Line #228 ComicBook/Huntress


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/huntress_vol_1_1.jpg]]
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3
4	''Huntress'' is a fictional superhero created by Creator/DCComics. The name has been used by a number of characters acting as a DistaffCounterpart to ComicBook/{{Batman}}. The character has served as an ensemble and background character in numerous Bat-titles and has also independently starred in several self-titled series.
5
6	The original Huntress was the daughter of ComicBook/{{Batman}} and ComicBook/{{Catwoman}}, Helena Wayne. Part of the Earth-Two continuity, Helena donned the cape to avenge the death of her mother. She first appeared in ''"DC Super-Stars''" #17 (December, 1977), created by Paul Levitz and Joe Staton. She got several solo stories in TheSeventies and TheEighties and a back up feature in ''ComicBook/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Volume 1]], as well as having regular appearances alongside the ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica and ComicBook/InfinityInc. The character was killed in ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' #12, and like most Earth-Two characters, her existence was then erased from history, though Power Girl has had flashbacks of Helena in a few of the mid-2000s storylines.
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8	ComicBook/PostCrisis, the character was reworked, with a new series launching that reimagines the Huntress as Helena Bertinelli, with a entirely new backstory, only keeping a version of her original costume. Helena Bertinelli's father was one of the most powerful mob bosses in "The Five Families", until the other capos decided the Bertinellis were in their way and massacred every single member of the family - except for Helena, age eight, who watched as her family was murdered in front of her. Kept safe in Sicily, she trained for years, then returned as the Huntress, and began pursuing the systematic destruction of the mob. After the cancellation of her ongoing, Bertinelli was moved to Gotham and incorporated into the Bat-family, later joining the ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey. Post-ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}},
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10	Following DC's ''ComicBook/{{New 52}}'' reboot, Helena Wayne was returned to the Huntress identity. Co-creator Paul Levitz wrote the return/retcon, beginning with a six issue miniseries titled ''Huntress.'' Helena Wayne's adventures continued in the similarly Levitz-penned ''Worlds' Finest.'' A conversation in ''Worlds' Finest'' #1 revealed the fate of Helena Bertinelli, establishing that Bertinelli was killed years earlier, with her identity stolen by Wayne. Though Wayne had previously served as her father's sidekick using the identity of Robin, she took on the Huntress identity when her father, Wonder Woman, and Superman were killed, and she and Power Girl were stranded on Earth-One after an explosion.
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12	In 2014, Helena Bertinelli returned, though not as the Huntress, in ''ComicBook/{{Grayson}}''. She later took up the Huntress mantle in the ''DC Rebirth'' relaunch of ''Birds of Prey''.
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14	With the dissolution of ''New 52'', Helena Wayne was absent again for several years, until being brought back (using the identity of Batwoman) in the Creator/TomKing scripted maxi-series ''Batman/Catwoman''. Helena Wayne as Huntress then became a main character in a version of ''[[ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica2022 Justice Society of America]]'' launched in late 2022. This incarnation is the daughter of Earth-Prime's Batman from the future, rather than Earth-2's Batman in the present.
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16	----
17	!!Notable appearances of Huntress:
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19	[[folder:Notable Comic Books]]
20	[[AC:Helena Wayne]]
21	* ''ComicBook/AllStarComics'' Vol 1 (1977-1978)
22	* ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica'' Vol 1 (1978-1983) [-intermittent appearances-]
23	* ''Adventure Comics'' Vol 1 (1979)
24	* ''ComicBook/{{Wonder Woman\|1942}}'' Vol 1 (1980-1984)
25	** ''ComicBook/JudgmentInInfinity''
26	* ''ComicBook/InfinityInc'' (1984-1986)
27	* ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' (1985-1986)
28	* ''ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica'' Vol 3 (2008-2011)
29	* ''Huntress'' Vol 3 (2011-2012) miniseries by Paul Levitz
30	* ''ComicBook/Earth2'' (2012-2015)
31	* ''Worlds' Finest'' (2012-2015)
32	* ''[[ComicBook/{{Convergence}} Convergence: Detective Comics]]'' (2015)
33	* ''Batman/Catwoman'' (2021-2022) by Tom King
34	* ''The New Golden Age'' (2022 one-shot)
35	* ''[[ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica2022 Justice Society of America]]'' Vol 4 (2022- )
36	* ''[[ComicBook/TitansBeastWorld Titans: Beast World Tour: Star City]]'' (2024 one-shot)
37
38	[[AC:Helena Bertinelli]]
39	* ''Huntress'' Vol 1 (1989-1990) ongoing series by Joey Cavalieri
40	* ''Huntress'' Vol 2 (1994) miniseries by Chuck Dixon
41	* ''Huntress: Year One'' by Ivory Madison
42	* ''Nightwing/Huntress'' by Devin Grayson
43	* ''ComicBook/BatmanNoMansLand'' by multiple writers, including Chuck Dixon and Greg Rucka
44	* ''Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood'' by Greg Rucka
45	* ''ComicBook/BatmanHush'' by Jeph Loeb
46	* ''ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey'' by Gail Simone
47	* ''[[ComicBook/{{Robin}} Robin III: Cry of the Huntress]]'' by Chuck Dixon
48	* ''Huntress/Spoiler: Blunt Trauma'' by Chuck Dixon
49	* ''[[ComicBook/TheQuestion The Question: Pipeline]]'' by Greg Rucka
50	* ''ComicBook/InjusticeGodsAmongUs'' by Tom Taylor and Brian Buccellato
51	* ''ComicBook/{{Grayson}}'' by Tim Seely and Mikel Janin
52	* ''ComicBook/BatgirlAndTheBirdsOfPrey'' by Shawna Benson, Julie Benson and Claire Roe
53	* ''[[ComicBook/HarleyQuinn Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey]]'' by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti
54	[[/folder]]
55
56	[[folder:Appearances in other media]]
57	[[AC:Helena Wayne]]
58	* ''Series/LegendsOfTheSuperheroes'', played by Barbara Joyce
59	* ''Series/BirdsOfPrey2002'', played by Creator/AshleyScott
60	* ''Series/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths2019'', played by Ashley Scott
61	* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueCrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' (animation debut), voiced by Creator/ErikaIshii
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63	[[AC:Helena Bertinelli]]
64	* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'', voiced by Creator/AmyAcker
65	* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', voiced by Creator/TaraStrong
66	* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'', played by Creator/JessicaDeGouw
67	* ''Film/{{Birds of Prey\|2020}}'' (movie debut), played by Creator/MaryElizabethWinstead
68	* ''WesternAnimation/Injustice2021''
69	[[/folder]]
70
71	----
72	!!''Huntress'' provides examples of:
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74	[[foldercontrol]]
75
76	[[folder:Huntress Monthly]]
77	* AttackHello: [[Characters/GreenLantern1941 Solomon Grundy]] knocks out both of the guards accompanying the museum curator with one punch as he introduces himself to the curator, and makes it clear that he's stealing the entire contents of the vault.
78	* BadGuysPlayPool: In issue 301 Huntress goes to a shady pool hall when looking for a suspect, and finds him and his mob pals playing pool.
79	* BankToaster: During ComicBook/{{Huntress}}'s fight with Pat Pending in a bank he was attempting to rob she knocks him into a shelving unit containing gift toasters and blenders. Pat takes the opportunity of being partially obscured by the appliances to take a pill that allows him to fake his death.
80	* TheBeastmaster: In the Huntress feature she fights Herbert Hynde, who goes by "Earthworm" and can controll rats, reptiles and other vermin.
81	* ColorCharacter: Blackwing
82	* ConveyorBeltODoom: Huntress is tied up and placed on a conveyor belt meant to slide her into a blazing furnace by the Undertaker.
83	* EatenAlive: The "Earthworm" has his rats swarm and consume those who annoy him, usually starting with the face and neck.
84	* GraveMarkingScene: In issue 295 Alfred visits Bruce's grave and talks to Bruce's headstone about how Helena is doing.
85	* {{Hallucinations}}: Helena starts hallucinating after being drugged by Professor Fether.
86	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: In issue #290 the "Crimelord" gets pulled over the edge of his own fortress while trying to grab Huntress and falls to his death due to the weight of the armor he'd bragged about.
87	* InformingTheFourthWall: The bank robber Pat Pending has a truly bizarre habit of talking aloud to himself on heists describing the objects in his utility belts and what the one he is selecting can be used for in his current situation despite working alone.
88	* KnifeOutline: In "Into Darkness Once More" Helena pins the fence Sidney to the wall to question him by firing about ten arrows into his sleeves while not hitting his arms.
89	* MaliciousSlander: Helena has her very own crooked reporter who insists on twisting the facts and outright lying to try and make Huntress seem like an out of controll murderer in a cape despite Helena's very strict no killing or even seriously maiming rule. At one point Dedra Borrower blatantly misquotes a medical examiner on television in the same second the examiner had just said that he could not yet determine cause of death. She turns to the camera and tells her viewers ''There you have it. A man's death due to the unchecked violence of an unsanctioned vigilante''.
90	* ModestyBedsheet: Helena wraps herself in a bedsheet when she wakes up in Gary Minelli's bed and discovers he undressed her while she was unconscious.
91	* MurderByCremation: The Gotham mob boss known as the Undertaker tries to murder Huntress by putting her in the crematorium at his funeral home, though she escapes. This is also his favorite way of getting rid of the bodies of his victims killed elsewhere.
92	* OhCrap: While Helena is looking into some artwork that was apparently destroyed at the Gotham Museum and realizes the destroyed art was forgeries she returns to the museum to gather more evidence and try to figure out the motive. When she gets there she runs into [[Characters/GreenLantern1941 Solomon Grundy]] and has a moment of horror as she realizes she's way out of her weight class and given that Grundy is putting guards' heads through walls doesn't have time to call for more powerful backup.
93	* PestController: The "Earthworm" is named for his lanky and wrinkled appearance, but the creatures he controls, like a more famous Gotham based villain who operates out of the sewers, are rats and, more dangerously, gators.
94	* PinnedToTheWall: When ComicBook/{{Huntress}} faces off against the mob boss the Undertaker in his crematorium her first attack is to toss two throwing knives that strike the shoulders of his suit jacket and pin him to the door.
95	* ProtectionRacket: Earth-Two Huntress and Blackwing fight a group called Boa that's been forcing small business owners all over Gotham to pay them protection money.
96	* RhymesOnADime: The Arkham inmate turned receptionist under Dr. Tarr's instruction Lucinda tries to make everything she says rhyme. She struggles with it but never stops smiling, it just makes her talk and do other things agonizingly slowly.
97	* SewerGator: The ComicBook/{{Huntress}} tracks down a baby trafficking villain called [[http://www.comicvine.com/earthworm/4005-57745/ Earthworm]] in the Gotham sewers. He uses his [[PestController control over the animals in the sewers]] to [[http://siskoid.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/whos-earthworm.html make some alligators attack her]].
98	* ShamelessFanserviceGirl: During one of her storylines Helena is escaping Arkham Asylum and succumbs to the effects of being shot with a very potent hallucinogenic by Professor Fether. After her JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind, Helena wakes up in the flat of her fellow inmate she escaped the Asylum with, Gary Minelli. She also finds herself naked in his bed, meaning [[UndressingTheUnconscious he undressed and unmasked her while she was out]], when she confronts him wearing only a ModestyBedsheet, she's more worried about her SecretIdentity being compromised than her modesty, despite his obvious flirting.
99	* ShoutOutThemeNaming: The feature includes a character named Dr. Amos Tarr who it is eventually revealed has taken over Arkham by imprisoning the staff and various police officers and put the inmates in charge and is working with an unhinged scientist named Professer Fether. The whole thing being a reference to "The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether" by Creator/EdgarAllanPoe.
100	* SpeechImpediment: The Undertaker & Dr. Tarr's enforcer Milo has a very prominent lisp that presents itself as a lot of ssssh-es at the beginning of words.
101	* StockSuperheroDayJobs: Helena Wayne, Richard M. Grayson ''and'' Charles Bullock are attorneys at Cranston, Grayson and Wayne while acting as ComicBook/{{Huntress}}, ComicBook/{{Robin}} and Blackwing.
102	* SuperRegistrationAct: ComicBook/PowerGirl is furious when a Gotham DA starts pushing for more government oversight of superheroes, accusing him of [=McCarthyism=] and brining up how the last time the government tried to register and control superheroes it forced the ComicBook/{{JSA}} to disband in the 1950s and it and most Earth-Two heroes remained defunct for a couple of decades.
103	* TentacleRope: Helena hallucinates her ankles are being wrapped in tentacles that are pulling her down after being drugged by Professor Fether.
104	* TooManyBelts: The bank robber Pat Pending wears three belts around his waist and hips, a belt around each of his upper arms, and a thigh belt on each leg. All but one belt slung around his hips are covered with large pouches containing the tools he uses in his trade.
105	* UndressingTheUnconscious: Gary Minelli, whom Helena escaped Arkham with, undressed and unmasked her while she was under the effects of a hallucinogenic before putting her to bed to sleep it off.
106	* VisionQuest: After being drugged with a very potent hallucinogenic by Professor Fether while escaping Arkham Helena has to find herself within the center of her own mind before waking up.
107	* WalkInChimeIn: In the ''ComicBook/{{Huntress}}'' feature "Dying to Take You Away" Helena interrupts a bank robber talking to himself as she swings down from the rafters, but is replying things he'd said while outside the building and in another room rather than anywhere where it would make sense for her to have heard him.
108	* WrenchWhack: One of the mobsters in issue 301 attacks Huntress with an oversized monkey wrench which he evidently carries with him while playing pool.
109	* XRayVision: Pat Pending uses a pair of x-ray goggles in his heists to aid in gettting into vaults.
110	[[/folder]]
111
112	[[folder:Volume 1]]
113	* BrokenBird: Helena. The murder of her family when she was a young child led her to become ruthless and distrustful.
114	* CulturedBadass: As a member of a mafia family, and due to growing up in Sicily, Helena was raised in love high culture, including opera and fine cuisine.
115	* HarmfulToMinors: Helena was raped when she was 6 by a rival crime lord to torture her father. She would later watch as her parents get shot by [[TheMafia her father's associates]])
116	* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Her war against the mob has forced Helena to turn into a killer just like them.
117	* ImprovisedWeapon: In close quarters combat Helena often uses objects like frying pans, car windows, chairs or even television antennas - whatever happens to be close at hand - to inflict damage.
118	* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: Huntress does this a lot.
119	* LastOfHerKind: Helena Bertinelli is the last of the Bertinellis, who were once the dominant of the Five Families. The Bertinelli name is still highly respected in the underworld, however, and Huntress uses that to her advantage.
120	* TheMafia: Helena Bertinelli was born to it, rejected it, continually drawn to it, eventually infiltrated it and became a capo. Her mission in life: take it down.
121	* MafiaPrincess: Helena was the daughter one of the most powerful mob bosses in "The Five Families", and enjoyed the high-class lifestyle that brought with it.
122	* RapeAsBackstory: Helena was raped when she was 6 by a rival crime lord to torture her father.
123	* {{Retcon}}: The series originally took place in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, before being retconned to have taken place in Gotham City.
124	* SecretIdentity: The Huntress is Helena Bertinelli, former MafiaPrincess of the Bertinelli crime family.
125	* SociopathicHero: Helena is at least a borderline sociopath. By DC superhero standards (also by normal-person standards), she has killed a lot of people, and never seems to feel bad about it.
126	* StatuesqueStunner: Official DC sources put Helena at 5'11".
127	[[/folder]]
128
129	[[folder:Volume 3]]
130	* MolotovTruck: In the 2012 mini-series, the Huntress sends a speedboat packed with explosives into a harbor as a distraction.
131	[[/folder]]

Context ComicBook / Huntress