YEAR 1956: BATWOMAN

Though the "Kathy Kane" version of Batwoman doesn't get many props these days, she did accomplish one thing that even Catwoman couldn't: injecting a continuing feminine presence into the Batman adventures in both DETECTIVE COMICS and the regular BATMAN book.

Prior to Batwoman, the crimefighting world of Batman and Robin was one in which women didn't have much of a role. That may sound like I'm subscribing to the old canard that Batman's gay again, but that's not quite my point.  The Batman stories tended to follow the rule that women didn't have much of a place in the rough-and-tumble world of crime, and most of the mundane crimefighter-comics of the time followed roughly the same paradigm, aside from Will Eisner's SPIRIT and Jack Cole's PLASTIC MAN. 

Catwoman was the one exception to this-- but she was the exception that proved the rule.  For over fifteen years, Catwoman was the only notable female villain in the stories. I scanned the Fleischer BATMAN ENCYLOPEDIA and found no others beyond a minor gun-moll or two.  The only other memorable villainess, a lady crime-boss named "the Sparrow," appeared in a 1948 story in the syndicated comic strip.  As it happens, 1948 was the same year Batman got his own version of Lois Lane, Vicky Vale, in the comic books.

As the cover to DETECTIVE COMICS #233 shows, the Batwoman is initially presented as a threat to the Dynamic Duo's mantle as Gotham City's top crimefighters.  The story's creators and editors may have been somewhat uncertain about such a character's reception, since at story's end Batman ferrets out Batwoman's secret identity and persuades her to retire from the dangerous business of crimefighting.  Nevertheless, she was back in action within less than a year, and continued to appear irregularly in the two Bat-books and in the WORLD'S FINEST Superman-Batman title.  She and Batman formed a loose "will-they/won't they" romantic relationship despite his continued attempts to get her to quit being a superhero. In 1961, possibly due to positive reader response, the creators brought Kathy's niece into the action as Bat-Girl, so that Batwoman and Bat-Girl provided an effective mirror-image of the starring heroes, as well providing regular romantic interest for both males. 

One rather odd characteristic of Batwoman was that she called attention to her femininity by modeling her crimefighting weapons on feminine accoutrements-- trapping thugs in giant "hair-nets," using "charm-bracelets" as handcuffs, and so on.  There's not much question in my mind that the creators did this in a rather jokey spirit.  Nevertheless, Batwoman wasn't dependent on her oddball weapons as were some "feminine-version" heroines of the period, and was often presented as being above-average in terms of hand-to-hand combat.

Batwoman and Bat-Girl both faded from official DC continuity in 1964, when Julius Schwarz sought to impose a new editorial approach on the Bat-books, which would lead to a new "Batgirl" some years later (see 1967, when I get to it).  In DETECTIVE COMICS #485 (1979), Denny O'Neil uses her as "cannon fodder" (his word), killing her off to make Batman get extra-mad at her murderers.  Bat-Girl made a comeback of sorts in the Bob Rozakis TEEN TITANS, but the most remarkable thing about her seems to be that despite the many minor characters knocked off during DC's "Crisis on Infinite Earths," she somehow survived in the backwaters of continuity and continues in a new version today, just as Kathy Kane's legacy begat a new Batwoman in 2006.

SOOPED UP

Given that Superman was the de facto mascot of DC Comics, it was almost de rigeur to see the hero's powers bestowed temporarily on characters not only in the Superman books but in any title with some degree of SF-content, such as BLACKHAWK and SPACE RANGER. The latter two sported covers where a distaff support-character gained such temporary super-powers (Lady Blackhawk for the one, some secretary-chick for the other). But aside from the mainstays of the Superman titles themselves, Batwoman seems to be the only distaff support-character who sported super-powers two times, both in WORLD'S FINEST. I guess one could regard this as a Superman title given its raison d'etre of continually teaming the Man of Steel and the Big Bat, but Batwoman was an emigre from the Batman books. At the time of both adventures, the editor on the Bat-books and WF alike was Jack Schiff, so some Bat-related bleed-through was to be expected. (Later Mort Weisinger, King of his Castle of Superman-books, would assume the WF editorship as well.)

Batwoman's first super-adventure, from WF #90 (Sept-Oct 57), shows us that the first thing a woman does when she gets super-powers is to spy on the boys' club to find all their important stuff. Of course, in a later era she might have been checking out another kind of stuff but not in 1957.

The second super-tale, from WF #117 (May 1961), puts Batwoman in a slightly more combative role as she clashes with the Big S. (Their "battle" is pretty much a one-panel duplication of the cover image. DC wasn't big on fight-scenes in '61.) But

anyone who might've hoped that Batwoman was striking a blow against Superdickery would be doomed to disappointment, as she only fights the hero because she's fallen under the control of Lex Luthor.

Incidentally, though this has nothing to do with superheroine themes, I submit that the weird-ass creature sharing the cover with the heroes may well be the single silliest-looking monster in the history of Silver Age DC. It's perhaps even sillier to learn that "Golanth," as the creature is named, is not a living thing but was actually given this improbable design by the aforementioned Luthor, which might make one wonder what the mad scientist had been smoking that day.

BEATING THE BOYS

Since I did a post on the original "Bat-Girl" I thought I ought to have one for her auntie too.

Original Batwoman's appearance is interesting on a number of levels. It's been alleged (though never proven) that she was introduced to be a regular romantic interest for Batman in order to allay Wertham-esque complaints about the unhealthy relationship of Bruce Wayne and his young ward. About five years later Bat-Girl was introduced as a little friend for Robin and the foursome were all but double-dating before then-editor Jack Schiff was taken off the Bat-books and new editor Julie Schwartz considered the Bat-babes to oblivion.

To be sure, Original Batwoman was kind of a wimp most of the time, though you can't tell it from this cover, where the Dynamic Duo seem positively unmanned by the threat of female superiority. Of course more feminine influence in a superhero book wouldn't have quelled Werthamite complaints in itself, in that Wertham arguably disapproved of female crimefighters even more than he did of proto-gay male crimefighters.

I rather liked how Grant Morrison briefly revived this Batwoman in a BATMAN flashback and endowed her with a certain sassiness in line with the above cover.