After Paul [Levitz, All Star Comics writer] had described the origin to me, I worked up sketches combining elements of Catwoman and Batman, and went in see Joe [Orlando, editor]. The short version is that Joe and I had a fine meeting, featuring Vinnie Colletta in his role as art director snoring away at full volume on the couch in the back of the room. Joe touched up the bat-elements in my original sketch, particularly the cape, giving it the scallops, and he made the belt emblem a bit more bat-like. Joe opened up his sketchpad and used my sketch as the main element in the cover design for DC Super-Stars, and I went home to pencil the final cover.[1]
Staton also admitted that the character's costume was heavily inspired by the Black Cat.[1] The title Huntress was borrowed from "relatively obscure Golden Age villainess" Paula Brooks.[2][3]:60 Helena's first appearance was in DC Super Stars #17 (November/December 1977), which told her origin,[4] and then All Star Comics #69 (December 1977), which came out the same day,[5] and revealed her existence to the Justice Society of America. She appeared in Batman Family #17-20 when it expanded into the Dollar Comics format for its last few issues.[6] The bulk of her solo stories appeared as backup features in issues of Wonder Woman beginning with issue #271 (September 1980).[6][7] These stories, almost all of which were written by Levitz and pencilled by Staton, tended to a noir style, with the Huntress typically combating street-level crime rather than costumed supervillains.[1]
Helena's debut on the cover of DC Super Stars #17. Art by Joe Staton.
Following the character's death and erasure from history in Crisis on Infinite Earths #12 (March 1986), DC created a new Huntress (Helena Bertinelli) to serve as her successor.
Following 52 (2007), DC Comics superheroes' fictional world was newly established as a collection of 52 parallel-world "universes". An alternate rebooted version of the Helena Wayne character now resides on post-Crisis Earth-2 and has appeared in Justice Society of America (vol. 3) in issues set on the parallel world of Earth-2.
A new Helena Wayne is reintroduced following DC's Flashpoint (2011) crossover in The New 52 reboot as part of a storyline where she and Power Girl are refugees from the world featured in the comic book Earth 2 (2012–2015), taking the name Helena Bertinelli as her alias on Earth 1. Together they headline the series Worlds' Finest. The character is later featured in the storyline of the multiverse crossover event Convergence and the Earth 2 follow-up series Earth 2: Society (2015–2017), in which she takes over her father's title as Batman. She isn't seen again following Doomsday Clock (2017–2019) which reversed some of the Flashpoint event's changes to the timeline.
Following the Dark Nights: Metal crossover, another incarnation of Helena Wayne is introduced by Geoff Johns as Batman and Catwoman's time travelling daughter from the future in the pages of The New Golden Age (2022–2024) and Justice Society of America (vol. 4) (2023–2024), in which she supports the JSA to defeat Per Degaton but becomes stranded in the past after her future timeline is erased. She supports the team by helping them recruit villains to their ranks who became heroes, hoping to accelerate their paths to reform. In the series' conclusion, she travels with the Legion of Super-Heroes to the 31st century, where she joins that era's incarnation of the Justice Society.
Fictional character biography
Origin
Helena was born in 1957 to Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle Wayne, and grew up enjoying the benefits of being in a wealthy household. As a youth, she enjoyed a thorough education, as well as being trained by her parents, Batman and Catwoman, to become a super-athlete. As a young girl she was amazed to learn that her father was the Batman and embraced Dick Grayson as her older brother. She also looked up to Alfred as a second father. After Yale College and Yale Law School, she joined the law firm of Cranston and Grayson, one of whose partners was Dick Grayson, alias Robin.
In 1976, criminal Silky Cernak blackmailed his old boss Selina Kyle into resuming action once again as Catwoman, an act which eventually led to her death. Helena, deciding to bring Cernak to justice, created a costume for herself, fashioned some weapons from her parents' equipment (including her eventual trademark weapon, a crossbow), and set out to bring him in. After accomplishing this, Helena decided to continue to fight crime, under the code name "the Huntress".
Allies and enemies
After her mother's death, Helena moved out of Wayne Manor and into a Gotham City apartment. She soon found herself involved with the Justice Society of America (her father's old team) and formally joined the group in All Star Comics #72. Helena was also briefly associated with the superhero group Infinity, Inc., a team made up of second-generation superheroes, mostly the children of JSA members.
Helena also struck up a friendship with fellow new superheroine Power Girl, who was also a part of both the JSA and Infinity Inc. In addition to Power Girl, Helena frequently worked with Robin and with a new hero named Blackwing. Some of her foes were the Thinker, Joker, Lion-Mane (one of her mother's embittered former minions), Karnage, Boa, and the Earthworm. Her lover for a time was Gotham District Attorney Harry Sims. Despite the fact that she proposed a partnership ("I nail'em, you jail'em"), their relationship grew difficult in that he knew of her secret identity and was constantly worrying about her safety. She briefly flirted with Robin who, cited her father's choice in looking for a wife, told her that a normal man would not be able to satisfy her.
She made several visits to Earth-One. Her first was in Batman Family #17, where she met the Earth-One Batman, Robin, Batgirl, and Batwoman, and fought the Earth-One Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Madame Zodiac. Seeing in him her father returned to her, she took to calling the Earth-One Batman her "Uncle Bruce", and built a familial relationship with him. As a member of the Justice Society, she participated in several of the annual JLA/JSA meetings, most of which took place on Earth-One. She also participated in the battle against the Adjudicator[8] as part of the female force of multiple Earths led by the Earth-One Wonder Woman. Other heroines involved in this adventure included Zatanna, Supergirl, Phantom Lady, Madame Xanadu, Power Girl, Black Canary, Wonder Girl, Raven, and Starfire.
Despite the fact that she did love her mother and became the Huntress to avenge her death, she secretly feared that she might follow in her mother's footsteps. Either fighting a demonic version of her mother in a drug-induced haze[9] or fighting her mother's Earth-One counterpart (who had never reformed),[10] Helena had a difficult time coming to grips with her mother's criminal career, even going so far as to seek therapy. Looking at her mother's Earth-One counterpart, she secretly hoped that one day that the Earth-One Catwoman would reform.
Death in Crisis on Infinite Earths
In Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Anti-Monitor destroys Earth-Two. Huntress is rescued from the destruction and is later killed battling the Anti-Monitor's Shadow Demons.
Return in Infinite Crisis
Selina Kyleholds her child, Helena, in Catwoman (vol. 3) #53 (May 2006), art by David Lopez.
Following the events of Infinite Crisis and 52, Earth-Two and Huntress are restored. Additionally, a version of Helena appears in the main universe as the daughter of Selina Kyle and an unknown father.
The New 52
Helena Wayne as Huntress in Huntress (vol. 3) #2 (January 2012), art by Marcus To.
The Helena Wayne incarnation of the Huntress returns in the wake of DC's The New 52 relaunch with a six-issue Huntress miniseries that was released in October 2011. Alongside Power Girl, she later starred in a revival of the Worlds' Finest series, written by Paul Levitz and drawn by George Pérez and Kevin Maguire.[11][12]
DC Rebirth
In the 2016–2019 run of Batman penned by Tom King as part of the DC Rebirth era, Selina and Bruce reconnected and fell in love once more, with the two almost marrying. In the possible futures of the story called "Last Rites" (in Batman (vol. 3) Annual #2)[13] and the series Batman/Catwoman, Selina falls pregnant with Bruce's child whom they name Helena. After Bruce's death in a flash-forward she helps her widowed mother come to terms with it and ends up becoming the new Batwoman.[14]
Dawn of DC
A version of the character is reintroduced in a flashforward depicted in Geoff Johns' one-shot The New Golden Age, which deals with never-before-seen characters being returned to history after having been removed from existence. After Per Degaton is defeated, Huntress' timeline is erased and she joins a 31st-century version of the Justice Society.[15][16]
Powers and abilities
The Huntress is a highly skilled gymnast and is also skilled at hand-to-hand combat, martial arts, and stealth. In addition, she is an expert markswoman, and archer, with her trademark weapon being a crossbow.
The Huntress is also skilled in investigating, law, and is fluent in English and Italian.
Collected editions
In January 2020, coinciding with the film Birds of Prey, DC Comics published The Huntress: Origins ( ISBN978-1-77950072-4), a trade paperback which was a re-release of 2006's Huntress: Darknight Daughter under a new title.
Title
Material collected
Publication date
ISBN
Huntress: Darknight Daughter
DC Super-Stars #17; Batman Family #18-20; the Huntress back-up stories from Wonder Woman #271-287, 289–290, 294–295
Helena Wayne / Huntress was considered to appear in Batman Beyond as an alternative to having a "Batgirl Beyond".[17]
Helena Wayne / Huntress, renamed Helena Kyle, appears in Birds of Prey, portrayed by Ashley Scott. This version is based primarily on her Bronze Age comics counterpart and is the metahuman daughter of Batman and Catwoman, the latter of whom raised Helena without revealing who her father was until Catwoman was murdered by Clayface and Barbara Gordon took over raising her. Having inherited her mother's powers, such as enhanced agility, strength, healing, and a sixth sense for danger, Helena forms the titular Birds of Prey with Gordon and Dinah Redmond to fight crime in Batman's stead.
Editor Paul Levitz justified the creation of Helena Wayne by a wish to bring more diversity into the comic books, for the ALL-STAR JSA group, and to give Power Girl (the only female in the groups at the time) someone to contrast with and befriend.[3]:111
Reviewers Michael Eury and Gina Misiroglu found the character of Helena Wayne "intriguingly distinguished by her parentage". This incarnation of the Huntress "so enthralled DC readers fascinated by the heroine's lineage and motivation" that she was spun out into her own successful series. When the character was eliminated by DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths series, it "was too popular to fully jettison from the DC universe", leading to the creation of Helena Bertinelli as the next Huntress.[2]
1 2 Eury, Michael; Misiroglu, Gina (2012). "The Huntress". In Misiroglu, Gina (ed.). The Superhero Book: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Comic-Book Icons an Hollywood Heroes (2nded.). Detroit: Visible Ink Press. pp.186–187. ISBN978-1-57859-375-0.
↑ McAvennie, Michael; Dolan, Hannah, ed. (2010). "1970s". DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. Dorling Kindersley. p.175. ISBN978-0-7566-6742-9. DC Super Stars #17 (November–December 1977) While writer Paul Levitz and artist Joe Staton introduced the Huntress to the JSA in this month's All Star Comics #69, they concurrently shaped her origin in DC Super-Stars.{{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ Manning, Matthew K. "1980s" in Dolan, p. 187: "The daughter of Batman and Catwoman from Earth-2 found a new home away from home in the pages of Wonder Woman's monthly title...a regular gig as the back-up feature to the Amazing Amazon's lead story. Handled by writer Paul Levitz and artist Joe Staton, the Huntress faced the villainy of the swamp creature Solomon Grundy".
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