richardak (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} richardak) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} scans_daily,@ 2009-06-21 01:25:00 |
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Huntress uses stealth on others besides Batman
In response to a previous post of mine, runespoor7 commented that there would be less resistance to the idea that Huntress can out-stealth Batman if Huntress were more frequently depicted as using stealth in general; I replied that there were such examples, and that I would post some. Here are a few from Huntress: Year One:
In these first few scans, she is breaking into a mafia compound in Sicily to assassinate Stephen Mandragora, the boss who ordered the murder of her family.
Note that in the first shot, the window is closed. She is able to open it from the outside and sneak in without alerting him until she decides to announce her presence deliberately.
Not well for him, unsurprisingly.
"More painful"? Yikes, she's already impaled him through both palmar radial nerves! It doesn't get much more painful than that. Anyway, as anyone who has ever talked shop with a special operations soldier knows, getting in is the easy part. Getting back out again, that's the real trick. She manages pretty well though:
Anyway, she subsequently returns to Gotham on the trail of the hitman Omerta who actually pulled the trigger on her family. At the same time, Bruce Wayne has invited Nino Angelo, the head of the Angelo crime family, to hold the reception for his son's wedding to the daughter of Gotham's mayor at Wayne Manor, on the theory that this will give Bruce a chance to gather intel on the Gotham mob and on Angelo in particular. Huntress decides to crash the party in the hopes of finding a clue to Omerta's whereabouts:
Considering that Wayne Manor was being guarded not only by Bruce's people, but also by Angelo's men and the Gotham police department, since the mayor and his family were also in attendance, of course, this is a neat trick. Possibly neater than spying on Bruce's conversation with Don Angelo:
Obviously, this conversation turned out to be less private than Bruce anticipated. Nevertheless, I am not sure whether to code this as a complete success for Huntress in out-stealthing Batman, even though she was able to spy on a private meeting of his. After all, in his Bruce Wayne guise, he can hardly display all the skills he actually possesses, especially not in front of a Gotham mob boss. He very clearly throws the fight he subsequently has with her (you can see the first punch in the following scan), so it's not unreasonable to think that he might have noticed her, but doesn't want Angelo to know that. On the other hand, Bruce has plenty of reason not to want an unknown intruder to overhear this conversation, and you could reasonably assume that Angelo wouldn't know just how skilled Bruce would have had to have been to detect the Huntress. Again, though, it's at least as much the fact that she was able to penetrate all of the security at this party in the first place that's really impressive.
After leaving stately Wayne Manor, she decides to break into the Angelo family compound and confront Nino again. She once again is able to penetrate a mafiusi's compound and face him in his sanctum sanctorum. She's not the only one, mind you, and she gets a shot, literally, at Omerta.
She misses though, and after a(nother) confrontation with Batman and Catwoman, she decides to break into the mayor's office to discover what his involvement is. Breaking into the city hall of a major urban center is generally pretty difficult.
I strongly disliked this plot, to be honest. I thought there were several things bad about it, not least of which is that it is incredible: city devastated by unforeseen terrorist attack by foreign enemy, already highly successful mayor rallies people becomes national hero, is one thing. City devastated by flood because levees were improperly maintained and some old explosives were supposedly never properly removed by authorities, mayor probably does not become national hero.
But at least the art was much better than what appeared in Huntress' solo ongoing series from the late eighties. Also, I vastly prefer this costume to any of her others. Anyway, if people want, I would be willing to post scans from other sources showing Huntress relying on stealth.
Note that in the first shot, the window is closed. She is able to open it from the outside and sneak in without alerting him until she decides to announce her presence deliberately.
Not well for him, unsurprisingly.
"More painful"? Yikes, she's already impaled him through both palmar radial nerves! It doesn't get much more painful than that. Anyway, as anyone who has ever talked shop with a special operations soldier knows, getting in is the easy part. Getting back out again, that's the real trick. She manages pretty well though:
Anyway, she subsequently returns to Gotham on the trail of the hitman Omerta who actually pulled the trigger on her family. At the same time, Bruce Wayne has invited Nino Angelo, the head of the Angelo crime family, to hold the reception for his son's wedding to the daughter of Gotham's mayor at Wayne Manor, on the theory that this will give Bruce a chance to gather intel on the Gotham mob and on Angelo in particular. Huntress decides to crash the party in the hopes of finding a clue to Omerta's whereabouts:
Considering that Wayne Manor was being guarded not only by Bruce's people, but also by Angelo's men and the Gotham police department, since the mayor and his family were also in attendance, of course, this is a neat trick. Possibly neater than spying on Bruce's conversation with Don Angelo:
Obviously, this conversation turned out to be less private than Bruce anticipated. Nevertheless, I am not sure whether to code this as a complete success for Huntress in out-stealthing Batman, even though she was able to spy on a private meeting of his. After all, in his Bruce Wayne guise, he can hardly display all the skills he actually possesses, especially not in front of a Gotham mob boss. He very clearly throws the fight he subsequently has with her (you can see the first punch in the following scan), so it's not unreasonable to think that he might have noticed her, but doesn't want Angelo to know that. On the other hand, Bruce has plenty of reason not to want an unknown intruder to overhear this conversation, and you could reasonably assume that Angelo wouldn't know just how skilled Bruce would have had to have been to detect the Huntress. Again, though, it's at least as much the fact that she was able to penetrate all of the security at this party in the first place that's really impressive.
After leaving stately Wayne Manor, she decides to break into the Angelo family compound and confront Nino again. She once again is able to penetrate a mafiusi's compound and face him in his sanctum sanctorum. She's not the only one, mind you, and she gets a shot, literally, at Omerta.
She misses though, and after a(nother) confrontation with Batman and Catwoman, she decides to break into the mayor's office to discover what his involvement is. Breaking into the city hall of a major urban center is generally pretty difficult.
I strongly disliked this plot, to be honest. I thought there were several things bad about it, not least of which is that it is incredible: city devastated by unforeseen terrorist attack by foreign enemy, already highly successful mayor rallies people becomes national hero, is one thing. City devastated by flood because levees were improperly maintained and some old explosives were supposedly never properly removed by authorities, mayor probably does not become national hero.
But at least the art was much better than what appeared in Huntress' solo ongoing series from the late eighties. Also, I vastly prefer this costume to any of her others. Anyway, if people want, I would be willing to post scans from other sources showing Huntress relying on stealth.