Helena Wayne

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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.

I think I’m finally starting to come around.

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!

Earlier this week saw casting calls for Black Canary and the Huntress for the upcoming Birds of Prey film. They were interestingly looking to cast a black actress as Black Canary while seemingly limiting the casting choices for the Huntress to white women. The roles eventually went to Jurnee Smollett-Bell and Mary Elizabeth Winstead respectively.

Mark and I celebrated Helena Wayne’s canonical birthday (07 September) earlier this month by discussing the history of the Huntress across the pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, and post-Flashpoint DC continuities. We also discuss the core differences between the Huntress as Helena Wayne and the Huntress as Helena Bertinelli.

Summary: The Huntress has moved on to her newest case, but has no idea where to start looking. All she knows is that there is one Dr. Mizuki Tori–the head researcher of Project Starfish–and stolen data from said project. She has no leads on the culprit and begins her investigation by looking into a new hospital intern as a possible suspect, Tom Kelly. Huntress rationalises that the person leaking Dr. Tori’s research has to be someone working close to her with easy access to the data. If the Huntress is wrong, she’ll be back to Square 01…or will she?