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!
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!
Whew! Now that we finished discussing the recent New 52 reboot and the epic misfires that initiative spawned, I can’t tell you how exciting it is to finally get to the classic stuff! And what an exciting day too because today marks the actual 40th anniversary of Helena Wayne’s debut in both DC Super-Stars #17 and All-Star Comics #69, both published on 02 November 1977! What better way to celebrate this glorious day than to talk about the one trade that collects her classic origin, as well as the first six years of solo stories by her co-creators Paul Levitz, Joe Staton, Bob Layton?
It’s 07 September 2016, and you know what that means: It’s Helena Wayne’s DC calendar birthday today! I figured why not review a pre-Crisis Huntress and Power Girl story for today? Especially the most subtexty one that exists for them in the pre-Crisis era, complete with lunch, flowers, and flirty gazes, all of which happen in the span of two pages?
And you know what the best part is? You can actually download this comic from Comixology. Huzzah! (The best pages are even in the preview!)
Ever since my friend Stephanie (who is also a Huntress fan) brought to my attention Radiotelevisione Italiana’s (RAI) reaction to Paul Levitz’ Huntress: Crossbow at the Crossroads miniseries from 2011, I’ve found myself wanting to read an official Italian translation of the comic. Not only was RAI reporter, Riccardo Corbò, reasonably upset about the stereotypes and negative portrayal of Italy in this comic, but he also didn’t overlook the errors the writer made with the Italian language. (Neither did my friend).
Corbò felt very strongly about the ‘trashy’ portrayal of Italy in this Huntress story that he quoted the character and titled his article ’“Naples stinks” - A beautiful climate, prostitution, and garbage: The image of Italy in Comics.’ He even reached out to writer, Paul Levitz, with questions about some of the creative choices he made, mostly centred on the portrayal of Italy in his story. When he noticed that Levitz’ responses were incredibly brief compared to his more 'loquacious’ responses in his interviews with Newsarama and other American websites, he made note of that in his follow-up article as well.
I think on its own, it’s pretty embarrassing when a writer of fiction gets called out for things like misrepresenting a country that isn’t his own, and it especially looks bad when a writer doesn’t consult with a native speaker on how to say certain phrases in another language. However, considering that other people more qualified than me already addressed the problems with both representation and misuse of the Italian language (you can read Stephanie’s translation of Corbò’s article here), I won’t be addressing those issues in this series of posts, but I will, however, discuss how the story is presented from the Italian point of view.
If you could give Paul Levitz any advice on how to be a more successful writer, what would you tell him?
This is honestly a LONG list of items to address since Levitz has pretty much broken every major rule of writing in the New 52. But in all fairness to Levitz, he’s not the only writer who has exhibited traits of a lazy writer and the list of items I came out with is easily applicable to any writer who has fallen into the same pattern.
The short version of this ‘long list of advice’ is:
A. Drop the use of cliches and stereotypes.
B. Take the time to develop your story and characters.
C. Do any necessary research when addressing real world problems.
D. Pay attention to detail and put more thought into execution.
The more detailed version of this is behind the cut.
In her original incarnation, Huntress co-creator Paul Levitz established Helena Wayne as a high profile attorney in Gotham, who was also the adult daughter of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle who were married in DC’s Earth-2/Golden Age universe. It was also established that both Bruce and Selina had retired their costumed identities of Batman and Catwoman in order to give Helena a normal upbringing. As such, Helena benefitted from many of the privileges that came with being the daughter of Gotham’s richest man, plus the added bonus of having two superhero parents.
While Helena had grown up knowing who both of her parents were and was even trained by them to extraordinary peak (both mentally and physically), she oddly enough didn’t have any plans to take over the family business and become a costumed heroine herself. At least, not prior to the ‘Wayne Family Curse’ rearing it’s ugly head. Not long after graduating from Harvard University with her law degree, her mother was blackmailed by one of her former henchmen from her Catwoman days into committing one final heist that resulted in her death. Not being used to having her family torn apart by a senseless act of crime, Helena was at that point inspired to honour her heritage and become the Huntress to avenge her mother’s death. Following the capture of her mother’s killer, Helena took it upon herself to become Gotham’s newest protector and even joined the Justice Society where she met her best friend and confidante, Kara Zor-L (Power Girl).
Throughout Levitz’ run, Helena was consistently written as an intelligent and highly skilled crime-fighter who inherited her father’s passion for justice and her mother’s sharp attitude and wit. In her initial characterisation, Helena was often written as highly optimistic, overly confident in her abilities (though justified in her case), and was–unsurprisingly–more invested in her activities as the Huntress than her actual career as a lawyer. She also had a witty sense of humour, she was snarky, but she was also a team player and loved making new friends. Characters in her narratives often noted her for her unusual quirks and habits as Helena Wayne, but was also a well respected lawyer amongst her colleagues. She was similarly a highly valued member of both the Justice Society and Infinity Inc (Earth-2’s second generation superhero team) as the Huntress. She was also Power Girl’s partner for many missions with either team, and was even noted for her feminist values in both of her identities.
On the front of where Helena stood on her willingness to cross the line, it was established very early on that Helena–for the most part–strongly abided by the strict 'no kill policy,’ and would avoid casualties if she could help it. While she would often show compassion for others–including people who committed a crime to help out a loved one–she was also shown to not feel particularly sorry for any criminals who were killed during her interventions, especially if they were themselves murderers. Furthermore, towards the end of Levitz’ run of her solo series, it was established that under very extreme circumstances–such as threatening the lives of the people in her life as a way of exacting their revenge on her–Helena would threaten to actively kill a criminal if any of her loved ones were killed or harmed in any way.
I spoke to Paul Levitz back in 2010 about royalties he gets from DC's continued usage of the original Helena Wayne character he created. He said that DC never contacted him prior, the royalty cheques just show up in the mail whenever they happen to use the Wayne version of Huntress in anything, citing the Birds of Prey TV show as particularly good. If they used characters you conceived, wouldn't you get a cut, too, or does DC own your Gotham Central characters entirely?
ruckawriter-deactivated20200128:
Theoretically. There’s an issue of equity in the creation of characters, but those requests have to be approved by WB, as I understand it. So, yes? Maybe? One day?
-From Paul Levitz’ 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Myth Making
Not surprising to say the least, but I think it’s become exceptionally clear with the New 52 especially that the company itself is experiencing a ‘make them care about what’s happening, even if you have to do it in the worst way possible’ culture.
Truthfully I prefer more focus on character-driven stories over narratives that rely on pure shock value as the major selling point, but that’s just me. (Which might explain why I’m buying only buying 4-5 DC titles every month).