The Batman Chronicles #1 “Midnight Train” was written by Chuck Dixon with art by Lee Weeks and Bill Sienkiewicz.

spandexandsportsbras:

After Infinite Crisis, when Helena Wayne got wiped from existence and Helena Bertinelli took her place as the Huntress, she briefly had her own series for 19 issues, written by Joey Cavalierri and Joe Staton. Personally, I hated it then and I hate it now. I didn’t like the artwork from Staton who gave her a forehead as high as the Mentaks from “This Island Earth” and a crazy mullet ‘do and Cavalierri had the series end with her giving up and quitting. Sorry, that is NOT Huntress I know and love.

THIS comic is when (in my mind) the REAL Helena Bertinelli was born, under the wonderful writing of Chuck Dixon. You’ll see in a couple scans from now that THIS is the Huntress we all know today.

I don’t share your disain for Joey Cavalieri’s Huntress series, in fact, I think it was a gutsy and ballsy series. Despite the fact the art is outdated, there’s a lot I appreciate about it now. The subject matter was brutual and gritty; maybe three, fours years before it’s time. Had the series been released a little later, it might have found a more receptive auidence. That was the time there was an influx of Mafia films, street orientated films and tv shows. I realize there isn’t always a correlation between what people watch and what they read, but there was a shift in tone where the auidence was looking for edgier entertainment.

Chuck Dixon’s earlier Huntress writings were his best! This story returned Helena to Gotham and the Huntress costume after a years hiatus.  Dixon’s Huntress was NEVER intimated by Batman. His Huntress was aggressively self-assertive and to a point, cocky, but she could back it up. She was intelligent and sharp. She was a match for Batman.

Chuck Dixon was the first writer to establish that Huntress felt Gotham City was as much hers as it was Batman’s. Throughout the years, some writer’s have picked up on that theme, and Huntress seems to shine the most when the stakes are the highest for Gotham City.

But this story showed Huntress to be every much the hero Batman was, while also showing the gulf that exists between the two.

Before Helena’s and Selina’s team-up in Catwoman, they teamed up in Chuck Dixon’s Birds of Prey: Manhunt. Chuck Dixon has written Huntress in several stories. He’s written her with an aloof dignity, proud, tough as nails, and no nonsense with an unrelenting quest for justice and dishing out punishment, while balancing her with a love of learning, culture, and teaching kids. As a total body of work, Birds of Prey: Manhunt isn’t one of my favorite stories, but the interaction between Huntress and Catwoman is sheer perfection and fun, and worth the read.