Betty Kane / Bette Kane Appreciation 2018

[16 Bit]

can someone briefly summarize exactly who she is and what her origin is in current continuity? Her, Kathy and Kate are all incredibly confusing.

[ProgmanX]

can someone briefly summarize exactly who she is and what her origin is in current continuity? Her, Kathy and Kate are all incredibly confusing.

Kathy Kane no longer exists; she was/is known as Luka Netz, the secret leader of the super-spy organization known as Spyral. She is the daughter of Otto Netz, a Nazi Supervillain and was last seen falling to her death after being thrown off a train traveling over a large canyon. Also she got her arm cut off.

Kate Kane is the current Batwoman, and a Jewish lesbian. She is first cousins with Bruce Wayne, as her father Jacob was Martha's brother. At age 12, her mother (and seemingly her twin sister) were killed in an attempted kidnapping. She grew up as an Army brat (both parents were military; her father Special Forces and her mother an Intelligence Officer) and was discharged from the military under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" for being gay. After a "chance" encounter with Batman during a self-destructive downward spiral, she realized she could still serve her country by becoming a vigilante even if the military didn't want her. Her father found out, called in his old black ops buddies to train her yadda yadda yadda turns out her twin sister Beth was alive and her dad never found the body etc etc.

Bette Kane, real name Mary Kane, was a former member of the Teen Titans (she mentions that explicitly in Batwoman #1) under the codename Firebird. She was a champion Tennis Player, and participated in Beauty Pageants. Additionally, she fawned over Dick Grayson a lot, but he never showed any interest in her IIRC. All instances of her acting as the original "Bat-Girl" were erased long ago. After being impaled half-to-death and stuck in a coma for the better part of a year, she recovered and returned as Hawkfire under her Uncle Jacob's tutelage. Apparently, she transferred back to L.A. instead of continuing her studies at Gotham U for a degree in Sports Medicine. She hasn't been seen in canon for a few years, but will presumably show up in Batwoman Rebirth.

Hope that helps!

[16 Bit]

So is the idea Bette was a crime fighter before Kate? That's weird.

[ProgmanX]

So is the idea Bette was a crime fighter before Kate? That's weird.

No, no. I should have specified. Thanks to Flashpoint, that's not the case. Kate's crime-fighting (though it's more like counter-terrorism tbh) career started a great deal earlier than it originally did in [I]52[/I.] She's got roughly the same amount of experience as Dick now, even if we didn't see the vast majority of it. She started as a vigilante around the time Robin came into the picture and became Batwoman shortly after Babs was shot. Of course, that's if you want anything to make sense, as West Point has a very specific timeline for its cadets.

But, thanks to Rebirth, she may actually get even more retroactive experience if some of those lost years are slotted into place...since for the vast majority of those she didn't even exist. She'd still be on par with Dick (and not that far from Bruce if you consider the extended periods where he wasn't Batman) so little would change for her.

[16 Bit]

So presumably in the new 52 timeline Kate became Batwoman like a year after the Zero Year, somewhere around then, and then Bette was in the Teen Titans between then and the start of Batwoman's solo book? IIRC New 52 starts 5 years after Zero Right, right?

[Aahz]

Bette Kane, real name Mary Kane, was a former member of the Teen Titans (she mentions that explicitly in Batwoman #1) under the codename Firebird.

Thats probably not really canon. The Batwoman writers basically completely ingnored the reboot and just continued where they finshed pre flashpoint.
And I have the impression that in the first year of the new 52, they did anyway not really defined what was canon, I think that happened when the Zero issues came out.

I really hope that they get somebody to come up with a logical time line for the whole franchise once the 10 years have returned to the continuity.

[ProgmanX]

So presumably in the new 52 timeline Kate became Batwoman like a year after the Zero Year, somewhere around then, and then Bette was in the Teen Titans between then and the start of Batwoman's solo book? IIRC New 52 starts 5 years after Zero Right, right?

You're mostly on point. With the New52, Zero Year takes place ~7 years prior to Batman #1. For some reason it says 6 in the comics, no idea why. This is because Bruce has been active as Batman for 7 years, rather than the "standard" 5 years for everyone else excluding Green Lantern. Thus Zero Year is New52 -7. Kate was kicked out of the military either during or shortly after Zero Year, and went AWOL for an unspecified amount of time. Then, she runs into Batman and does her own vigilante thing during Batman's Year 2 (without a name or symbol, just gear she stole) for around a year. Then two years of training, so she becomes Batwoman around Batman's Year 4, which is New52 -3. Add 3 years, and you get to the beginning of the New52. So, she starts out with 4 years of experience (including the year she wasn't Batwoman), and since Damian is thirteen atm, now she has 7.

Obviously you have some leeway with what month the relative "years" started on, so this isn't exact.

[ProgmanX]

Thats probably not really canon. The Batwoman writers basically completely ingnored the reboot and just continued where they finshed pre flashpoint.
And I have the impression that in the first year of the new 52, they did anyway not really defined what was canon, I think that happened when the Zero issues came out.

I really hope that they get somebody to come up with a logical time line for the whole franchise once the 10 years have returned to the continuity.

I mean, I'm not even going to try and argue that Williams and Blackman totally didn't do what you said; Renee as the Question and Kate Spencer's Manhunter are visually referenced in Batwoman #2 for God's sake. But until somebody tells me otherwise it's a lot more fun to imagine that Kate, Bette and Jacob all inexplicably have their memories intact but never talk about them because...well, they're traumatizing memories. Would you want to talk about that time cultists drugged and kidnapped you and stabbed you through the heart? Probably not.

Though in all fairness at the beginning of the New52 nobody really knew what was still canon or not.

[Aahz]

Though in all fairness at the beginning of the New52 nobody really knew what was still canon or not.

Yeah but Batwoman was really a book were you got the feeling that they completly ingnored it. I'm kind of susupecting that they allready wrote (or at least planned) a good part of the series before the reboot and than just didn't adjust their scripts.
Opposed to basically ever other series Batwoman really directly continued where it stopped pre flashpoint.

[millernumber1]

Yeah but Batwoman was really a book were you got the feeling that they completly ingnored it. I'm kind of susupecting that they allready wrote (or at least planned) a good part of the series before the reboot and than just didn't adjust their scripts.
Opposed to basically ever other series Batwoman really directly continued where it stopped pre flashpoint.

According to Williams's blog from March 2011, it sounds like the team had written about 8 issues at that point, though I think I heard some rewrites/redraws were required to fit the series into n52.

[ProgmanX]

According to Williams's blog from March 2011, it sounds like the team had written about 8 issues at that point, though I think I heard some rewrites/redraws were required to fit the series into n52.

True, but that doesn't explain how Bette still remembers what Jacob told her about that time Kate was stabbed in the heart in Batwoman #18. Apparently, she was off painkillers in less than a week. Again, much more fun to imagine that they just inexplicably remember stuff that ain't too fun to talk about. Plus, Renee still remembers Kate is Batwoman, as does Dick, so...guess we'll just have to wait and see.

[millernumber1]

True, but that doesn't explain how Bette still remembers what Jacob told her about that time Kate was stabbed in the heart in Batwoman #18. Apparently, she was off painkillers in less than a week. Again, much more fun to imagine that they just inexplicably remember stuff that ain't too fun to talk about. Plus, Renee still remembers Kate is Batwoman, as does Dick, so...guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Well, I think we could imagine other explanations for these things, sort of like how the "Father, I shall become a bat" scene shows up in all post-Year-One origins for Batman, even though the events surrounding it are altered.

[Caivu]

This seems to imply that Bette will not have a costumed identity when she returns:

Screenshot_20161223-140114.jpg

It also sounds vaguely ominous.

[ProgmanX]

This seems to imply that Bette will not have a costumed identity when she returns:

Screenshot_20161223-140114.jpg

It also sounds vaguely ominous.

I think he means she won't be going as Hawkfire for whatever reason. Maybe back to Flamebird, now that Jacob's crap has been revealed. Or perhaps she'll have quit the vigilante life altogether. If you think about it, she was most effective (and really only effective) when she fought the Hook the second time (for herself), Medusa's forces (for Kate, mostly) and the DEO (for her family and Beth). See? She needed to figure out what she was fighting for, but what that was continued to be fleeting and temporary.

The biggest twist would be that she actually listened to Kate, because it'd be a great subversion of that whole "Batman inspires people and then they never stop" thing.

[Chickfighter]

I think he means she won't be going as Hawkfire for whatever reason. Maybe back to Flamebird, now that Jacob's crap has been revealed. Or perhaps she'll have quit the vigilante life altogether. If you think about it, she was most effective (and really only effective) when she fought the Hook the second time (for herself), Medusa's forces (for Kate, mostly) and the DEO (for her family and Beth). See? She needed to figure out what she was fighting for, but what that was continued to be fleeting and temporary.

The biggest twist would be that she actually listened to Kate, because it'd be a great subversion of that whole "Batman inspires people and then they never stop" thing.

Yes, my hope would be that Bette return having decided to fight for her own reasons and use her Flamebird identity or something along those lines because SHE has decided that is who she really is. The reasoning that "Hawkfire" was a Jacob-related abomination and no longer an identity she wants anything to do with also works.