In the Gotham City of Earth II, the costumed criminal Catwoman gives up her life of crime and turns herself in to the authorities. Upon release from prison, she marries her former nemesis Batman, AKA Bruce Wayne.
They have a happy marriage and raise a daughter named Helena who is blessed with the intelligence of both her parents. Bruce retires from crime-fighting and the Wayne family has a happy life together.
This comes to a swift end when Selena gets a phone call from Silky Cernak, one of her old henchmen. He has photos that show her committing a murder, something Bruce Wayne doesn't know about. Cernak will destroy all evidence of the killing, if Selena will help him with one last crime. She is forced to don her Catwoman costume again.
Bruce decides to investigate Selina's activities and prevents her from committing a heist. But Cernak shoots and kills Selina. Bruce and Helena are crushed.
Years pass and Helena utilizes her parents training to fight crime. Like Catwoman and Batman, Helena has developed world class gymnastic skills. She arms herself with a grappling hook and a crossbow that shoots tranquilizer darts. Helena tracks down Cernak, easily defeats him and drops him off at the police station. Gotham has a new hero, the Huntress is born!
When she's not fighting crime, Helena is a partner at Cranston, Grayson and Wayne, a law firm that specializes in Public Interest cases. She wonders if her life as the Huntress serves the public interest better than her legal career. Huntress also joins the Justice Society, Earth II's greatest superhero team.
Helena reads about a series of fires in South Gotham and decides to investigate as the Huntress. To her horror, she learns that an arsonist is getting children to set off firebombs in South Gotham. The Huntress herself ends up unconscious in a burning building. Can she escape and find out who is behind the arson?
Later, Winston Pitt, a prominent artist visits Helena's law firm. Pitt tells her that some of his artwork has been destroyed. Since "Winnie" is an old friend, Helena puts on her Huntress costume and visits the art museum that houses Pitt's work. After a bit of digging, she learns the paintings were destroyed by Solomon Grundy, the super-strong zombie who has battled the Justice Society in the past.
Huntress battles Grundy and his henchmen, but is taken down. Helena learns that Grundy has fallen in love with a stone statue housed in the museum. During a fight, the statue is damaged and Grundy captures Huntress. He imprisons Huntress in a golden cage. Grundy decides that she will be the new object of his affections. Helena must use all of her physical and mental training if she hopes to defeat Solomon Grundy.
Sometime after, Huntress is troubled when she learns that Gotham's District Attorney, Harry Sims has called for superheroes to be regulated by the government. This is shocking to Helena, since Sims is her friend.
Power Girl, Huntress' teammate in Justice Society is also upset and visits the DA's office. She's furious at Sims, thankfully Huntress arrives and gets Power Girl to calm down.
We learn that Sims spoken out against superheroes because he's being controlled by a super-villain called the Thinker. He wears a psionic helmet that allows him to control the minds of others. Thinker creates chaos when his actions cause every known criminal in the area to commit crimes simultaneously. Will even the combined abilities of Power Girl and Huntress be enough to save Gotham from Thinker's mind-control schemes?
During this time, Harry realizes that Helena and Huntress are one and the same. He is not sure how he feels about this and he thinks he may be falling in love with Helena.
Harry is visiting Gull Island Prison when Huntress tracks him down. They're discussing her identity when Gull Island's inmates stage a revolt. The leader of the revolt is Lionmane, a feline powered criminal who was formerly employed by Catwoman. Lionmane takes hostages, including the prison's warden. Lionmane had a falling out with Catwoman, feeling she wasn't tough enough to be a crime boss. The prisoners take hostages, including the prison's warden.
Huntress recalls that her mother buried stolen jewels when she worked with Lionmane. She challenges him to a one-on-one fight, if Lionmane wins, she will reveal the location of the jewels. Once again, Huntress is matched against a foe bigger and stronger than herself.
After that, she discovers that Harry has been poisoned by Batman's old enemy the Joker! The clown prince of crime escape during the prison uprising and is on the loose in Gotham City. Harry is taken to the hospital and his life is in serious danger.
After a brief altercation with Huntress, Joker escapes. Helena decides that her taking Joker down physically is not a good idea. She puts her detective skills into action and investigates where and how Joker acquired his supply of dmethylsilicate, the primary ingredient of his Joker venom.
When she gets another shot at confronting Joker, she gets assistance from none other than the Batman? But he's dead?!
Who is Gotham's new Caped Crusader!
Subsequently, Selena's law partner Arthur Cranton is facing legal trouble for possibly falsifying data that is relevant to one of the firm's court cases. Dick Grayson, better known as Robin, is also a partner in the firm, returns to help Cranston. When it looks like a local mob boss is trying to set up Cranston, Robin teams with the Huntress to clear their partner's name.
Plus, Huntress is attacked by new dangerous enemies including Carnage...
...and Crimelord!
And the life of Alfred Beagle, the Wayne family's longtime butler is placed in jeopardy. Only the criminology skills of the Huntress can save Alfred!
Review:
I've always thought the Huntress was a cool character and I've enjoyed her in various media over the years. However, these stories were mostly new to me and I thought they were generally good.
Story:
Paul Levitz wrote all of the stories reprinted in Huntress:Darknight Daughter. He does a nice job creating Helena's world, her workplace and supporting cast. Early on, we see that she is treated with disrespect by one of her fellow attorneys because she's a woman. Not exactly radical stuff, but such topics were uncommon in most Bronze Age superhero stories.
Helena is sometimes physically overmatched by foes like Solomon Grundy and Lionmane. But like her father Batman, she always manages to triumph despite the odds. Speaking of the Dark Knight, Levitz also shows that Huntress inherited some of her dad's detective skills, especially in her duel with the Joker.
I particularly enjoyed Huntress' team-up with Power Girl. Their dynamic is similar to that of Batman and Superman, with Kara providing the raw superpower and Helena relying on mental skills and athletic training. The two characters also call each other "amiga" (Spanish for "friend" in case anyone didn't know), which shows they're good friends in addition to being Justice Society team mates.
Speaking team-ups, Robin's guest appearance was also good. It was entertaining to watch both of Earth II Batman's "kids" work together as adults.
The Lionmane prison revolt story is another good tale. Since Huntress battled a former partner of Catwoman, it gave Helena another chance to connect with her mother, taking her place in Selena's conflict with Lionmane.
However, Huntress:Darknight Daughter isn't without problems. Most of these tales were originally published as short back-up stories in the Wonder Woman series and they're only eight pages long. That means that every eight pages, action comes to a halt. It sort of breaks up the momentum of the stories.
But the biggest problem I had was the villains. Foes like Carnarge and Crimelord are one-note bad guys with generic names and even more generic powers. Thinker, who first appeared in the Golden Age, also isn't a very compelling adversary. I understand that Levitz was trying to build a rogues gallery for Huntress, but these characters aren't very interesting.
While I was enjoyed seeing Huntress face the Joker, I felt that Huntress' victory over Joker was too easy. Joker is an A-list villain in any era and was always dangerous, even in his Pre-Crisis incarnation. Maybe Levitz was trying to build up Huntress, but I don't think he needed to tear down Joker to do that.
Art:
Every page of this book features pencils by Joe Staton. I've been a fan of Staton's art since I discovered it in back issues of E-Man and he provides some great work in Huntress:Darknight Daughter. Staton is embellished by a whole bunch of inkers.
The beginning of the book features inks by Bob Layton. He was always something of a "heavy" inker, but Layton gives Staton's pencils look a bit more polished. Here's a great example of Staton and Layton's work:
The other inkers a bit of a step down from Layton, but the art looks good throughout this tpb.
Staton also draws a great version of the Joker, such as in the pages below, which feature inks by Steve Mitchell.
If I have any criticism of the art, it's that Huntress:Darknight Daughter features a few too many scenes of Helena lounging around in a bathrobe and various stages of undress. I'm no prude, but it gets a bit old. Maybe the honchos of DC Comics mandated a certain number of "cheesecake" panels?
How Does It Look?:
Here's a scan from Wonder Woman #274:
This is how the same pages look in Huntress:Darknight Daughter:
Extras:
The end of the book features Huntress' one-page profile from Who's Who #10.
Paul Levitz and Joe Staton deserve credit for creating a great character who has been active in the DC Universe (in one form or another) for nearly 40 years. But the 8-page format of the majority of stories and the less-than-thrilling villains make it simply good rather than great. Staton's art makes it worth reading.
J.A. Morris' rating:
.5
2 and a half Sals.
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