Kate Kane

Kate Kane in Batwoman v2 #9.

Kate Kane is a female comic superhero who features in DC Comics.

Biography

Origin

Pursuing the Religion of Crime in 52 v1 #11.

Katherine Rebecca 'Kate' Kane was the daughter of Colonel Jacob 'Jake' Kane and Captain Gabrielle 'Gabi' Kane with her having a twin sister named Elizabeth 'Beth' Kane. Her parents were both career military and had worked extensively for the military intelligence services whilst Kate was close to her sister. During her youth, her parents would get promoted leading to Kate and her sister moving to a variety of towns and bases with her father often being away.

The Kane family later moved to Brussels in Belgium when her parents began serving in NATO. On her twelfth birthday, Gabi Kane took her daughters out for the day to an expensive restaurant for chocolate and waffles that were their favorite dish. On the way to the restaurant, a group of heavily armed terrorists from the Religion of Crime kidnapped them after killing their bodyguard. Military intelligence managed to uncover the location of the hostages with Jacob Kane placed in charge of the tactical unit to rescue his family. By the time they arrived, Gabi Kane and seemingly Elizabeth Kane were killed in the crossfire between the terrorists with the tactical unit. Jacob Kane had arrived just in time to save his only surviving daughter namely Kate Kane who was traumatized as the sight of her dead mother and twin sister. (Detective Comics v1 #858)

In the years afterwards, her father had married the wealthy weapons heiress Catherine Hamilton.

Kate attempted to please her father and decided to enlist into the military where she joined the marines. In her time there, she received excellent grades and ranked at the top of her class. She came to earn the rank of Brigade Executive Officer, as well as completing both Air Assault School and the U.S. Army Airborne School and earning prestigious awards like the RECONDO badge and the Superintendent's Award for Excellence. (Detective Comics v1 #859)

During that time, she was at United States Military Academy at West Point where she roomed with Cadet Captain Sophie 'Gimme' Moore. In that time, she had entered into a lesbian relationship with Moore. Her commander eventually learnt of the relationship and approached Kane to ask her to disavow the allegation. However, Kate refused to lie and thus violated the DADT code at the Academy. Thus, she confirmed her sexual orientation by admitting that she was a lesbian forcing her to leave the school. She later confronted her father about the news who supported her where he held that she had held herself with honor and integrity. Kate later moved back to Gotham City where she began to attend college and began to pursue a wild socialite lifestyle with her becoming notorious for partying and drinking.

One night after a party, she was pulled over by officer Renee Montoya. Instead of being fined for drink driving, the two entered a relationship. They broke up when, after an argument, Renee told Kate she had no direction in her life, no education, and no apparent goal. She found her purpose soon enough: when she was confronted by a mugger in an alleyway, she fought the man off, but was stopped by Batman before she could inflict serious injury. (Detective Comics v1 #859) Seeing Batman in person made Kate realize that she could be a vigilante, too. For about six months, she conducted intelligence gathering and spent six additional month in the field before Jacob found out. Though initially angry with her, Jacob agreed to help her with her war on crime after she convinced him of her seriousness. With her father's help, she traveled all over the planet for two years learning how to fight. Her father used the family fortune and connections to provide her with experimental weaponry to use on her crusade. (Detective Comics v1 #860)

Batwoman

Renee encountered her old flame again when she was researching suspicious activity at a warehouse on 520 Kane Street for the Question. Renee crashed a party at Hamilton Manor, and Kate confirmed to her that her family owned the building. It was being leased by Ridge-Ferrick until six weeks earlier. Renee refused to tell Kate what was going on, saying that she didn't owe Kate anything, which shocked Kate and prompted her to tail them as Batwoman. When Renee and the Question broke into Ridge-Ferrick's Gotham offices, they were attacked by Whisper A'Daire's shapeshifting minions, and Batwoman arrived to rescue them. Making quick work of two monsters, Batwoman stopped Renee from shooting the third, instead kicking the monster out a window. Batwoman informed them the police were coming, asked that she not be mentioned, and left.

After Renee learned that the Book of Crime, a sacred text of Intergang, contained a prophecy foretelling the brutal murder of the "twice named daughter of Kane," she and the Question returned to Gotham. They contacted Kate by flashing a Bat-Signal, and the three joined forces to avert Intergang's plans. As Kate continued the case, she was joined by Nightwing, who had recently returned to Gotham and became infatuated with her (no doubt because of her resemblance to former Batgirl), though she assured him she wasn't his type. On Christmas Eve, he gave her an 'official' Batarang. She also celebrated Hanukkah with Renee, and the two kissed shortly before Christmas.

Intergang realized that the image of Batwoman in the Crime Bible and the cited "twice-named daughter of Cain" were one and the same, and ransacked Kate's apartment, kidnapping her with the intention to sacrifice her. Renee found her, seemingly too late to save her, as during the ensuing fight with Bruno Mannheim, Kate pulled the knife out of her own chest to stab Mannheim and then collapsed in Renee's arms. Kate survived her wounds after Renee used pseudoderm to patch up the wound and stop the bleeding, leaving Kate at the hospital in Renee's trench coat.

Post-Flashpoint

Following the Flashpoint, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events. Kate Kane

During her mother and sisters funeral she met her cousin Bruce Wayne. (Detective Comics v1 #975)

Kate and Safiyah quickly struck up a romance, leading most of the population of the island to dislike Kate for distracting their leader from her duties. Safiyah's lover Tahani was particularly resentful of Kate and attempted to kill her on one occasion. (Batwoman v3 #5) Unbeknownst to Kate, her head wound had been infected with a deadly bacterium that grew in the surrounding ocean reefs. The bacteria began killing the island's native foxes. Due to the bacterium's easy availability, Kate suspected that one of Coryana's warlords had introduced the bacteria in a malicious attack on the island as a way to punish Safiyah for her relationship with Kate. Safiyah accused Maksim, a rogue and troublesome warlord, for the attack, had him executed, though Kate begged her to spare his life. When Kate realized her infection was the real cause, Safiyah told her that she had known all along and sought to save Kate from the reaction of the island's populace if they were to find out. Kate was disgusted at Safiyah's willingness to kill an innocent man and left the island after coming to blows with Safiyah and Tahani. (Batwoman v3 #12)

Kate returned to Gotham City, where she continued her wild lifestyle. One night, Renee Montoya pulled her over for speeding, and Kate managed to charm her way into a relationship with her. Kate and Renee briefly dated before having a sudden breakup. After a night of drowning her sorrows from this loss, Kate was attacked by a mugger in an alley next to Molly's Bar. She fought the man off and was about to harm him more when Batman appeared. Seeing him in person made Kate realize that she felt alive when she was fighting crime, and that vigilantism could be her new purpose in life. (Detective Comics v1 #859)

Kate spent the next three years undergoing fierce training regimens and exposing herself to the worst that the world had to offer. At the end of the third year, Jake gave her one last mission: rescuing a family kidnapped by Russian terrorists and held in the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine. When she found the family, they had already been murdered, and in a rage, she nearly killed the terrorist leader. However, she relented at the last second, and the leader revealed himself as her father. The whole hostage situation had been a ruse, using fake bodies and weapons; it served as a test to prove that she could stop herself from crossing the line and not kill in anger. After that, she was ready to become Batwoman. (Batwoman v2 #0)

The D.E.O. later dispatched Batwoman alongside Hawkfire to Alaska where they were to help in the capture of Bane following his recent escape from prison. (Batwoman v2 #22)

She later accepted an offer from her father to taking over the operations of the Colony with her bringing Azrael and Batwing alongside her. Kate intended to leave Gotham's safekeeping to Batman whilst she expanded the operations of the Colony into a global peacekeeping agency that sought to stop threats around the world. Both Fox and Valley agreed to side with her as they formally joined the Colony with among their first operations being against the Court of Owls. (Detective Comics v1 #976)

Overview

Personality and attributes

Kate Kane in Batwoman v1 #0.

Kate was said to have a beauty that left people speechless that was matched by a temper that left people bruised. (52 v1 #7)

For a time, she kept the fact that she was a lesbian a secret from the public. She and Renee Montoya always knew which buttons to press to trigger the other which was why their relationship was good yet another reason why it could never last. (52 v1 #7)

As children, she and her sister used to play a game that they called the "looking glass game" where they would mirror each other's movements. Kate herself noted that she never understood the rules but was fine with that as she simply followed Alice's movements. In this regard, she saw herself as being on the other side of the glass and felt comforted that her sister was there being her other half. (DC Pride v1 #1)

She came to find a new way of serving her country by becoming a vigilante that fought crime. Kate saw the bat symbol as a higher calling and a call to arms that she ended up answering. (Detective Comics v1 #860)

After her mother died, her father was noted to had married a Catherine Hamilton who was Kate's stepmother and who disapproved of her life style and choices. (Detective Comics v1 #856) She was noted for being rich with her fortune coming from the Hamilton Rile Company. (52 v1 #7)

Powers and abilities

Taking on the mantle in Batwoman v1 #0.

It was said that she was a senior elite in gymnastics. (Detective Comics v1 #860)

Her father made her go through extensive military training for her new life as a vigilante. (Detective Comics v1 #860)

She came to use a range of appropriated non-lethal military arms and equipment in the field. (Detective Comics v1 #860)

During her time in the D.E.O., she was equipped with Python Coils that were red lines she could fire from her wrist. They pinned their quarry to a location where the more they struggled the tighter the line became until they began cutting into the skin. This forced a target to stop resisting or risking further injury and bleeding. (Batwoman v2 #22)

As a member of the Kane family, she was incredibly wealthy with her family said to be owning half of Gotham alongside the Waynes. The family home was the Kane Estate that resided at Kane Street in Gotham. (52 v1 #7)

Her father once assembled a close-knit group of five special operations agents to help train Kate and support her as Batwoman with these being known as the Murder of Crows. (Batwoman v2 #0)

Notes

• The Kate Kane Batwoman was created by Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid and Ken Lashley where she made her first appearance in 52 v1 #7 (June, 2006).
• She was confirmed as being the cousin of Bruce Wayne in Detective Comics v1 #934 (2016) where it was established that her father Jacob Kane was the brother of Martha Wayne.

Alternate Versions

• In DC Comics: Bombshells v1 (2013), an alternate continuity setting set in the 1940s had Kate Kane operating as Batwoman.
• In Nightwing: The New Order v1 (2017), an alternate version of Tim Drake was shown in this world. In this future, Kate eventually left the life of being a vigilante after the death of Batman and devoted herself to the militar where she rose in the ranks of the Pentagon. Following a Metahuman incident in Metropolis, there was a public call for control over Metahumans with Kate stepping into the situation to manage it. It was decided that Dick Grayson was to head the new Crusaders Program with Kate serving as a co-leader though it was said she resented that Grayson became the public face of the successes achieved. Metahumans were illegal with arrested being made by the Crusaders whereby in 2028 they managed to neutralise 90% of the worlds super-powered population.

In other media

Television

• In the Arrowverse, Kate Kane appeared in the shared continuity setting:
  • In Arrow, Kate Kane made her first appearance in the live-action television series where she was portrayed by actress Ruby Rose. She was shown as the wealthy resident of Gotham City who took over her cousin Bruce Wayne's company of Wayne Enterprises after he disappeared following a tragedy.
  • In Batwoman, Kate Kane featured in the setting of the live-action television series first season where she was once again portrayed by actress Ruby Rose. Following her disappearance, Ryan Wilder came to find her costume and became the new Batwoman.

Films

• In Batman vs. Robin, Kate Kane made a cameo non-voiced appearance where she was shown in Batman Bruce Wayne's nightmare of Damian Wayne growing up to be a ruthless Batman with Kate Kane being one of his victims.
• In Batman: Bad Blood, the Kate Kane Batwoman made her first major debut in the animated film where she was voiced by actor Yvonne Strahovski. She was the daughter of Jacob Kane with her mother and sister killed on her twelfth birthday. When she was an adult, she was ambushed by a street gang in Gotham City but was saved by Batman. Kate, however, rejected the Batman's help instead of showing gratitude as she believed she did not need any help. Despite that being the case, she was inspired by the Batman to become a vigilante herself two years later where she called herself Batwoman.

Video games

• In DC Universe Online, the Kate Kane Batwoman appeared in the setting of the MMORPG video game where she was voiced by actor Christina J. Moore.
• In Batman: Arkhan Knight, Kate Kane was referenced in the setting of the video game. During the Scarecrow's attack, Katherine tried to contact Bruce in regards to a party celebrating her engagement to Maggie Sawyer.

Appearances

• 52 v1: (2006)
• Batwoman v1:
• Detective Comics v1:
• Batwoman v2:
• DC Pride v1: (2021)

External Links

• DC Database Entry
• Comicvine Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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