February 1986. Incredibly bleak: Earth-2’s Helena Wayne (The Huntress) and Dick Grayson (Robin) survived the cataclysmic events of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #10 (January 1986), only to find in the following issue that the world into which they awakened afterward had no record that they had ever existed. Both were then killed by falling debris during the final battle in CRISIS #12 and subsequently laid to rest by their JSA comrades, almost the only people on the reformed Earth who still remembered them. Earth-2’s middle-aged Dick Grayson was a relatively minor character even before the Crisis, but the fate of the Huntress was a bitter pill, although at least she was spared the awful post-Crisis origin revamps of Power Girl and Fury (the daughter of Earth-2’s Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor).
I wouldn’t say Helena Wayne was spared from getting a post-Crisis revamp since she was later rebooted as Helena Bertinelli.
If anything killing her off and later reviving her as Bertinelli created the much bigger problem of later having TWO Huntresses named Helena with very little to distinguish them apart from personality differences and having vastly different origins.
Since both versions of Helena have equally passionate fanbases, DC has been reluctant to completely retcon the Bertinelli Huntress to properly restore Helena Wayne as the original Huntress. This resulted in more confusing retcons for both characters.
Bertinelli now exists as a shell of her former self without a clearly defined history and even less of a purpose for existing in a universe that brought back Helena Wayne as a native of Earth-0 instead of Earth-2.
Wayne herself is now on her third origin revamp with more of her conceptual originality removed to accommodate the main Earth versions of Batman and Catwoman as her parents—two characters who are not destined for permanent change and quite literally lack the character developments her origin actually requires for her existence to make sense.
The other issue that’s coming out of the third revamp is that Bertinelli now comes first in the timeline, effectively erasing Wayne’s status as the original Huntress.
Similarly, placing her origin in the far future places too much of an age gap between her and Power Girl, and the original JSAers she originally worked alongside. Historically, Wayne is a second generation JSAer who comes before Infinity Inc, Stargirl and Jakeem Thunder, and their roles are now reversed in the new timeline.
Given what the Huntress has gone through as a consequence of the Crisis reboot, I would argue Fury and Power Girl got the better end of the deal.
Sep 29
I guess I better start posting on here again with how quickly Elon Musk is destroying Twitter.
As much as I don’t like that it has come down to this, Tumblr has been flagging both my classic Huntress comic reviews and even my DCEU film reviews as “explicit content” despite not having any adult content. As such, some of those posts have been deleted by Tumblr staff as a result. I drew the line at them deciding my Wonder Woman 2017 film review was “adult content” and removed it from my Tumblr.
With their new adult content policy now in place, I figured it was better to cut our losses short rather than waste time and energy being vigilant of Tumblr flagging and removing my Huntress reviews and opinion pieces as pornographic when they aren’t.
I will, however, continue posting to my website and Twitter. Tumblr may have shot themselves in both feet with this new policy, but our love for Helena Wayne as the Huntress will love on!
I would like to thank you for your support all these years, and I’m sorry about the turn of events. I hope to still see you around!
Nov 30
The holiday season is upon us, but Mark and I devoted the month of November to celebrating Helena Wayne’s 41st anniversary by discussing All-Star Comics #70!
Summary: Helena Wayne has had an exhausting couple of weeks and decides to go on holiday in California. Rather than take an aeroplane to arrive at her destination in a shorter timeframe, Helena decides that a trip from coast to coast should happen slowly and more leisurely.
En route, Helena reunites with an old friend from college who also happens to be travelling to the west coast to finalise the procurement of an ancient Japanese statue. It turns out Helena’s friend isn’t the only person on the train interested in procuring the Japanese relic. Someone else aboard that same train wants it as well, leading to a mysterious murder inside one of the train’s compartments!
It is now three days after Halloween, and literally just a day after the anniversary of Helena Wayne’s historic debut as the Huntress in All-Star Comics #69 on 02 November 1977. A story Mark and I happily covered for both the Halloween season and her anniversary on the same week.
We now get to talk about another story of a more ghoulish nature for the upcoming Holiday season. An upcoming sequel of sorts to the epic multiversal adventure, Dark Nights Metal, that not only follows up on Bruce Wayne’s journey to the Dark Multiverse, but reacquaints him with the normal DC Multiverse. The upcoming Batman Who Laughs miniseries by Metal writer Scott Snyder and his Wytches and Batman collaborator, Jock.
Happy Halloween! For the spookiest day of the year, Mark and I decided to treat our audience to a double feature for our first official session. Diving right into the beginning of the Huntress’ lore, we talk about Helena Wayne’s first appearance in All-Star Comics #69 and her origin story in DC Super-Stars #17!
Summary: The Huntress has exposed the truth behind the theft of Dr. Tori’s research on Project Starfish. With the culprit revealed, the Huntress is led to the real man behind the curtain: a double amputee who could certainly benefit from Dr. Tori’s regeneration research, a mariner who goes by the name of Sea Lion. Apart from the obvious, what is the Sea Lion’s other motives for hijacking Dr. Tori’s project? What does he plan to do about the Huntress and his accomplice at the hospital, now that his secret is out? Things aren’t looking too well for the Huntress as she finally confronts her newest foe!
Doomsday Clock #7 hit the shelves last week, and while the story does recover one major piece to the larger puzzle, we are sadly still no closer to seeing (let alone understanding) the larger picture that is the post-Flashpoint DC Universe. We especially don’t know what writer Geoff Johns wants to say about DC’s haphazard reboots and their long term damages to character vitality and the integrity of their core mythologies.