest she was met with disbelief and her findings were ignored. She took it upon herself to confront the killer and a physical struggle ensued. The real killer ended up behind bars with many in disbelief as to why Catherine would risk her life in such a way. Her response was that she had to prove it.
Catherine Allingham has several books written about her, such as The Nine Lives of Cat Allingham and Star’s Aligned: How Allingham Found the Zodiac Killer, detailing many of her exploits.
Creation
Catherine Allingham is a fictional character created by writer Mark Waid and artist Minck Oosterveer. A Boom! Studios character, Catherine first appears in The Unknown #1 released in 2009. Catherine Allingham is characterized by many standard detective character type attributes. Smart, intelligent, well reasoned and with a keens sense of observation. Creator Mark Waid speaking of his character “The high concept is: She is the greatest detective of her age; she’s the Sherlock Holmes of the 21st Century and she specializes in debunking the mythic⦠the mystical stuff⦠because it’s all about science to her.” he also speaks of the scarce amount of smart intelligent female detective characters present in comic book medium “There aren’t that many really good female analytical science detectives in comic book fiction and I wanted to tap into that and see what I could find.” as a motivating factor for the mini series. Catherine Allingham has been the protagonist for two mini series, The Unknown, and following that The Unknown: The Devil Made Flesh.
Major Story Arcs
Meeting James Doyle
Catherine is woken in the middle of the night with an important phone call. Its the police withe need of her investigative skills. She arrives at the scene of the incident, where a psychic is also attempting to unlock the mystery of what she perceives as a suicide. Catherine observing the scene is quick to establish this was a homicide, as the real killer had paid careful attention to putting the victims finger prints on the bullet and the gun, but neglected to remove his own finger prints from the bullet clippings. She also points out that whatever cloth was used to wipe the murderers finger prints from the weapon would also have gun oil on it before identifying the cloth on a business associate of the deceased who was present. Case solved. Of greater interest to Catherine, was a scene not far from the crime scene, in which a man had apprehended a thief. She spoke to this mysterious stranger finding out his name, James Doyle, and being impressed by how he managed to figure out the man had been stealing from patrons at the business they were employed to. She offers him a job on the spot and he accepts.
Weight of the Soul
Catherine has business in Vienna, and so her and her assistant Doyle fly there. She has been hired by two brothers, both quantum physicists, Karl and Ludo Faderbauer. They had constructed a very expensive revolutionary technological box, that can measure things on an extremely small scale. Of such delicate precision that their box device might supposedly be able to weigh a persons soul. The brothers have hired Catherine as the device has gone missing.
Powers and Abilities
Catherine Allingham is incredibly intelligent, so much so that she has a reputation of being the smartest person in the world. She has unlocked many long standing mysterious and unsolved cases. She is considered the best detective and investigative detective on the planet. Her observation skills are well above average.