

Kathy Kane was introduced in Detective Comics #233 (July 1956) and spent most of her short-lived crimefighting career trying to romantically woo the Dark Knight Detective.
She was often doomed.
Paired with Bat-Mite.
Forced into being a surrogate mother to Robin.
Batman also saw her as the competition.
Kathy was later joined by her niece Betty in 1961 as the first Bat-Girl. Kathy and Betty were intended to be romantic interests of Batman and Robin, respectively - to fend off rumors that the caped crusaders were gay lovers.
Like Lois Lane, she sometimes developed super-powers when the story called for it.
And took part in some of the more bizarre Batman adventures.








She faced many unusual challenges.

Kathy was more or less replaced by Barbara Gordon's much more popular Batgirl during the height of the ABC TV series in last third of that decade.
Ms. Kane became the owner of a circus after retiring from crimefighting.



Years later, Batwoman made a ghostly cameo appearance in The Kingdom: Planet Krypton, in which she is one of many "lost" DC characters that haunt a superhero-themed restaurant.

Batwoman, as well as Bat-Girl, and other silly characters like Ace the Bat-Hound, and the fore-mentioned Bat-Mite pretty much disappeared from comics by the early 1960s.


Kathy resurfaced briefly in the late 1970s as a member of The Batman Family.


Batwoman donned her costume for a few new adventures in the DC Universe–

including a team-up with Batgirl and The Freedom Fighters!

But Kathy's comeback was destined to be short-lived, and she was brutally killed by The Ras Al Ghul's League of Assassins in Detective Comics #485 (September 1979).

Her neice, Betty was renamed Bette after Crisis on Infinite Earths and later joined the Titans as Flamebird.


Other Elseworlds and alternative versions of Batwoman have appeared in recent years, only appearing once or twice. Another Batwoman appeared in the animated film BATMAN: MYSTERY OF THE BATWOMAN. Here Batwoman is actually three different women, one of them is named Cathy Duquesne (pronounced "du-kane").

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A new BATWOMAN #0 appeared a few months back, with the monthly solo series delayed until the big September reboot/relaunch. With stunning art by J.H. Williams III, this is on my shortlist of the new titles I will be buying. You've come a long way, Batwoman.
2 comments:
Awesome. Thanks for the comics history lesson. I'm glad they haven't killed off the new Batwoman yet. I will buy a Detective Comic just to add my ten cents of support. They are still ten cents, right?
I read the "Elegy" trade collection of Batwoman (w/ intro by Rachel Maddow). The characters are intriguing & three-dimensional, and it really captures the culture of military families - something I've never seen in a comic book. And the art is amazing.
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