Kate Kane: Batwoman Appreciation 2024

[Bat-Meal]

Happy New Year! ^_^

Now that Kate is in a 12 issue team book fans can expect regular Batwoman appearances for the next 10 months (#1 and #2 happened in November and December last year).

#3 Jan 9th


#4 Feb 13th


#5 March 12th




Last year's thread:https://community.cbr.com/showthread...reciation-2023

[Frontier]

Happy New Year to Kate and her fans .

[Bat-Meal]

In the first 2 issues of Outsiders, Kate got alternative Batsuits - suited to the environment she was in at the time. What did you guys think of the designs?



Outsiders2023Batsuit#2.jpg

[Twice-named]

In the first 2 issues of Outsiders, Kate got alternative Batsuits - suited to the environment she was in at the time. What did you guys think of the designs?



Outsiders2023Batsuit#2.jpg

I don't like them but it doesn't bother me. None of what DC does with Kate these days bothers me. None of the Tynion, Bennett, Outsiders or any other Kate continuity matters to me. I'm just waiting for Rucka to come back and tell one more great Kate story.

[Oberon]

Happy New Year to Kate

[Bat-Meal]

So #3 of Outsiders was fun IMHO.




Not quite sure what to make of the spoilers:

infection

end of spoilers idea yet though.

[agentofthebat]

I wish she got more run with the Batfamily. I feel like she's an after thought sometimes

[Bat-Meal]

I wish she got more run with the Batfamily. I feel like she's an after thought sometimes

I think part of the problem stems from Kate being the only contemporary to Bruce in the inner Bat-Family. By this I mean that although Dick, Jason and Babs are all adults - they are also Bruce's kids and/or students. And the rest of the Bat-Kids are of course, kids. Now the extended Bat-Family has other contemporaries: Huntress, Azrael, Batwing, (and sometimes Catwoman) but they don't always show-up to the family events - this leaves Kate sort of isolated as the only other adult in the room and lumping her in with whatever the Bat-Kids are doing is awkward IMHO. And so, she just shows-up for cameos and brief guest appearances.

The other part of the problem is possibly a lack of interest from the available writers. The modern Batwoman is newer than most of the Bat-Kids, and so she's not a character that there is much nostalgia for - and with the exception of Damian I'd say this is a problem the newer Bat-Kids have also. It's a pity, because the Gotham Knights run (Detective Comics #934-#981) showed that she has an interesting dynamic with Batman due to the different type of relationship (by being his cousin instead of one of his kids/students). Batwing and Azrael also worked as part of the Bat-Family but haven't been a part of it since that run.

Last of all, there tends to be a split in the fanbase when it comes to Kate's involvement in the Bat-Family. Some fans want her separated from them and independent like she used to be, and some want her kept in the family and included in the Bat-Family events. I think DC is trying to have it both ways and hence pleasing neither group with the cameos.

Anyways, that's enough of a rant from me.

[Will Evans]

So #3 of Outsiders was fun IMHO.




Not quite sure what to make of the spoilers:

infection

end of spoilers idea yet though.

Surprised no Ryan Wilder Batwoman here.

[Caivu]

I wish she got more run with the Batfamily. I feel like she's an after thought sometimes

Another reason for this, I think, is because Kate is a direct rebuttal to the common Batman claim that once someone starts killing, or even becomes okay with it, that they won't be able to stop. It may not be a consciously-enforced reason, nor a major one, but I do think it it's a factor. Her mere existence throws a wrench at one of Bruce's hallmark character traits, and, unlike someone like Jason or Helena Bertinelli, it can't be handwaved away as just her being rebellious or angry.

Surprised no Ryan Wilder Batwoman here.

She's not an alternate version of Kate.

[Bat-Meal]

Surprised no Ryan Wilder Batwoman here.

The Arrowverse (which is now defunct) doesn't get included in multiverse stories in the main comics continuity as far as I'm aware. Besides, in addition to being Batwoman in the Arrowverse alone, she's a legacy Batwoman so not the original since Kate still precedes her. It'd be like skipping Babs and going straight to Cass in a Batgirl legacy story or skipping Dick and going straight to Jason in something about the Robins. It's possible but messy - especially in a story about Kate. And since the story is about Kate, having a niche alternate Batwoman show-up doesn't make a huge amount of narrative sense.

And if a Batwoman from a television show that didn't do well were to get included then what about all the Batwomen from other comics and animation? Steph, Bette, Helena Wayne, the original Kathy Kane, all the women from Mystery of the Batwoman, and so on.

She's not an alternate version of Kate.

Also this: the Portraits are of the Batman and Batwoman origin story. Due to this, the only other Batwomen that would make sense are those that were present at the inciting incident, and variations thereof. So the alternate Batwomen for the Kane family would be Elizabeth Kane or Gabrielle Kane. This has precedence since an alternate Batman (who was also included in this issue) is Thomas Wayne. The portraits shown were as follows:

• Bruce and parents = Batman (default)
• Wayne Girl = Wayne Batwoman
• Bruce and Wayne Girl with parents = Batman and Batwoman as Wayne twins
• Male Kane child with parents = Kane Batman
• Beth Kane with parents = Beth as Batwoman
• Kane twins with Jaocob (father) = default?
• Kane twins with Gabrielle (mother) = default?
• Kane family (complete) = default?
• Kate with parents = default?

Another reason for this, I think, is because Kate is a direct rebuttal to the common Batman claim that once someone starts killing, or even becomes okay with it, that they won't be able to stop. It may not be a consciously-enforced reason, nor a major one, but I do think it it's a factor. Her mere existence throws a wrench at one of Bruce's hallmark character traits, and, unlike someone like Jason or Helena Bertinelli, it can't be handwaved away as just her being rebellious or angry.

I think that DC isn't fully onboard with that idea these days though. I remember in the Andreyko run Beth said Kate had never killed, hence retconning what had happened previously in Kate's solo. Then when the Clayface incident went down, he returned alive with no explanation before the whole Gotham Knight arc was over (possibly implying he didn't actually die in the first place). Then there was that story in Kate's second solo where one of the thugs states Batwoman can't do anything to him because she doesn't kill.

And this Outsiders series recently retconned Kate not being trained by Batman.

[Twice-named]

Emiliano Urdinola (from Tim D's CAF collection)

[Bat-Meal]

Emiliano Urdinola (from Tim D's CAF collection)

Very nice!

[Bat-Meal]

Since this came up in discussion in another thread, I felt like posting it here - Kate's Batwoman costume hasn't really changed over the years, but has instead had minor tweaks:




The main alteration is of course the cowl: which now covers her ears, nose, and neck. Otherwise, it's just the high heels are gone and the belt is often depicted as more chunky. The excess bat-symbols on the belt and boots are gone too. That's basically it.

[Bat-Meal]

Confirmation that Editorial didn't know what to do with Kate after Tynion's 'Tec run concluded:

With Outsiders, it was very different. It came out of some very open-ended conversations with Ben Abernathy at DC, talking about what to do with Kate Kane and Luke Fox. These were two characters that they had tried in a few different modes and hadn't really felt like they'd hit a stride with, and they'd sort of become these outsider figures in the Bat line where they were plugging them in and trying to figure them out. But that since James Tynion [and his run on Detective Comics], they hadn't really known what to do.

Fortunately, James is a close friend of ours. We love to follow his work, and we've collaborated on things like Azrael before. So, it felt like a really unique chance to take and evolve past what James had done and move it into our own framework that felt really interesting. I think we spent about eight months talking about this and kicking it around and seeing what kind of book it would be. Would it be an espionage book? Would it be a spy book? Would it be a globetrotting book?

The one thing that we kept coming back to was that we wanted to tell a story that took these two characters who felt like outsiders, get them out of Gotham and get them into a framework that let them experience the wider spectrum of DC Universe stories and hopefully open up their experience, their personalities and their relationships. Use that to carry these characters forward and hopefully make an imprint where it's like, "Okay, these characters will never be the same because they've had this eye-opening experience."

Source: https://www.dc.com/blog/2023/11/20/j...tsiders-ending