With the DC film Birds of Prey quickly approaching, we thought it would be a good idea to take
a closer look at one of their famed core members, Huntress.
She will be played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead in the film.
You may recognize Winstead as the actress who played Romana Flowers in Scott Pilgrim
vs the World, if you are a Scott Pilgrim fan.
Huntress is Helena Bertinelli born into one of Gotham's most powerful mob families.
Helena is a skilled and trained fighter with no powers.
She is known in the comics as being a violent vigilante who will go to any lengths to defeat
her foes.
We'll be learning more about Helena today as we take a look at some of the more shocking
fact about her and her history in the comics as we count down the top 10 shocking huntress
facts that you need to know.
So get ready to be shocked & learn some interesting things.
Let's get counting!
10 Backstory Retcon
Originally Huntress was introduced under the alias of Helena Wayne from the alternate universe
of Earth 2.
Helena Wayne was the daughter of Earth 2's Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle who was raised
to be a superior athlete by her parents.
She made her comic debut in DC Superstar issue 17 in 1977.
This version of Helena would become a vigilante after avenging her mother's death.
Selina Kyle had only resumed her Catwoman persona after being blackmailed into it by
her old boss and during her time as Catwoman met her demise.
After getting revenge Helena decided to continue on as vigilante, also knowing that her father
was Batman and seeing Dick Grayson's Robin like an older brother.
She moved out of the family home and adopted alias Huntress.
It wasn't until 1989 when Helena Bertinelli was introduced that this backstory would change.
And later Bertinelli's appearance would change somewhat to differentiate her when Helena
Wayne was reintroduced to DC and the two characters were classified as seperate people.
9 She Kills People
Most vigilante's have a certain code that they live by.
As a character who was originally so tied to Batman, you would think that Helena would
also have that in the form of specifically a no-kill policy.
And yet she does not.
Helena is an interesting vigilante and member of the Birds of Prey because she is violent
and kills without question.
Bertinelli doesn't see an issue with it, her motto was always blood cries for blood, an
eye for an eye type herself.
Since her original appearance this has been toned down somewhat to appease other vigilantes
and teams that she works with.
On more than one occasion her violent tendencies have gotten her into trouble with her form
teammates Birds of Prey whose members tend to disagree on the whole to kill or not kill
thing.
8 Kinda Sucks at Fighting
Huntress is known for being an amazing fighters and in some iterations a trained assassin,
so how could she be bad at fighting?
For this, I'd like to cite specific issue in the comics, one that saw her lose almost
immediately in a fight against Lady Shiva.
In Birds of Prey, vol 2, issue 6, Huntress steps up to fight Lady Shiva in Dinah Blake's
place to save the little girl, Sin as Dinah is suffering from a broken wrist at the time
and finds herself unable to fight.
Now Lady Shiva is obviously an expert level and we probably already expected her to be
on another level when compared to Helena but Shiva immediately starts kicking Helena's
butt.
And Helena seems to reveal that she forgets how to dodge.
She is resilient though, no matter what she keeps getting back up.
Shiva even gives her the name Iron Owl in respect for her resilience.
But I still think the fight would have gone better for her if she had remembered how to
simply get out of the way of a hit.
Regardless, the fight is called off and Helena gets to walk away.
7 Nightwing
So while admittedly a relationship between Dick Grayson and Helena Bertenelli is not
odd in the slightest, a relationship between the Helena Wayne incarnation of her character
and Dick Grayson from Earth 2 would be weird right.
And yet the two also have a thing in that continuity as well.
I know.
In a Wonder Woman series no less we get some insight into how the pretty much step siblings
feel about one another.
In vol 1 issue 284, despite the two referring to each other as brother and sister, there
is an undeniable sexual tension and a line where Robin refers to changing Helena as a
baby as "peeking privileges."
Like Helena Bertinelli and Nightwing can have a thing but the fact that it might have been
inspired by their Earth-2 counterparts desire to hook up is creepy and weird.
6 Like Barbara Gordon
Batman has never really approved of Huntress.
She is more violent than he would like and her willingness to kill has never set well
with the Batman.
He does eventually come to approve of her, even at first watching her when she first
dons a Batgirl costume.
Prefering to observe than stop her off the bat.
Pun not intended.
His dislike of her is explored by Commissioner Gordon who asks why Batman seems to take issue
with her involvement Batman responds with "You know exactly why I disapprove.
You're not the only one she reminds of Barbara."
Revealing that he has almost protective like feelings toward Huntress and possibly doesn't
want her to get hurt like Barbara Gordon did when Joker targeted her as part of an attack
on her father and crippled her with a gunshot.
5 Not Her Father's Daughter
While Helena often throws around her family name, proudly claiming to be a part of the
big mafia family of the Bertinelli's the truth is she isn't really one.
Well at least not in terms of her male genealogy.
Helana was born from an affair her mother had.
Her mother took solace in another man after she was beaten on the regular by her husband.
In fact he even knew that the child was not his and beat her mother throughout her pregnancy
though both the baby and Helena's mother survived the abuse, resulting in Helena being born.
4 Most Wanted Woman in The World
When Helena Bertinelli was reintroduced as a part of the new 52 continuity, we saw her
in the 2014 series Grayson which follows her team up with Dick as they work together as
spies for Spyral, a united nations covert operation.
This was interesting because in the original new 52 reboot Bertinelli was thought dead
and Helena Wayne from Earth 2 was the only Huntress to have been reintroduced.
Bertinelli was revealed in Grayson Annual 1 to have been thought dead for five years
but have actually been off the grid, choosing to run instead of taking up the mantle as
the head of her criminal mob family.
She's even said to be the most wanted woman in the world.
3 Had a threesome with Lady Blackhawk and Hal
Jordan
Well it was briefly implied at least.
In the Justice League: Cry for Justice series in issue 2, Hal Jordan tells Green Arrow he
has something to tell him.
Green Arrows response is if it is about him and Zinda Blake and Huntress and abottle of
Grappa that Dinah already told him and all he has to say about it is well-played.
If we can believe Oliver Queen to have been serious and Dinah Blake's Black Canary to
be trustworthy, then this is most likely something that happened off page.
I personally would at least believe the Huntress and Zinda part.
Those two have mad chemistry.
2 Traded Sex for Training
This happened in the Arrowverse.
In the iteration Helena is the daughter of Frank Bertinelli the crime boss but does not
approve of her father's activities and begins collecting evidence against him in an effort
to turn him in to the FBI.
Her father however finds out about this but believes that Helena's fiance Michael was
actually behind the plot.
As such he had him killed, prompting Helena to seek revenge.
She went to Sicily in her grief and discovered a group of trained assassins, La Morte Sussarata
meaning the Whispered.
She began sleeping with members of the group in order to integrate herself and eventually
become a trained killer and fighter.
Later in the show she also dates Oliver Queen and sleeps with him and he trains in archery,
giving her her famous crossbow.
I guess that's one way to guarantee you get the training you're looking for.
1 Family Was Murdered
Whether we are talking about Helena Wayne or Helena Bertinelli vengeance always seems
to be the main motivation for her violent ways and her tendency to kill her opponents.
In Bertinelli's case it is the death of her family that leads to her training and becoming
Huntress in order to uncover who murdered her family and why and then get revenge.
When she was just a little girl, Stefano Mandragora put a hit on her family and ordered his man
to "spare the sister."
He was actually referring to Helena's mother with this instruction but this was misinterpreted
and lead to Helena being the only spared instead.
Thank you so much for watching for, nerd squad.
I hope you will find some of these facts as shocking as I did.
I know I personally find the confusing go between her and Helena Wayne to be super interesting
and sort of confusing.
Though both iterations of Huntress are awesome in their own right.
What is your favourite Huntress team up?
Do you want to learn more about her or other Birds of Prey members?
Let us know in the comments below and while you are on the way down to the comment, remember
to like, subscribe, share and ring that bell so you get all the nerdy notifications!
This has been top 10 nerd and I'm your host Amanda McKnight reminding you as always to
stay nerdy, YouTube.