#Huntress 1989

[tbcanary]

2023 reading list: Huntress (1989)

"I've got to be bigger than the pain. Bigger than life. Bigger than whatever they can throw, shoot, fire, or punch at me."

#helena bertinelli #huntress #the huntress #huntress 1989 #dc #dcedit #dcmultiverse #dcladies #birds of prey #tbedits #tbanimation #2023reads #flashing #WELL. THIS ONE WAS A LOT. #god. helena bertinelli the woman that you are....

[mysteriousbeetle]

"I am no longer their quarry. I am... The Huntress"

Reference under the cut

The panel redraw is of the last page of Huntress (1989) #1

#huntress 1989 #helena bertinelli #huntress #dc #my art #panel redraw #it was fun to try and replicate parts of the style in my own way. #it was also nice to come back to this and finish it.

[fancyfade]

Helena Bertinelli :)

I've read her 1989 solo, her much worse 4 issue chuck dixon mini (forget the year), and huntress: cry for blood. the 1989 solo is peak, it's my favorite, and cry for blood is also good. Dixon's the less said the better :P I guess the art was pretty.

my favorite appearance for her is her 1989 solo that is definitive helena for me. sorry much more popular cry-for-blood huntress :P

#dc comics #ask #tumblr games #helena bertinelli #huntress #huntress 1989

[zahri-melitor]

Helena has a boomerang? HELENA HAS A BOOMERANG?

I mean I’m glad they dropped this part of her design but why did nobody warn me Helena Bertinelli uses a BOOMERANG???

She just keeps…throwing things at people.

#helena bertinelli #huntress 1989

[itsraining-honey]

i posted this on instagram earlier but im so happy i got it!!! she’s so beautiful…i definitely have a soft spot for ‘89 huntress :] 💜

#huntress #huntress dc #huntress 1989 #helena bertinelli #dc #dc comics #not art #emily rambles

[annah-kitathryne]

Screenshots from January 1st 1991 Who's Who In The DC Universe #6

#dc #dc comics #helena bertinelli #huntress dc #dc huntress #huntress 1989 #huntress #helena my love

[redjaybathood]

Huntress (1989), issues 1-6

Reading Huntress is very painful, actually. But it's for sure better than what I would expect from a late 80s-early 90s story (I really dislike comics of that era in general).

I guess everyone knows Helena's basics, more or less: a child of a mafioso, survivor of CSA, her parents are killed by mob when she's in college. She then decides to get revenge on her parents' murderers, and protect herself, by donning a mantle of Huntress. But ends up doing so much more.

The first scene of the comics is her saving a woman from a sexual assault. After finding out her name, Helena, Huntress says, with some nostalgia: yeah, I knew a girl like that once.

Then the story spins into a flashback. Helena - a little girl, pretty trusting and friendly, and why wouldn't she, she's visiting a shop of her father's friend, just wants some chocolate. She overhears shop owner dressing down his son for talking about business to the outsiders. He talks to him about what omerta is. You know, no talking to outsiders, and every issue is solved within the community.

On the way back home, a guy, saying he's a friend of her father's, invites her to the car. And you already know what's going to happen. You knew soon after you seen that guy looking at Helena. Walking up. Patting her head. Accosting her outside the shop.

But thankfully, the story changes to Bertinelli's estate.

We see her parents, going crazy because Helena is not home yet. It's late at night. For all the corrupt officials Bertinelli has in his pockets, for all the muscle he employs, nobody can find his daughter.

The issue of sexual and gender-based violence is a recurring theme. In the issue 3, a witch of sorts is helping mother's, wives, daughters living in the community (it seems like they're probably immigrants or first generation Americans? Thus strong distrust of cops, among the other things) to get back control over their lives if the men took it from them, or, if they're victimized, she teaches them how to save themselves.

Then cops pull up. Helena is with them. She is smiling wide, and this smile is terrifying. More so as she goes up to her room, all the while you notice how her clothes are untidy, short sleeve ripped, the dirt or the bruising on her skin. She's not telling a word. Code of silence, this issue is named. And yeah. It's exactly what it is - moreso in the eighties. I, an adult woman in XXI century am struggling to talk about things like this. What about a child, and then?

Here, we again see the scenes of Helena's past. Now, from a point of view of a child she was then. The art really invokes the fear she felt then.

In the issue 5, we find out that Helena wasn't the first victim of that guy. And turns out, he's already dead - killed by the same guy who played Helena's bodyguard and now teaches her how to do what she does, bandages her wounds, listens to her about the investigation. (By the way, I was so sure it was Bruce! You know, it would make sense for him to look at her and see, you know, her trauma and my trauma match, let's bring her in)

But the guys who ordered and executed the murder of his father are not. And then Helena goes after them - one of them threatens to rape her. The fear in her eyes, in that scene, is chilling. But then, the next panel, we see her picking up a knife, slowly.

The scene doesn't devolve in a fight immediately. But still, that panel is by far my favorite.

Or this one, where she sends her parents' killer to his death. It wasn't what she planned initially, she tried to help him - but then he spewed all that bullshit about how she's his (Helena has flashback to the assault in her childhood and to the rape threat made by the guy he hired to kill her parents). So, down he goes:

After that, she finds a book of her father's, written in code. She decides to keep it instead of all the riches he left her - money won't buy her happinness... or her family. And the book can help her to dismantle what her father built.

#reading comics #Huntress 1989 #helena bertinelli

[songbee-art]

just finished huntress 1989. is this anything.

#you KNOW shira songbeeart gonna pull up with the miss sohee refs😩😩 #dc art #digital art #fashion illustration #fashion redraw #miss sohee #helena bertinelli #huntress #the huntress #the huntress 1989 #dc comics

[sunsingersart]

27 for the locg ask game? :D

Miss Helena!!!!

What's she looking at? Maybe an accountant's ledger from a local crime family, maybe her students' homework...

#helena bertinelli #my art #askbox #this is your sign to go read huntress 1989 #edit: forgot to add image id. its now in alt

[misspickman]

some helenas from the huntress 1989

#i really enjoyed this art style.. also the whole thing. obviously. but she looks so good #i enjoy the pointiness and the weird cape #txt #helena bertinelli #the huntress 1989

[fiapple]

something i love about huntress (1989) is just how succintly its opening scene builds up helena as a character & the overall themes of her narrative.

the comic opens on western society’s prototypical idea of a victim, a young white woman (that fact having its own horrid political history should be acknowledged)- fashionable for her era- walking alone at night, and being followed by a man with a knife.

Immediately, the scene visually cuts between the young woman & helena, tying them together in the eyes of the audience. it then plays out as so:

Huntress (1989) #1 by Joey Cavalier & Joe Staton

Both through the very explicit paralleling of the two women, and the lamp-shading thereof on the writer's part within the scene itself, helena is framed within the eyes of the audience as someone who herself has once been a victim. the creative team presents you with the one most archetypal examples of a victim they possibly could, though, again, the problems within the history of that fact can't be ignored either- one that for all its commonplace is still powerless and meek as ever, and said "our hero has once been her."

"I knew somebody with a name like that... a long time ago..."

By allowing the audience access information so early on, the creative team is quickly able to position helena as existent within a dichotomy of the struggle between the ongoing disempowerment of trauma, and the fight to regain one's sense of power thereafter, as seen through the lens of non-linear trauma recovery. It is planting the seeds of what will grow to be a major theme in helena's arc.

Additionally, it very quickly posits helena as a character who is, in part, motivated by the phantom of her own vicitimization. She is very quickly suggested to the audience to be a character that is doing this- doing all she can to fight, stave off, prevent acts of violence- as a form of penance both to herself and to the world for the moments in her own life in which she was unable to do so. It is put into the mind of the reader that she is followed by the wraith of her own suffering, and of knowing that the weight of trauma is one that others can also be forced to bear.

This is further reinforced by the immediate narrative focus the collaborators chose to place on helena as a figure of compassion. from her first scene in main canon, her focal point is the victim, so much so that when choosing to return to the scene to comfort the young woman, she is able to notice something as innocuous as a wallet and return it. Moreover, due to its atypical nature in the context of comics, the 'alley-way victim' being named with such a sense of gravity in this scene takes on an added layer of importance besides the aforementioned. The victim is humanized, emphasizing their centering in helena's concious motives. To further compound this, the first time we ever see helena speak on-panel is when she chooses to comfort this young woman. her words, her actions, her passion are all motivated by her own needs & wounds, yes- but the victim, the person being hurt, that is what is at the centre of them. if further evidence were required, one may even point to the fact that the first face we see at all is that of the victim's.

And, emphasizing the overall themes present within the introduction to an even more extreme extent, is the nature of the visual story-telling taking place on pages 4 & 5.

Page 4 begins with helena fighting the perp, her back turned away from the audience, but ends with her walking toward us, body language confident. This draws our attention both to helena's capacity to be imposing, to inhabit the position of the unknown in order to illicate fear, and to helena's individual power as a character.

Conversely, the first time we see helena on page 5, when her face is finally revealed to the audience, she is talking to the victim. It ends with her back to the audience, standing as if fixed in her position, taking up fairly equal panel space with her fellow as she watches helena k. walk off, and falls into a memory. this places the audience's focus on the fact that helena b. is just as, if not more so, consumed by her victimhood as her counterpart.

(this also sets up the following scene, in which we are given helena's backstory, exceedingly well btw)

Moreover, the visual choice to hide her face temporarily gives helena a sense of being quite guarded as a person, which will be expanded upon later, and shows that the dedication to character building started very early-on for Stanton & Cavalieri, which i really appreciate.

From the first breath of life given to her story, helena is deliciously presented as a byronic heroine- an unusual type of female character to see at all, let alone in comics- and it is done through focus on her agency as a character & her dominating sense of compassion for others.

Truly, I adore beyond my heart’s capacity just how much Staton & Cavalieri chose to dedicate their opening to showing just how much Helena is a character who finds the power to find personal redemption, empowerment, & rebirth- as violent and bloody as that rebirth may grow to be- in the ability she has to do good unto others, to try to allow them to retain the innocence that was taken from her by force & the closure she was denied. They put such energy into making it clear that she is a character so very deeply driven by a sense of compassion, one so consuming it may as well be keeping her heart in chains, and they portray it as equally served by her violence as tender-heartedness. it’s enrapturing, it’s enchanting. like, really, heart’s honour, i live for it.

#it really just is an excellent feat of teamwork & storytelling on part of staton & cavalieri #helena bertinelli #helena & trauma #joey cavalieri #joe staton #huntress v.1 #huntress (1989) #dc #this used to be a tag #gothamverse #dc meta #helena bertinelli meta #batfam meta #batcomics meta

[trackingthehuntress]

If you read her comics out of chronological order, it’s the height of unintentional comedy that Helena Bertinelli witnessed someone going out as a vigilante inspired by the huntress and had complicated feelings about whether or not she was responsible for their actions and if this person was a facet of her legacy, but like, she just went to therapy about it. gee I wonder who should have considered doing this. or who should have maybe stepped back and been self aware enough to reflect on their hypocrisy. this doesn’t remind me of anyone or any situation that might be in your future helena. she should get to murder bruce as a treat I think

#dc comics #helena bertinelli #the huntress (1989) #apologies to the Bruce Wayne enjoyer mutuals this isn’t my heart - here for you to block #anti bruce wayne #bruce wayne negative #hector ruiz

[mysteriousbeetle]

huntress hold emotes!! the base is courtesy of @deven895!!

#helena bertinelli #huntress #huntress 1989 #dc #my art #more of a collaboration #discord emotes

[fancyfade]

[image: a series of screnecaps from Huntress 1989, Catwoman: Her Sister’s keeper, and Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood. first, from huntress 1989, we see helena bertinelli inside her house talking to tony angelo. she says "helena bertinelli is just a scared rabbit. someone who keeps looking over her shoulder, terrified that there's a man out there gunning for her. It's a thought I can't live with. So i've created someone else... someone who can be bigger than they are... who can do the hunting... instead of being hunted. A true huntress. I can think about what this perfect person would do in my situation. She would never be afraid. She would never run. She's a totally different person fromme... one whose first instinct is to fight back." She holds her huntress costume in her hands. Tony says "sounds schizoid.

next panels from cry for blood show helena bertinelli talking to richard dragon. she is looking at her huntress outfit as he is cooking. she says "she scares me." Richard dragon says "she should. She's a killer." helena looks at the costume again. she walks to the table and says "she used to be... stronger than me. now... when I was huntress, I wasn't afraid." richard says "she keeps you from breathing." 

next scenes from catwoman: sister's keeepr show selina kyle in a coat with a hat with lace obscuring her face talking to her sister maggie. maggie is in a nun's outfit. maggie says "why?" Selina says "Because she's a killer! She killed Stan! She almost killed you --! And she's me! I'm the killer!" Maggie says "you didn't kill anybody. Not me, and not stan." Selina turns to face her and says "You don't understand. taht's not just a costume. I put it on and something happens... I can't take it. But she can. The catwoman -- she can stand it all. Everything crummy that life can throw at her, she just throws it right back -- and it doesn't even faze her -- nothing hurts her -- it's like she's dead -- oh, maggie -- it's so much easier being dead!" Someone off screen says "selina?" finally we see selina, now in her catwoman costume, looking down at maggie in the dark. maggie asks "Do you really fell so much safer in there?" Selina asks, "Do you?" end image]

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parallels w/ mindy newell’s catwoman and huntress... there’s something about needing an alternate identity to protect you but simultaneously being afraid of the power it has ... creating a place where you’re stuck between your own powerlessness and your own power ;_;

#helena bertinelli #selina kyle #catwoman #huntress #catwoman 1989 #huntress 1989 #batman/huntress: cry for blood #dc comics #tony angelo #richard dragon #maggie kyle #suicidal ideation cw

[everybodylovesbiscuits]

nights are so starry, blood moonlit

it must be counterfeit

i think there's been a glitch

a brief interruption, a slight malfunction

#taylor swift #taylurking #taylornation #lover #1989 taylor's version #1989 tv #the eras tour #eras tour #taylor alison swift #midnights taylor swift #midnights ts #glitch #eclipse #bloodmoon huntress #midnights #midnights 3am edition #midnights 3am version #meet me at midnight #rainbow #pride #karma #reputation #reputation taylor’s version

[senorscotty]

thinking about identity is so interesting with helena because yes there is that natural push and pull between helena and the huntress that many anti-heroes/vigilantes face when they put the mask on, but helena also has this quandary about who she even is in the absence of her father and his legacy. she initially creates the identity of the huntress as a version of herself that isn’t entombed in fear and grief, invents someone that goes towards the cry for help instead of needing it. there’s something about helena coming back for her younger self through the mask, hearing the cry for help no one else did, as the entity of huntress.

but i think in issue 6, when she lets one of the men who were complicit in her family’s death fall to his death, helena doesn’t have her mask on. it’s not huntress who is present in those moments where she confronts the people who killed her family, but helena herself. ESPECIALLY those moments when she sees the family photos her father locked away in his safe. she’s reconnected to her grief and role as the bertinelli daughter but she can’t retreat into her mask. she has to claw back some strength when she’s at risk of losing her agency and becoming a pawn all over again.

and then when she does get to avenge her family, she gets to start being herself not just her family’s goddaughter and her father’s daughter. but she doesn’t know who that even IS! it’s insane because she wants to create a division between helena and the bertinelli legacy, and in the process leans on the huntress more and more -> struggles to find out if it's her (with a shifting sense of self) or the huntress (resolute as helena idealizes her to be) in control. like somehow within her origin - it’s the mask that is constant in her life but not its creator.

#<- note this is in ref to huntress (1989) #using this as a way to organize my thoughts before i move forward in helena's reading list #and things get crazy with my life next week LOL #also one more thing about this volume. the titles they chose for each issue are SO good. like issue #3. plaster saints -> what do plaster saints mean when god has left gotham. #or 9. solitary confinement that was really good. #helena bertinelli