WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Stargirl: Spring Break Special #1, by Geoff Johns, Todd Nauck, Hi-Fi and Rob Leigh, on sale now.
Stargirl: Spring Break Special reveals a lot of new information about DC’s Golden Age heroes, as well as their place in the Infinite Frontier era. At the heart of DC’s new Golden Age history are Per Degaton, Clock King and a whole lot of time travel shenanigans. One of the biggest surprises revealed in the Justice Society: Past Is Prologue teaser is the existence of the original Huntress, Helena Wayne, as a past member of the Justice Society.
One of the major selling points of Infinite Frontier is the re-canonization of all of DC’s past continuities as part of a larger multiverse called the omniverse. Some of those past continuities are even seemingly being integrated into Prime Earth canon, such as Helena Wayne as the first heroic Huntress. This could have significant implications for Batman and Catwoman’s past history, especially with the reintegration of their Golden Age history in recent years.
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Before Crisis on Infinite Earths rebooted the DC multiverse into a single Earth with a single history in 1985, Batman and Catwoman originally had two histories: the one that originated during DC’s Golden Age and the more modern history that developed between the Silver Age and Bronze Age. After The Flash of Two Worlds established a multiverse, the Golden Age heroes were said to reside on a world known as Earth-2, while the more modern heroes and history were said to reside on Earth-1.
The establishment of a multiverse facilitated more than just annual crossovers between the Justice Society (DC’s Golden Age team) and the Justice League. The existence of Earth-2 gave the Golden Age heroes a revitalized purpose in the form of generational legacy. In a world where heroes aged in real-time, many of the Golden Age heroes married their iconic love interests and had children that grew into adulthood. Two of the characters who married were Batman and Catwoman whose adult daughter, Helena Wayne, joined the Justice Society as the Huntress.
For the duration of the Bronze Age, the Huntress became a prolific member of the Justice Society who often fought alongside the Justice League during annual crossovers. She also met the Earth-1 versions of her parents, became Gotham’s newest protector in place of a new Batman, even briefly joined the Justice Society’s first legacy team, Infinity Inc. All of this came to an abrupt end with the Crisis reboot that erased Huntress along with her parents in favor of the Earth-1 versions. A few years later, a new Huntress debuted as Helena Bertinelli to fill the void left by Wayne, but this wouldn’t be the last we hear of Helena Wayne or a married Batman and Catwoman.
The first time Batman and Catwoman’s past marriage was re-canonized post-Crisis was in the 2006 event comic Infinite Crisis. In that story, the Earth-2 Superman revealed to Batman he had married Catwoman on his Earth and that their union resulted in a daughter known as the Huntress. After DC rebooted their multiverse with Flashpoint in 2011 for the New 52 era, new versions of the married Batman and Catwoman appeared along with Helena Wayne in a newer incarnation of Earth-2. Helena Wayne operated as the Huntress on Prime Earth for a short time alongside Power Girl before returning to her Earth-2 to rejoin that world’s heroes.
While the New 52 version of Earth-2 established a new married Batman and Catwoman as canon, this wouldn’t be the only Earth in the multiverse to do so. As part of his Batman run during the Rebirth era in 2016, writer Tom King sought to revisit the idea of marriage with the Prime Earth versions of the characters. Though they didn’t end up following in the footsteps of their Earth-2 counterparts, King did confirm in his Batman storyline that their Golden Age history was canon. He not only confirmed they first met on a boat in their costumed identities in Batman #1 from 1940, but all of their adventures from that time to the present were canon as well. Batman even communicated to Catwoman in Batman #44 that they “keep changing,” implying their history.
Though DC has since taken Batman in a new direction with James Tynion IV and Mariko Tamaki (with King concluding his story in the Batman/Catwoman miniseries set in an alternate future), what King established about Batman and Catwoman’s past hasn’t been ignored entirely by DC. Former DC President and CCO Geoff Johns seemingly validated their Golden Age history in his 2017 miniseries Doomsday Clock.
In the concluding issue of Doomsday Clock, Johns teased a future storyline in which Batman would solicit the help of Superman to find his missing daughter, implying the original Huntress. Johns appears to intend on following up on that storyline after teasing the time-traveling villain, Per Degaton, as a threat to the Justice Society across time in the more recent Stargirl special. One of the characters threatened in the teaser is Helena Wayne, who now appears to have existed in the Prime Earth timeline.
Exactly what the past and future hold for Batman, Catwoman and Huntress in the Infinite Frontier era will most likely be the subject of future stories, including the upcoming Infinite Frontier miniseries where Helena Wayne is currently teased to appear. What is definitely known is that Dark Nights: Death Metal restored every timeline and character that was wiped out by a past reboot. Some of those long-lost characters and stories have been making their way back into the main DC timeline with more surprises on the way. Two of those surprises could be Batman and Catwoman’s previous Golden Age marriage and Helena Wayne’s integration into the Prime Earth canon.
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