The always wonderful DC Women Kicking Ass blog had a series of posts yesterday saying goodbye to the post-Crisis Huntress, following the revelation that the current incarnation of the character is, once again, Helena Wayne and not Helena Bertinelli (The timing was chosen to coincide with the final issue of Paul Levitz and Marcus To’s Huntress mini-series). In addition to fans remembering their favorite Helena Bertinelli scenes, the posts also included commentary from Greg Rucka and Gail Simone, who shared her reasons for loving the character:
The charge was often leveled us, when I took over Birds of Prey, that we had added the Huntress to the book to tie in with the television series that had spun off from the book’s previous incarnation. The truth is, it was my idea to bring her in. The show had already flopped, and DC was in no hurry to be more closely affiliated with the series. So they were not thrilled with the idea of bringing Helena aboard. I made a stern case, aided by a great editor, the fierce Lysa Hawkins, for what Helena would bring to the book; her unpredictability, her untamed nature, her unmatchable will. All of that stuff was true, but had nothing to do with why I wanted her in the book. The truth is a lot simpler.
She was badass.
Completely, unendingly badass.
The post-Crisis Huntress was a character that I’d never really paid too much attention to, before; she appeared in a lot of books I enjoyed without my realizing it, if that makes sense, and I always attributed that to the creators of said books. But reading through the posts, I found myself realizing that I’ll miss the character as well. Maybe we’ll get to meet the New 52 Helena Bertinelli before too long, somehow…
March 8th, 2012 at 10:07 am
So long, don’t let the door hit you. I found her to be one of the most obnoxious characters in comics and almost always brought down my enjoyment of any comic that she was in.
March 8th, 2012 at 11:08 am
Personally, I always thought the H.B. Huntress possessed a lot of moxy! I loved the Nightwing/Huntress mini that Devin Grayson wrote back in the late 90s. The comic that made me fall in love with H.B. was the Greg Rucka/Rick Burchett collaboration, Cry for Blood mini. I will miss the character, but I am also a fan of Helena Wayne.
@Graeme – Have you ever read a comic drawn by pre-Crossgen Greg Land and Bill Sienkiewicz? It sounds unorthodox but it worked.
March 8th, 2012 at 12:03 pm
So people are getting mad and saying goodbye because the Earth-2 Huntress is Helena Wayne and not Bertinelli? And so because she’s from Earth-2 there can’t be a regular version of her on DC’s main Earth?
I feel like I’m missing something here.
March 8th, 2012 at 12:12 pm
@hhbx I think it’s the fact that this Huntress was actually a Robin back on Earth 2, means that Helena Bertenelli isn’t necessarily her main Earth counterpart. The exact doppelganger would be Damian Wayne. Helena Bertenelli could exist on main Earth but she could just be a regular person. I doubt that DC will have 2 doppelgangers on the same Earth at the same time so early on.
March 8th, 2012 at 12:19 pm
When DC first recreated Helena, she was rather underwhelming to me. Joey Cav took the name of the character and little else, and came up with a premise that was really hard to swallow. She had nothing to do with Batman, and was only noteworthy for being a female hero with her own book. Which ended fast. And then she was shoehorned into JLI/A.
It was only years later that she was retconned to be from Gotham, and then connected more firmly to Batman by Rucka in his memorable miniseries with Rick Burchett. Only after that huge reworking did she come to life for me. And while some other writers did well with her, Rucka was pretty much the only one who kept her consistently interesting to me. Though I did like Gail’s impossible romance between Huntress and Catman.
I guess I will miss the version being replaced as of now. But this would sting a lot more if I felt like Rucka was ever likely to write her again.
August 15th, 2012 at 12:52 pm
Helena Wayne was always my favorite Huntress…glad she was brought back to the role she was created for!