Huntress: Origins

Huntress: Origins by Paul Levitz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

By day, Helena Wayne is a young Gotham City lawyer. By night, she follows in the footsteps of her parents, fighting crime as... The Huntress!

As I get older, I get more and more curious about some of the lesser known characters in DC's past. I have a couple of the Wonder Woman issues featuring the Huntress and I know about her past from Who's Who. I was pretty excited when this collection was solicited and pre-ordered it right way.

The Huntress is the daughter of the Batman and Catwoman from Earth-2. This book collects her tragic origin in DC Super Stars 17 plus stories from Batman Family 18-20 and Wonder Woman 271-287, 289-290, and 294-295.

Over the course of the book, The Huntress takes on super villains, including one of her father's greatest foes, as well as more mundane criminals but her greatest foe is her feelings for Harry Sim, the District Attorney. On the surface, The Huntress seems a little redundant, a little too much like Batgirl, but she's her own woman. The Huntress carries a crossbow and acts more like her mother Catwoman at time than her Dark Knight Daddy.

Joe Staton and Paul Levitz were clearing having fun on this run. Hell, who wouldn't? Helena Wayne is a clean slate to work with, building on the Batman legacy without leaning on it too hard. It feels kind of like a younger Batman without the usual Batman trappings like the Batmobile and the Batcave. Staton's art holds up very well and Levitz's writing almost makes The Huntress feel like a Marvel book. The Huntress is an underdog a lot of the time but knows her way around a scrape.

My only major gripe with the book is that the Who's Who entry in the back has her real name as Selina Wayne in the header. That and there isn't enough Bronze Age Huntress material for three or four more volumes.

Huntress: Origins is a fun Bronze Age book and a prime example of what we lost with Crisis. Four out of five crossbow bolts.

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