InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "If i only had a brain"

richardak (richardak) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-05-08 17:00:00

Entry tags:

char: batman/bruce wayne, char: huntress/helena bertinelli, char: mr. miracle/scott free, char: spoiler/robin/batgirl/steph brown, creator: chuck dixon, creator: greg rucka, creator: j.m. dematteis, creator: keith giffen, publisher: dc comics

Huntress is badass, psychopathic
:

Here's one of Huntress' earliest post-Crisis appearances, in Justice League America #26. Note that she gives Batman the slip:

This is not a fluke. Here she is in Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood, getting the drop on him with her crossbow:

Clearly, Huntress is better at stealth than even Batman. She's also different from Batman in other ways, as Spoiler's ruminations in Huntress/Spoiler: Blunt Trauma reveal:

Like the character upon whom Helena Bertinelli is largely based famously once said: "Business is personal." Here's another instance of what Huntress is like, this time from Justice League America #30. To give some background, a petty criminal had stolen Barda's mega-rod and was gradually having his mind taken over by it.

Accident? Yeah, sure. Check out that grin in the last panel. Huntress is a good enough shot to do that deliberately, and I think it's pretty clear she did. Here's another "accident" she caused, this time again from Blunt Trauma:

"Damn!" She seems very regretful, doesn't she?

Anyway, here's one last scan from Blunt Trauma. Could anyone but Huntress get Spoiler to help her father escape? Does that make Huntress a bad influence?

I think these images encapsulate pretty well what makes Huntress one of my favorite characters. She's essentially Batman's Batman. Other DC heroes are all, "Oh, Batman's so grim and gritty! We don't know if we can work with him!" and Batman's all "Oh, I can't work with Huntress. She's crazy." Also, she has shot and critically wounded more Justice Leaguers than has any supervillain I can think of, but that's for another day.

(Post a new comment)

	unknownscribler 2009-05-08 05:08 pm UTC (link)
	I don't think she's ever going to be consistantly able to out stealth the bat, but I think it's good that she can beat him at his own game every so often. (Reply to this)

taggerung301
2009-05-08 05:11 pm UTC (link)

I agree, Huntress IS badass
I dunno if she's crazy though. She just sits on the moral line between guys like Punisher and Batman. She doesn't necessarily go out of her way to kill every thug she sees, but if they're complete scum, she doesn't really have a problem with "accidentally" shooting them.
I mean, what's crazier? Devoting yourself to only killing or only not-killing, or judging on the spot what is necessary for the situation?

Then again, pretty much every super hero is a little unhinged in their own special little way, so I suppose she is nuts. :P

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stig
2009-05-08 05:12 pm UTC (link)

...But unless you know and enjoy her overcomplicated backstory, she's basically just another generic superheroine in an alternating variety of ugly outfits, similar to Carol Danvers. This is probably why they were combined in the "Amalgam" crossover. Unless you invest so much interest that you're practically using the character as wanking material, they are just very dull and forgettable.

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runespoor7
2009-05-08 05:38 pm UTC (link)

I don't know. I know only the most basic facts about Huntress' backstory (mafia family, parents killed before her eyes, swore to avenge them and started out fighting the mafia), and I still enjoy her character as part of the Batfamily. She brings something special there; like the OP said, in some ways she's Batman's Batman. She's less of a team player than he is and she goes against Batman, and at the same time she wants his approval. Her interactions with Gotham and the rest of the Batfamily have their own angle. She's interesting.

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	greenmask 2009-05-08 07:15 pm UTC (link)
	I knew even less than that (she's a catholic and a teacher..), and I still like her best of all the bats. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	starwolf_oakley 2009-05-08 05:24 pm UTC (link)
	The Huntress would work better in the next Nolan/Bale Batman movie than Catwoman would. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	richardak 2009-05-09 09:18 pm UTC (link)
	That would be the greatest thing ever. I would weep for joy. I'm not holding my breath though. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	chengar 2009-05-10 03:50 am UTC (link)
	Given that conventional organized crime has played a pretty big role in the movies so far Huntress would be a pretty good fit considering her backstory. She'd also make a great foil for further exploring Batman's code against killing. Unfortunately, she's probably not a big enough name to make it into the Nolan films. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	starwolf_oakley 2009-05-10 05:13 pm UTC (link)
	Unfortunately, she's probably not a big enough name to make it into the Nolan films. You're right. But one could have said the same thing about the Scarecrow and Ra's Al Ghul for Batman Begins. Outside of the comics, they would only be known from BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, with the Scarecrow also known from the old Superfriends cartoon. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	volksjager 2009-05-08 05:27 pm UTC (link)
	Please bring back Helena Wayne...her body was never found, she is still out there somewhere. (Reply to this)

	aaron_bourque 2009-05-08 05:28 pm UTC (link)
	The freakish thing about this is that technically, these are all different characters. Oh, sure, they're all "The Huntress" and the last three versions are all "Helena Bertinelli" but they're not the same person at all. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	scottyquick 2009-05-08 07:19 pm UTC (link)
	I've read very little of Dixon's Helena, but it seems like he thinks she's actually crazy. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	richardak 2009-05-09 09:07 pm UTC (link)
	I don't agree at all. One of the reasons I chose these three stories to post from was what I saw as the high degree of consistency across all three portrayals. What leads you to feel otherwise? (Reply to this) (Parent)

mysteryfan
2009-05-08 07:16 pm UTC (link)

I'm not a big Huntress fan. It really knocked me out of one story plausibility-wise (I think in Huntress Year One) when they committed what I consider a major blunder in their understanding of Catholicism and what a Catholic character would do. And then there's the sexism. Related to at least Huntress Year One, Tony Daniels blog, some of her costumes and Cass making fun of her for her costume in Network. But between Volksjager's E2 Helena Wayne posts and these scans, I'm thinking maybe I could really find her interesting if she was written ~~consistently~~ ~~better~~, differently.

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bluefall
2009-05-08 07:50 pm UTC (link)

I think it's a genre problem. She's got the same fight Jason's got, really - the two are photo negatives of each other, and therefore endure the same mistreatment. They're simply not black-and-white enough for a lot of writers of the superhero genre, which is traditionally very clear on bad guys vs good guys (even at Marvel, which pretends to a more "realistic" world and does a very grey-and-black moral scale lately, the writing is still very strongly of that polarized mode when you break it down to the skeleton). So they get forced to one side or the other, and naturally, since "killing for vengeance" is a clear-cut Evil act, and Good characters don't do Evil things, they're Evil. And then other writers come along who do understand and can reconcile the grey in those characters, and write them more complexly, but that just makes their portrayals that much more schizoid.

Rucka and Simone do a pretty killer Helena, though, and Grayson's is pretty good too, apart from suffering some of the standard Grayson quirks, and Madison had a pretty good handle on her in Y1, which was unfortunately ruined by the lack of handle she had on everyone else and the story itself by the time she hit the conclusion. :/ Anyway, the Rucka/Simone Helena is a pretty compelling and awesome character. Anywhere else you see her, she's completely hit-or-miss.

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	freddylloyd 2009-05-08 10:03 pm UTC (link)
	I don't think it was coincidence that the Batman team created the second Huntress in 1989, only months after the death of Jason Todd. She allowed them to explore the same dynamic—a newcomer more ruthless than Batman, driven by her family's criminal past—without the baggage of the Robin mythos. (Reply to this) (Parent)

sistermagpie
2009-05-09 10:17 am UTC (link)

Is she considered evil meta-wise? She seems really straightforward to me, like Jason, as you say, but more in control. Like with Jason I feel like all his philosophy is coming out of emotional stuff he's denying. Huntress always seems like she's just got a very strict code that's different from Batman's. So she's just different.

But I don't feel like I know her all that well so I could be wrong about how she's presented. (Of ocurse, I wouldn't describe either of them as evil ever. It's just I think Jason's unstable.)

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bluefall
2009-05-09 06:07 pm UTC (link)

Well, like I said, she and Jason are photo negatives. Post-resurrection, he's officially a black hat; she's always been officially a white hat. But all that means is that writers who can't cope with his good side make him overboard mustache-twirling kid-shooting EEEEVIL, while writers who can't cope with her bad side make her crazy or incompetent or both. It's the same impulse - this character is a bad person because of X behavior, and so I will write hir as a bad person - but it manifests slightly differently because "bad person hero" and "bad person villain" look slightly different.

"Helena's code" is kind of a complex question. It's true she fundamentally disagrees with Bruce - she's of the "defense of self or others is a perfectly legit reason to put down a monster" school of heroism - but that's not what the extremism was about. Which is actually the thing I find most compelling about her as a character. It's not that she thinks it's okay to be excessively violent with criminals, or that murder is an ideal solution to villainy, or whatever. In fact she believes very strongly that it isn't. It's just, she's already damned. She avenged her family's death - something she had no more choice in, really, than Babs had in becoming Oracle, she is simply not wired to be able to ignore the whole omerta thing she was raised with - and that was an evil act, a mortal sin, unforgivable by man or God. So, at that point, why not deliver a bunch of criminal bastards the proper bloody wages of their own transgressions? It's not like she can dig herself in any worse, and at least that way her damnation is of some use to the rest of the world.

So actually, once she *did* cope with a lot of that emotional stuff and started to perceive herself as *capable* of redemption and moral behavior, she mellowed out a lot, and let go of a lot of the extremism that so horrified Batman. (Not that she's not still entirely willing to shank a dude what needs shanking, mind, but she's much calmer these days and more apt to consider or even seek other solutions even when that's the hard way around.)

Which just goes to show, Jason should have hooked up with Babs when he came back instead of wasting his time on the emotionally retarded man-child that is Bruce. Heh.

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	sailorlibra 2009-05-08 09:48 pm UTC (link)
	I think these images encapsulate pretty well what makes Huntress one of my favorite characters. Strangely, I actually liked Helena a lot more before I read these scans. She comes across as more annoying than cool here IMO. I'm gonna have to go read BoP to get my love back for her. I did like her in Cry For Blood, however. Maybe I'll go read that, too. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	richardak 2009-05-09 09:14 pm UTC (link)
	Annoying? I can see reasons why someone might not like her based on these scans; I admit my tastes are somewhat idiosyncratic. But I can't understand finding annoying based on these. Dangerous, brutal, possibly psychopathic, yes, but annoying? How so? (Reply to this) (Parent)

nevermore999
2009-05-08 11:42 pm UTC (link)

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't count Blunt Trauma among Helena's best moments. It was a decent Steph story, and I like that it established a connection between those two (Fight that overly self satisfied righteous boys club, sisters!) but...I can't see Helena, the Helena I like, being willing to kill a teenage girl's father in front of her. No way. Never. Arthur is crazy. But the fact that she implied she would is just...oh Dixon. Why do you do this to me?

Anyway, now that Steph's back, Helena should totally be her mentor. The awesome Simone/Rucka Helena of course. Dinah's too busy being OOC with Ollie, and Babs is..I don't know what Babs is doing...but Helena and Steph? They have so much in common! She could teach Steph so much! And they're both awesome, so they can be awesome together!

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bluefall
2009-05-09 12:40 am UTC (link)

I can't see Helena, the Helena I like, being willing to kill a teenage girl's father in front of her.

Now, why would you say a thing like that? It's not like Helena would know how much that could mess up an innocent girl or have any kind of empathy for a kid who thinks her father is scum right up until the moment his life is actually in question. And when was the last time you met a really passionate, dedicated teacher who actually treated teenagers with care and respect rather than bullying and threats? (Or... "cutting" accusations that they don't know how to cheat, or something, I guess?)

And on a totally unrelated topic that has nothing whatsoever to do with anything DC is doing right now, I'm going to go work on my Harrierverse a bit. -_-

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	nevermore999 2009-05-09 01:43 pm UTC (link)
	You should! You should! That way I can see more Steph mentoring Helena as my little heart desires it. :D (Reply to this) (Parent)

richardak
2009-05-09 09:26 pm UTC (link)

I could, to be honest. I could see her saying, this will hurt a lot, but in the end she'll be better off with him dead. Also, as I've said, I like psychopathic-Huntress, so Dixon's portrayal was, in most respects, something I liked.

But nevermore, you're definitely right that Blunt Trauma was more about Spoiler than Huntress. I definitely wouldn't mind seeing the two of them teamed up again, though. They do have a fair amount in common, after all. Both driven to become vigilantes, at least in part, by their criminal families. Both outsiders, to varying extent, in Batman's circle. Both, more superficially, wear purple. What? Comics are a graphic medium, and aesthetics matter.

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	unknownscribler 2009-05-09 12:01 pm UTC (link)
	Did Helena even know he was Steph's dad at that point? I seem to recall that Dinah finding out was a big thing. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	nevermore999 2009-05-09 01:41 pm UTC (link)
	Steph went right out and told her "Please don't shoot my Dad" And Helena was like "A crooks and crook you're better off without them!" Then one of the goons attacked Helena while they were squabbling and Steph was all "oh noes! Mah fault!" and saved Helena. (Reply to this) (Parent)