Batwoman

The second character, known as Kate Kane, made her debut in 52 #7 (2006) and was created by GregRucka and AlexRoss. She headlined Detective Comics for ten critically acclaimed, Eisner Award-winning issues published from 2009 to 2010 before being spun off into her own ongoing Batwoman comic book in 2011. Kate has received mainstream media attention for being the most prominent GLBT super-hero and the very first to wear the emblem of a superhero icon.

In Detective Comics #2854 (2009) it is established that Kate Kane is the cousin of Bette Kane, Kathy Kane's niece. This would mean that Batman and the modern Batwoman are first cousins, although this has not yet been confirmed by DC Comics.

[edit] Origins and Early Career
In 52 #7, Kate Kane is introduced (although she is referred to as Kathy on several occasions). No Origins titles have been presented for Kate Kane; her fictional backstory is presented in Detective Comics through the use of exposition and flashbacks. In their early childhood, Katherine "Kate" Rebecca Kane and her sister Elizabeth "Beth" Kane were identical twins and were very close to each other. On their twelfth birthday, Kate and Beth were taken by their mother, Gabrielle "Gabi" Kane, to an expensive restaurant for chocolate and waffles, their favorite dish. On the way to the restaurant, a group of gunmen attacked the family and took them hostage, killing their bodyguard in the process. After learning of her family's kidnapping, Kate's father Colonel Jacob "Jake" Kane led a rescue mission to save his captured family, which ended with Kate's mother executed and Beth apparently killed after being caught in the crossfire between the kidnappers and soldiers. Years later, Jake marries Catherine Hamilton Kane. Kate is attending the United States Military ACADEMY, where she receives excellent grades and ranks at the top of her class. However, when it is alleged that she is in a lesbian relationship with another student, Kate's commanding officer asks her to disavow the allegation. Telling the officer that she refuses to lie and violate the code of the Academy, Kate admits to being gay and is forced to leave the school. When she confronts her father with the news, he supports her and affirms that she upheld her honour and integrity. She then moves back to Gotham City where she attends college and pursues a wild social lifestyle. Kate is eventually pulled over for speeding by a young Renee Montoya, who was just a traffic cop at this point. The two date for several months and break up following a fight where Kate berates Renee for keeping her sexuality hidden from her colleagues and family; after Renee expresses concern about Kate's lack of direction, when it's revealed she's not been attending college. While attempting to call Renee and apologize for her behavior, Kate is attacked by a mugger who wants her wallet and cell phone. Using her military training, Kate easily defeats the criminal just as Batman arrives and helps her off the ground. She is then shown fixated by the Bat Signal as Batman flees the scene.

Inspired by her encounter with the caped crusader, Kate begins fighting crime using stolen military body armor and weaponry. After being confronted by Jake, Kate accepts his offer for assistance and begins an intense two years of training across the globe. Upon returning to Gotham, Kate discovers that her father has created a Batsuit for her, along with an arsenal of experimental weaponry and a bunker hidden in the Kane home. The first reference to the modern Batwoman is made by the Penguin in Detective Comics #824 who suggests Batman bring a date to the opening of his club, asking, "Why don't you bring that new Batwoman? I hear she's kind of hot."In 52 #7 (2006) the new Batwoman is introduced. Kane is revealed to have been intimately involved with former Gotham City police detective Renee Montoya and is heiress to one of the wealthiest families in Gotham, owning that which the Wayne family does not. In her third appearance in issue #11 of 52 entitled "Batwoman Begins," Kane assists Montoya and her partner the Question in a mystery revolving around a warehouse owned by Kane's family. When Montoya and the Question are attacked sometime later by Whisper A'Darie's shapeshifting minions, Kane intervenes as Batwoman and rescues them.

In 52 #28 (2006), after Montoya learns that the "Book of Crime," a sacred text of Intergang, contains a prophecy foretelling the brutal murder of the "twice named daughter of Kane," she and the Question return to Gotham, joining forces with Batwoman in issue #30 in order to avert Intergang's plans. Batwoman later appears in a story written by Greg Rucka for the DC Infinite Holiday Special(2006). As Batwoman continues the case, she is joined by Nightwing, who has recently returned to Gotham and becomes infatuated with her. On Christmas Eve, he gives her an 'official' Batarang. She also celebrates Hanukkah with Renee, and the two kiss shortly before Christmas. This story introduced some of Kane's background, including the fact that she is Jewish. In issue #48 of 52 (2007),when Intergang realizes that the image of Batwoman in the Crime bible and the cited "twice-named daughter of Kane" were one and the same, they ransack Kane's apartment, kidnapping her with the intention to sacrifice her. Montoya arrives too late to stop the ritual, finding Kate bound and gagged to an altar as prophet Brunno Mannnheim plunges a knife through her heart. In the ensuing confrontation, the freed Batwoman pulls the knife out of her own chest to stab Mannheim, and then collapses in Renee's arms. She survives her wounds after Renee stops the bleeding in time, however, and as she recuperates in her penthouse, Renee, disguised in her new alter ego as the Question, shines the Bat-Signal into her apartment and asks, "Are you ready?

2007–2009: Countdown, Final Crisis
Batwoman subsequently appears in the fifty-two issue weekly series Countdown, intended to act as a prelude to DC's summer crossover event the following year. Batwoman appears in Countdown #39 (2007), after the Question confronts Trickster and Pied Piper, having trailed them from the Penguin's Iceburg Lounge nightclub. Batwoman also makes an appearance in the miniseries Crime Bible: The Five Lessons of Blood (2007) alongside the Question. Batwoman is seen again on the final page of Grant Morrison's Final Crisis #3 (2008), one month after the Anti-Life Equation was released, as a new Female Fury along with Wonder Woman, Catwoman, and Giganta. Her costume bears resemblance to the dead Fury Mad Harriet. She is also seen in Final Crisis:Revelations #3 attacking the Question after having just been infected with the Anti-Life Equation.

2 2009–2010:   Detective Comics   lead feature
Following the events of Final Crisis and Battle for the Cowl, in which Bruce Wayne has supposedly died and is replaced by Dick Grayson, Kate becomes the lead of Detective Comics from issue 854 to 863. In the first story, entitled "Elegy", Batwoman's seen investigating the arrival of a new leader of the Religion of Crime to Gotham. She briefly meets Batman (it is intentionally left ambiguous whether or not it is Dick Grayson or Bruce Wayne) to discuss her findings. Kate demonstrates greater knowledge of the Religion of Crime, and even corrects Batman by saying there's 13 and not 12 covens of the religion in Gotham. Batman concedes the case to her, and comments on the length of her hair (though panels on the same page reveal the long red wig hides her actual hair, styled short).

Aspects of her personal life are also revealed, including her relationship with her ex-colonel father; serving as Batwoman's ally, whom she addresses as "sir." The strain of her late night vigilante activity has also taken a toll on her romantic relationships. Her lateness and night time absences are interpreted by her girlfriend as an on the side liaison with another woman. She breaks the relationship off as she believes Kate is not ready to commit to an exclusive relationship. A past traumatic incident is also alluded to which she claims still haunts her. As she vaguely describes the experience, her face is shown superimposed on the page over a restrained girl with a bag over her head. She later tracks down the new leader of the Religion of Crime: an elaborately costumed woman named Alice. Over the course of the conflict that ensues, Batwoman observes that Alice only speaks in quotations from Lewis Carroll, believing herself to be Alice Lidell. Alice denies a connection to the Mad Hatter .

While attending a party thrown for the Gotham Police Department, Kate meets and flirts with detective Maggie Sawyer, and runs into her cousin Bette Kane (better known as the Teen Titans member Flamebird). Kate is apparently unaware of her cousin's vigilante activities, and inadvertently hurts her feelings when she cuts her off in the middle of a conversation to answer her cell phone. While dancing with Maggie, Kate discovers that Alice has kidnapped her father and plans to destroy Gotham by spreading a deadly airborne chemical from a hijacked airplane, thus succeeding where Mannheim failed. Batwoman boards the plane and defeats Alice's subordinates, eventually stopping the plot and rescuing her father in the process. However, Alice is accidentally thrown from the plane, only to be caught by Batwoman. Alice then shocks her by saying that Batwoman has "Our father's eyes," apparently revealing that she is in fact Kate's sister Beth (who was believed to have been killed years ago). With Batwoman stunned by the revelation, Alice stabs her in the wrist with a knife. Batwoman is forced to release her grip, sending Alice to her apparent demise in the river below.

In the aftermath of this discovery, Kate locks herself in her crime lab and tries to come to terms with what just happened, while the police struggle in vain to find any sign of Alice's corpse. These scenes are depicted amongst numerous flashback sequences that comprise most of the issue. Throughout them, back story is provided from her childhood that depicts Kate, her twin sister Beth, and their mother being kidnapped. While Kate's father is able to rescue her, it appears as though both her sister and mother have been killed by the time he arrives.

Batwoman appears in the miniseries Cry for Justice, a set-up for a new ongoing Justice League title. When the justice League of America splits up following Bruce Wayne's death and a disastrous confrontation with the Shadow Cabinet, Green Lantern Hal Jordon leads a group of superheroes to Gotham in order to track down the supervillain known as Prometheus. Kate is shown stalking the heroes from the rooftops after they encounter Clayface. Batwoman later contacts both Leagues at the JLA WatchTower, informing them she encountered and engaged supervillain Delores Winters, who mysteriously collapsed and died right as she was about to be taken into custody. The heroes request that Kate bring the body up to them, but she declines, telling them that she is much too busy due to a rash of criminal uprisings going on in Gotham. Firestorm is then sent to retrieve the corpse from Kate and bring it to the team, who discover that Dolores was forced into fighting by means of a mind control device.In a text piece included in Justice League : Cry for Justice #6, writer John Robinson revealed that Batwoman was initially intended to be part of his new Justice League line-up, but this plan fell apart after Cry For Justice was shortened into a miniseries rather than an ongoing title. This explains why Batwoman is present on the cover of the first issue, and why she was initially said to be a member of the team when the book was first announced.

Later, Kate appears as part of Batman & Robin: Blackest Knight. Batwoman is kidnapped by cultists and taken to London in order for her to once again be sacrificed. She is sealed within a coffin and taken underground to the last remaining Lazarus pit in order for the ritual to begin. She is saved by the timely intervention of Dick Grayson and British superheroes Knight and Squire. After learning that Grayson plans on placing Bruce Wayne's corpse into the pit in order to revive him, Kate strongly protests, but he simply ignores her.True to Kate's warnings, Bruce (in reality an insane clone created by Darkseid) emerges from the Pit and attacks the heroes. As the battle takes place, the cultists who kidnapped Kate detonate explosives surrounding the Pit, causing a massive cave-in. Grayson discovers Kate, buried alive and with extensive injury to her spine and legs, and tries to help her. Kate is healed after being placed inside the Pit, and she returns to Gotham with the others. Before leaving to return to her home, Grayson flirts with Kate by telling her that he has a thing for red-haired crime-fighters (a reference to his previous love interests, Barbara Gordon and Starfire), apparently unaware of Kate's sexuality.

Batwoman also begins hunting down a crazed serial killer known as the Cutter, who has been abducting young women and cutting off parts of their face in order to create the perfect woman. He eventually kidnaps Bette, but Kate tracks the killer to his lair and attacks him. During the fight, Batwoman reveals her identity to Bette when she mentions her tennis career, and in the aftermath Bette is seen in her Flamebird outfit, saying that she wants to be Kate's new partner.

2010-present: self-titled series
Batwoman appears as a member of an all-female team of heroes created by Wonder Woman to repel a faux-alien invasion of Washington DC masterminded by Profesor Ivo. After the battle is over, Kate asks Wonder Woman if she'd like to accompany Kate and the other heroines to a bar in order to celebrate, but Wonder Woman politely turns them down in order to attend the college graduation ceremony of her old friend, Vanessa Kapatelis.DC announced that Batwoman will star in a series with art by J.H. Williams who will also co-write the series with writer W. Haden Blackman and artist Amy Reeder Hadley for later art duties. The series' introductory "zero issue" was released on November 24, 2010. The launch of Batwoman #1 was originally scheduled for February 2011, then delayed until spring; in early March it was announced that Batwoman #1 will be released sometime in Fall 2011.

In Batman Inc. Batwoman later appears while tracking down a gangster named Johnny Valentine, who is wanted for his connection to the murders of three marines. She tracks him to a local circus, the same one once owned by her predecessor, Kathy Kane. While chasing Valentine through a haunted house, Batwoman is attacked by a ghost of Kathy. Batwoman struggles with and eventually defeats the "ghost", who is revealed to be nothing more than a blonde-haired female assassin clad in a wig and a replica of Kathy's costume. Kate realizes that she recognizes the assassin, and asks her father to run a facial-recognition scan. While Kate restrains her attacker, her father reveals that Valentine is connected to a supervillain operating out of South America, and tells Kate that she needs to get down there to find out what is going on.