So I'm taking a break from the 'Becoming Batwoman' series for a hot minute and with that has come the mental freedom to review the first season of Batwoman in all of its somewhat confounding glory. With the privilege of time and a deep dive into the Batwoman comics, I've become a bit critical of the original premise (if you disagree, I hold no grudge). Having reviewed the first few episodes of season 1, I actually find Kate as a character to be mildly intolerable. She isn't introduced as a character I want to root for or as one who has the capacity to grow.
More than that, I don't actually believe her origin story, and it got me to wondering why they didn't lean into the original harder; there's never been a version of Bruce Wayne that doesn't use his origin (to my knowledge), so why veer so hard away for Kate's? I also started wondering why there was such a desire to paint Jacob as a bad dad, or Sophie as... well, a fairly one dimensional character, or Catherine as a deceptive step-mother. These are not truths as written in the comics, so why write them so differently and with so much drama surrounding them and their relationship with Kate?
I've not watched a lot of CW DC shows - a few seasons of Smallville and a few of Arrow. One thing that stuck with me about Arrow was that over the course of the series, Oliver surrounded himself with a support team. This is actually quite reminiscent of Batwoman's story as well: eventually her father, step mother, cousin (Bette), and Maggie (her fiancée) all exist as her support group. They fade in and out as needed, but it's there.
More than that though, Batwoman exists with a different set of skills, motivations, and origins than Batman. By throwing this character into the shadow of Batman in the show, it always becomes a comparison of the two. It also pushes the character to rely extensively on her tech to win the day. Maybe this is how Supergirl is written, too; I have no idea, but I find it frustrating when I know such rich content from the comics was overlooked in favor of this route.
This all sounds like I'm bashing the show (and, if the summary gives any indication, I kind of am). So, I had a thought: what if Season 2 of Batwoman could have been a complete reboot of Season 1 where the origin story of Kate is more closely tied to the comics. What exists below is unedited word vomit. I don't touch on nearly enough to call it a complete summary. This exists more as a prompt. I might ramble later and touch on some of the characters who didn't make this first cut, but that isn't really the point of this. Or maybe it is - I don't know.
In any case, give it a read. Nothing is ever perfect, so I can't imagine I'm the only one who exists with these thoughts. Tell me what you think - how much you hate it or love it; I'm open to any and all feedback.
Cheers,
EQT.95
Gotham without Batman
Batman is still 'absent' from Gotham. His whereabouts are unclear, and rumors range about what happened to him. The GCPD never issued a formal statement about Batman even after years of collaboration. Instead, positions of power exchanged hands - some less willingly than others, and a new guard was brought in. The likes of uncorrupted figures like Commissioner James Gordon were shown the door, and the new team of leadership shifted agendas to sweep Batman's existence under the rug.
For it's part, the public went through every stage of grief: denial that their hero would abandon them, anger that he could neglect his responsibility, bargaining that the communities would work harder to help put a cap on crime if he returned, depression that the ways of life before Batman would slowly creep back into Gotham, and finally, acceptance that the city was simply bound to a fate without change or a hero.
Most came to believe Batman was resigned by the lack of change in Gotham; that for all his efforts, the city chose to do the wrong thing over and over again (cue Marshawn Lynch gif). While small pockets were impacted, the city authorities and even the average citizen did little to embody the change Batman fought for. Some believed he died, but this rumor only took off briefly in tabloids. Others thought he was called away and would eventually return. It wasn't uncommon for the Dark Knight to do this, afterall; perhaps this was just an unexpectedly long mission.
Whatever the reason, one thing was very clear: In his leaving, the threat of recourse for doing bad and being held accountable all but disappeared. Corruption returned at full force and drove a spear into the heart of the city. Political officials swindled taxpayer's money, policies favored the rich, and poverty grew. For those who could afford to leave, they did, for those who couldn't, they acclimated and adapted to survive. This ushered in years of increased crime that ranged from petty pickpocketing to rampant murder sprees.
A middle class all but disappeared. In its place was an ocean between the privileged upper class and the struggling lower class. A literal line in Gotham's skyline created this distinction: at night the highrise penthouses shone brightly while dull incandescents sprinkled the street levels. In the middle? A horizontal stripe of darkness where desolate luxury apartments owned by offshore millionaire and billionaire accounts existed. A running joke was that the real estate market was only as strong as it was because the insurance payouts when buildings inevitably got demolished in some flubbed crime made the investments more profitable than the stock market.
With this came a densely populated street life. The markets kept rent high and the ability to move tiers practically impossible yet the 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' rhetoric oozed from businessmen clad in thousand-dollar suits. Small businesses began to shutter completely or, worse, be absorbed into the crime syndicates that popped up in the various boroughs of the city.
Battle lines were drawn as gangs fought for the upper hand in the power struggle for king of the lower class. All of the typical unsavoriness was game: drugs, blackmail, manipulation, hired guns. Recruitment was key to this war: as skilled fighters were hard to come by, quantity ruled. The drug business sponsored the arsenal that struck fear into citizens trying to abstain from sides. Out of that fear came a self-imposed curfew for most. Anyone caught out after daylight had no one to blame but himself for the trouble he found, and it was often a miracle if that trouble didn't leave him floating off some dock in Miller Harbor. In short, the streets and public sentiment were quickly flavored with the resignation and resentment from a pre-Batman era.
There was an attempt to shift public perception early on. The ideals of a vigilante striking fear into crooks was embedded in the young, ideal kids who had grown up looking out their windows toward the glowing beacon of hope and shining reminder that eyes were watching. It was in these emboldened figures that a new wave of vigilantes appeared in the streets.
For the first year following Batman's disappearance, the GCPD was overwhelmed with tips about increased crime but also of unchecked vigilantism. The intent of the calls varied: some were worried parents calling to have their son or daughter brought in safely and some were calling to complain that they were more of a nuisance than the drug dealer posted up on the corner.
"What? No, he's not dangerous. He's a participation trophy kid, and a thankless one at that," a father once said. "One karate class and the little shit thinks he can save Gotham… Ha! He couldn't do a pull up to save his life. I'll tell you what, he's going to get himself killed is what's gonna happen. Can't ya… I don't know, can't ya just bring him in and scare the shit out of him? I give permission. Bust him and then lock him up for a bit. Give him a punch or two so he knows what gettin' beat up is like… Yea, that'll teach him a lesson."
"He just showed up and started hitting one of my customers with a rubber mallet," a shopkeep complained. "What? I don't know, he was in some stupid costume… said he was huntin' criminals, the fuckin' idiot… if stupidity is dangerous, then yea, I'd say so… yea, look, can I get an ambulance or not? This guy definitely needs some stitches."
"Yes, a purple cape and bright yellow mask… weapons? I… I don't know. Look, she's just a child - she's not dangerous. She's… she's my baby. Please find her," a mother would plead.
Not dangerous. It was both a gift and a curse of each and every one of these pretend vigilantes. If young idealism could win fights, Gotham would have been saved overnight. Unfortunately that's not how Gotham works. For some, sense was knocked into them before things could spiral out of control. For others… well, it wasn't pretty. Untrained, over-confident, and without the guidance of a code, the fires that lit these ambitions were quickly extinguished. Young men and women clad in well-intentioned masks were soon absorbed into the world of crime. For the less lucky, there was the hospital, and for the worst-off, the morgue.
Twelve deaths were attributed to vigilantism that year of rebellion. The ones who got out alive were often crippled beyond recovery.
To the rest of the world, they were all jokes. Nightly national news coverage showed the latest antics with the anchors struggling to keep a straight face through the segment. A professor of sociology out of Cambridge taught a class about the deterioration of Gotham's social order as a cause of it. A film crew from Hollywood came out and shot footage of the ruined lives of surviving vigilantes. Most of the interviews were recorded within the walls of Arkham where sentences ranging from three to ten years were being served by the pretend-Batmans of the city.
The documentary premiered at the Cannes Festival the following year and reaped mounds of praise. Critical acclaim was given for the raw, edgy narrative centered on the deterioration of a city bred by corruption and the foolish kids who sought to change it. The director won an award and a full-feature contract for an upcoming Marvel movie; the cinematographer was scooped up by a major broadcasting company to shoot a superhero reboot; and the film itself was picked up for international release.
Money was made hand over fist as a nation wept and laughed at the contraction of one of its largest cities.
Not once though did a review question the context which drove a city's youth to feel compelled into action. There was no political recourse for the events that transpired. Politicians from Washington turned a blind eye. State funds were slowly diverted from the city. Even nonprofits cringed away from the depression that soaked into the heart and soul of the city. To most, Gotham had been a sore spot for years. That it regressed to its former low did little to stir sentiments from outsiders to help.
The economy was driven by real estate and top-dog corporations at the high end and drugs at the low end. Programs still existed, sure, but finding honest workers who wouldn't sneak in their own cut was difficult. Over the years, public funds dried up and the city relied on private sponsors to repair the deteriorating streets, schools, and public infrastructure. These financiers came from old money accrued from the days Gotham was once seen as a booming city where opportunity was plentiful for all.
At the core of this group was none other than Wayne Enterprises. The company was one of international standing and, while it carried out business all over the world, its home remained solidly in Gotham. This mere presence fueled a tiny part of the economy bringing jobs into the city.
This isn't to say all opportunity had dried up. Companies like Hamilton Dynamics had a strong presence both locally and nationally as a leading arms industry and defense contractor. While this too brought jobs and funding into the city, the low-level work was often outsourced to rural areas of Gotham, leaving the high-salaried positions to the headquarters located near Wayne Tower.
Batwoman
This was the city Kate Kane called home. She returned from Point Rock after being honorably discharged for 'engaging in homosexual activity' just as the first year of Batman's disappearance began. For Kate, the nuances of the changes were initially lost on her. Broken-hearted, rejected for who she was by the academy and the first love of her life, she fell into a life of late night club scenes and forgetful bed-hopping to cope. This was the privilege of being a Kane.
It was during this time that a deep-seated aimlessness took root in Kate for the third time in her life. The first time came two days after her twelfth birthday. Her father, Jacob Kane, had been deployed and was out of the country on some top secret mission. Back then that's all it was to Kate: Jacob would leave for weeks on end to save the world before returning into the loving arms of his wife and his doting twin daughters.
This left Kath and Beth, her twin sister, with just their mother, Gabi, to celebrate their birthday. After being grounded a week earlier, the twins festivities had been postponed for two whole days. For two twelve year olds, this was practically torture, and it left them mortified and begging for their mother to reconsider. She didn't budge, instead waiting until the weekend to take them out for a special treat: chocolate waffles at their nearby favorite joint.
'Chocolate and gauffre await!'
Unfortunately, what was meant to be a festive afternoon took a very dark, very sudden turn when they were jumped on their walk. Gotham had been under the watchful gaze of Batman for a few years at this point, but blatant crime still existed, and in this case, the Kane family was the target.
Passersby saw the ambush and rushed to call the police. Jacob Kane was notified and it was quickly established the kidnapping had been intentional and targeted. He jumped on the first flight back to Gotham and was granted military assistance to locate his family.
It didn't take long to discover the site was an abandoned warehouse on the waterfront of the Upper East Side overlooking Bob Kane Sound, named after Jacob's great grandfather. He would spend years questioning the coincidence of this.
Leading a tactical unit, he raided the location only to discover he was too late. The first body his eyes rested on was that of his wife; lifeless, covered in her own blood, and bound to a chair. That her head was covered in a burlap bag did little to confuse Jacob Kane. He would know his wife anywhere.
The second body was the equally lifeless form of a red-haired girl lying facedown covered in her own version of the same bloodshed, and Jacob had to suppress a sob. It was only when shouts confirming life brought him back from the edge of a breakdown: Kate was alive.
That Kate experienced the kidnapping, heard the cries for mercy, flinched at the rain of gunshots, and glimpsed the bodies of Gabi and Beth as she was ushered out of the warehouse left her traumatized through the rest of her childhood. She'd lost her mother and best friend in an instant. She closed herself off and lacked anything tangible to keep her grounded. She was aimless.
Seeing the impact this had on Kate, he pushed her to find an outlet. Whether this was through her studies, gymnastics, or training, he encouraged her to remain focused. To soldier on. Kate adhered to this to a fault; she spent her teenage years diligently honing every skill Jacob tasked her with. Her grades excelled, she won competitions, and her weekly training sessions had her holding her own against Jacob.
"You need to learn to use my weight against me."
"But you're twice as big as me," Kate would scowl, climbing up from the mat.
"So is half the country. Now, again."
Jacob would bark this point over and over without a hint, forcing her to experiment over and over until, with time, she found techniques that worked. It was this constant pushing that gave her focus. It wasn't Jacob's job to hand her the answers; it was his job to provide the obstacles.
And then Catherine Hamilton came into their lives. In the blink of an eye, he was back to travelling the world except this time it wasn't to save it; it was to be with his new beau, joining her for business trips and applying his skill and attention to things greater than Kate. That's when the aimlessness took hold for the second time in her life. It wasn't that she resented Jacob for moving on and finding love, it was that Kate felt left behind and alone. She couldn't see the purpose in excelling any longer.
These were her high school years, and as a privileged member of Gotham's upper class, it came with certain freedoms including the GCPD turning a blind eye to less than savory activities. It was during this time her aimlessness found direction in a stiff drink and a stranger's bed. One knack she'd acquired over time was the ability to blend into a conversation. This, paired with a sardonic temperament, made her the perfect millionaire socialite.
With Jacob jet setting around with Catherine, Kate found there was a lot she could get away with, until she arrived home one day to find a young, eager Mary Hamilton waiting for her at the kitchen table. Kate hated her the first time they met. She didn't want a sister. She'd had a sister in Beth, and she'd been taken from her. This substitute wasn't the same, would never be the same, and certainly wasn't welcome.
That's how their relationship began; one where Mary couldn't get enough of Kate's attention and Kate couldn't come up with an excuse fast enough to leave.
But Mary had a persistence about her. Initially Kate compared her to a dopey dog who didn't know its owner hated it, but that soon evolved. Kate was stubborn, but so was Mary in her own way. Just like Jacob would knock Kate down only for her to get back up, Mary would do the same. No matter how many times Kate dismissed her, Mary's perseverance was something Kate began to respect. While she'd still regularly give Mary a hard time for the latest teenage fad or trend she was gawking over, a friendship slowly developed. It wasn't like Beth. No relationship could ever be that, but it did develop into a sisterly bond; one where Kate would put up a stink about having to help Mary but secretly also have done anything for her if push came to shove.
Things for Kate changed at this point. Absences were noted by Mary who effectively took up residency at the Kane apartment whenever Catherine was travelling for work which seemed to be every week, and it meant Kate's aimlessness couldn't show itself in the same way; there was someone now holding her accountable.
As Catherine and Jacob's relationship intensified, so did the reality of them becoming a permanent part of her life. The duo moved in shortly after the beginning of Kate's senior year. They'd been together for three years by this point, and Kate saw wedding bells as a begrudging inevitability. While enough time had passed for her relationship with Mary became tolerable, the same couldn't be said for Catherine.
Catherine was sharp and business-minded. She was also frustratingly obsessed with her public image. It was a fact of life that when running a multinational company a curated lifestyle was required. This did not mesh well with Kate who couldn't care less about keeping up appearances. This put the two at obvious odds through all of Kate's high school years.
Catherine and Jacob were wed the summer before she left for college, and tensions between her and Catherine were at a breaking point. Kate played the part of a moody antagonist perfectly, and this often forced Jacob in the middle. While he tried his best to stay neutral, many arguments came out of his bias toward Kate. The timing of Kate leaving for Point Rock could not have been better.
Fast forward nearly four years and Kate finds herself standing in Colonel Reyes' office where she refuses to lie to keep her position.
Fast forward another few weeks and Kate is back in Gotham, drinking her way into a tispy stupor dwelling in an existential crisis. Aimlessness has taken hold again, and she's lost a sense of meaning and focus. As she stumbles out into the evening night, she is immediately drenched in a downpour, and she grumpily turns the corner to call a taxi when the glimpse of shadows followed by chaotic shouting catches her attention. She glances into a dark alley and sees a group of thugs beating up on… Batman?
Foolishly, she chases down the alley toward the gang of three men and interrupts their fun. The haze of alcohol leaves her with a cut lip, a future-bruised eye, and a few bruised ribs before flashes of her training at the Academy and Jacob's voice races through her mind. She lands her first hit on the nearest guy before she falls into a familiar routine. There was also the added benefit of these three not representing Gotham's finest in terms of fitness or skill. A few moves later, they left scurrying for drier cover, and Kate finds herself helping a masked un-Batman figure to his feet.
"Th-thanks," he said, still shaken by the encounter
"What are you doing?" Kate said with an air of criticism.
"Saving Gotham," the kid said before spitting out a mouthful of blood. He looked around and picked up his forgotten… staff - at least, in the darkness that's what Kate interpreted it as.
"Save Gotham?" Kate scowled in obvious disapproval. "Is that a joke? You're going to get yourself killed; you're-you're just kid."
"Maybe, but who else is there?"
The Crows
In all of this, Jacob sees his home city being derailed by the sudden absence of Batman. An irrational part of him always carried a small resentment toward Batman for not saving his wife and Beth. It was the same irrational part of him that blamed the GCPD or the bystanders or himself for not being there. If only someone - anyone - had taken action, maybe his life wouldn't have been torn apart. Maybe then Gabi and Beth would still be alive.
Instead of stewing in this rage, he pours his stake of the Kane fortune into founding the Crows - a private security operation that provides for the people of Gotham in a lawful, uncorrupt way that Batman or the GCPD never could. With his experience in the military and the ability to provide direct oversight of the private company, his hypothesis is that he can avoid the corruption the GCPD so regularly experiences.
While Kate was still a student at Point Rock, Jacob informed her of his plans to form the organization. For her part, Kate wanted nothing more than to join the Crows. It was the most obvious way she could see herself serving, and it would be to better her home turf in the process.
The rigor to join the Crows was intense, and Jacob only recruited the best of the best. This included some of his closest companions during his military days, and he spent the first few years scouting the best talent to keep the organization at the top of its game. Jacob made a commitment to Kate that, if she managed to graduate at the top of her class, he'd offer her a job. Anything less and she'd need to find an alternate means.
When her pride and integrity chose not to hide who she was, that shattered her dream of being a Crow. Instead, the position was offered to Sophie Moore, a fellow cadet and top of her class at Point Rock. She was also Kate's first love.
The morning following her run-in with the thugs and pretend superhero, she tossed back an aspirin and set aside the now-thawed bag of peas on her swollen eye to hunt down Jacob. If he was surprised by her unannounced arrival at his door, it was nothing on what she asked next:
"I want to be a Crow."
"Kate, we've been over this. While I don't disapprove of what you did, I can't give you a position here. It would be a slap in the face of every member of this team."
"I get that, and I don't want special treatment," Kate explained. "So what do I need to do?"
"What do… what?"
"Tell me what to do, and I'll do it. If I need to run into burning buildings or join an underground fighting ring or… or… tell me what it will take, and I'll do it."
Jacob Kane had never given his daughter an inch - not because he didn't love her, but because he respected her, and this was no different. If a career in the military hadn't been shot, the obvious answer would have been to serve and come back when she had the necessary experience serving, but now he needed to get more creative. He built out a rigorous, two-year training regiment that sent her around the world. If he was going to let Kate become a Crow, she needed to earn it. This was in part because he had a Crow standard, but more than that, he wanted Kate to know she'd earned it.
Two years of grueling training later, Kate returned to accept her position as a Crow but quickly realized the same corruption that flooded the GCPD had crept into the security firm. Jacob had become too far removed from the day-to-day, and Kate was surprised to see how he had become a distracted version of the focused, centered man she knew. All of this melted into a realization that this wasn't the way she was prepared to serve Gotham.
As she left the facility having turned down Jacob's offer, she felt a tinge of aimlessness set in again until her eyes landed on the bat signal that, even years later, remained illuminated in the sky. In that moment, the image of the untrained vigilante from years earlier appeared in her mind, and she understood there was more than one way to help Gotham.
Kate manages to sneak into the Crows facility over a series of days under the guise of visiting her father and steals equipment to aid in her vigilantism. This works for a few weeks (insert a montage of successes and failures and close calls and lessons) until an event begins to unfold that forces more drastic measures: Sophie Moore is kidnapped.
There are like, ninety unwritten ideas nestled in the excerpt above. This doesn't even touch on how Alice/Beth is reintroduced to us (hint: Papa Crow had multiple motives for starting the Crows). I haven't figured out how Luke gets incorporated in all of this, but I prefer a means by which he gets introduced through some tangential connection to Bruce. I have half an idea about Alfred being the thread that ties this together, but again, this is all just mindlessness written to get it out of my head.
