Helena Bertinelli

Latest revision as of 16:48, 30 June 2024

Helena Bertinelli as Huntress in Batgirl and the Birds of Prey v1 #4.

Helena Bertinelli is a female comic character who features in DC Comics.

Biography

Origin

Becoming the Huntress in Huntress v1 #1.

Helena Bertinelli

In her early days as a Gotham vigilante, she busted some of Riddler's former henchmen after they stole a large amount of money. (Detective Comics v1 #662)

Huntress

She went through the portal to the Crooked House in the Ghost Zone with the badly wounded Prometheus. Alone with the supervillain, she was in the process of attempting to kill him when Batman arrived to stop her. He rescued the pair but told Huntress that he revoked her position in the Justice League leading to her being fired from their ranks. (JLA v1 #39)

Helena was later invited by Batman to join the newest incarnation of the Justice League where she questioned his reasoning for adding her to the team. (JLA Secret Files and Origins v1 #2)

She was later forced to resign after Batman stops her from killing Prometheus while he is incapacitated. (JLA v1 #40)

Later on, Gotham City suffered a devastating earthquake that nearly decimated the city. The United States government declared Gotham to be a No Man's Land with Batman disappearing in this time. To bring order to the city, Huntress assumes the mantle of Batgirl, and she discovered criminals feared her more as Batgirl than they did as Huntress. (Batman: No Man's Land v1 #0)

Batgirl fails to protect Batman's territory from Two-Face and his gang of more than 200 criminals, leading to an argument between her and Batman. Huntress refuses to follow Batman's exact orders and gives up the Batgirl costume. (Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight v1 #120)

Birds of Prey

Huntress later came to become one of Oracle's full-time agents after she responded immediately to Barbara's intercepted call for help for Dinah Lance. (Birds of Prey v1 #68)

After Arsenal was badly wounded from gunshot wounds, he requested that Huntress take his place on the Outsiders despite Nightwing's reservations. (Outsiders v3 #8) She was on the team when they encountered Ishmael Gregor who had claimed the powers of Sabbac leading to Grace Choi being badly injured. Helena had an argument with Jefferson Pierce when he came to take his daughter Anissa Pierce off the team. (Outsiders v3 #9) When Roy Harper recovered, he returned to the Outsiders with Huntress deciding to quit the team as she said she only did it as a favour for Arsenal until he got better enough to return to active duty. (Outsiders v3 #12)

Joined by Lady Blackhawk and Grace Choi, Huntress later assists her then love interest Catman and his team the Secret Six in a massive supervillain battle to steal Neron's Get Out of Hell Free Card. (Secret Six v2 #7)

The Birds soon striked up an uneasy alliance with the Penguin, who ultimately betrays them and severely injures Zinda and Hawk. He attempts to kill Huntress as well, but she and Dove easily defeat him. (Birds of Prey v2 #4) While Dove takes Hawk and Zinda to a hospital, Huntress binds and gags the Penguin with duct tape, intending to take the villain prisoner in order to interrogate him. After being informed by Oracle that she has to leave the Penguin behind, Huntress considers murdering him in cold blood, but instead opts to leave him alive. (Birds of Prey v2 #5)

Post-Flashpoint

Spyral Agent Helena Bertinelli in Grayson Annual v1 #1.

Following the Flashpoint, a new version of history was created with a different timeline of events for the characters. Her great-great grandfather was Gino Bertinelli who alongside with the Cassamento family stepped in the 1860's to operate as the Mafia where they initially protected people from criminals but later turned into a criminal organization. In the 1930's, her grandfather Salvatore Bertinelli immigrated to America with his family where they settled in Gotham City. Around this time, the Bertinelli's and Cassamento's continued their partnership of offering protection to the people of Gotham. In time, the Bertinelli's became among the top five families of Gotham and later betrayed the Cassamento's that ended their friendship along with ending their allies business. Afterwards, her father Frank Bertinelli met and married a woman by the name of Maria with a few years later they had a son named Pino Bertinelli who was the older brother of Helena Bertinelli. Salvatore Bertinelli died around this time with Frank Bertinelli believing that the Cassamento's had been responsible for the death. (Batgirl and the Birds of Prey v1 #4) Her husband Frank fixated himself on the family business and began to neglect his wife. It was around this time that she entered into an affair with Canto Cassamento. Her mother knew that her father would not grant a divorce out of proud and hatched a plot with Cassamento to escape this life. She agreed in secret for Cassamento's gunmen to come into the home to kill Frank Bertinelli and take the children but the Cassamento's rivalry with the Bertinelli's was enacted where they sought to kill all except Maria Bertinelli. She was taken from the home and led to believe that that her children were killed where she tried to strike at Canto but he kept her hostage over the years. (Batgirl and the Birds of Prey v1 #6) Helena believed the hitmen were dispatched by Santo Cassamento and that they killed Helena's father, mother and older brother. Helena had managed to hide and thus survived where she was saved by the police after which her fathers mob allies took her out of Gotham City to protect her. She was sent to Sicily where she was looked after by her uncle and aunt. Her uncle Claudio then began to teach her in various skills such as archery and self defense where she began a life as a vigilante as she grew older. (Batgirl and the Birds of Prey v1 #4)

The criminal underworld knew her as being the heir to the Sicilian mob and thought she ran away where she disappeared for 5 years. (Grayson Annual v1 #1) She was presumed dead and her name came to be used as an alias by Helena Wayne of Earth-2 for a time. (Worlds' Finest v1 #1)

By this point, she served as the Matron of St. Hadrian's Boarding School for Girls serving as a teacher herself. She came to rescue Leslie Thompsons from a raid by the Der Faust Die Kane (Translation: "The Fist of Cain") who were a depopulation terrorist cult made up of serial killers and hitmen. Later, she personally recruited Richard Grayson as he travelled the globe, attacking assassins, terrorists, and members of the Fist of Cain in order to catch Spyral's attention. (Nightwing v3 #30) Several weeks after introducing Grayson to Spyral and training him at St. Hadrian's Finishing School for Girls in England, Helena accompanied him on a mission to retrieve and neutralize a Meta-Bomb secreted within the body of Ninel Dubov. After being thwarted in her own attempt to extract Dubov by an SVR agent, Matron assigned that mission to Dick. She later rendezvoused with him after he dragged Dubov to a nuclear power plant in the hopes of containing his power. She returned them both to Spyral HQ in England, where they were congratulated by Mister Minos. (Grayson v1 #1)

After retrieving the Paragon Organs together with Dick on several missions, Mr. Minos revealed his plan to take down Spyral to her. He shot Helena with her own crossbow, but due to her suspicious nature she had already placed a safety measure into her crossbow. She was able to warn the other Agents and killed Minos. (Grayson v1 #8) In the aftermath, Helena became the Director of Spyral, but with the agents of other espionage groups being killed and Spyral being held responsible, she had to be on the lookout for a new traitor to stop a war from unfolding. (Grayson v1 #9)

Seeking reinvention after leaving Spyral, Helena returned to Gotham City and became the Huntress, devoting herself to a new cause: hunting down the mafia men who murdered her family. However, as she attempted to track down the first mobster on her list, she was confronted by Batgirl and Black Canary. Barbara and Dinah were also pursuing the same man, believing him to be connected to the individual that was stealing Batgirl's Oracle identity. (Batgirl and the Birds of Prey: Rebirth v1 #1)

The three women soon realized their goals were similar and combined their efforts, becoming the new Birds of Prey. (Batgirl and the Birds of Prey v1 #2)

Despite Huntress frequently clashing with Batgirl over her willingness to kill, the Birds succeeded in tracking down Oracle, leading Helena to an unsuspected target in the process: her mother, Maria Bertinelli, whom Helena thought was dead. Maria had become a mob boss operating under the name Fenice. (Batgirl and the Birds of Prey v1 #5) Maria told Helena about her part in the Bertinelli murders, and that she had spent years building herself up in order to enact her revenge on the Cassamentos for killing her children. Maria allowed her daughter the opportunity to kill Santo Cassamento herself, but Huntress showed mercy and allowed him to live, before abandoning her mother for her selfish actions. (Batgirl and the Birds of Prey v1 #6) Helena became a trusted member of the team and struck up a close friendship with both Barbara and Dinah, and began teaching at a school in Gotham. (Batgirl and the Birds of Prey v1 #7)

Overview

Personality and attributes

Lady Shiva once came to be impressed at Huntress's determination to fight her despite having no chance of winning leading to her giving Helena the name Iron Owl. (Birds of Prey v2 #6)

One account claimed that her granddaughter was Frank Bertinelli and that she was to take over the entire Sicilian mob. (Grayson Annual v1 #1) Her great grandfather Giuseppe Bertinelli had come from the town of Cimina in Sicily when he was 12 years old. As a member of the mafia, he was noted for having been a gifted hitman where he was regarded as a man of honor and valour. He was noted to have had many children through three of them died during a gang war with his one surviving son being Alfredo Bertinelli who took over as godfather of the crime family and was Helena's grandfather. (Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood v1 #1)

Her family were said to had been in Gotham for over one hundred years. They were said to be as part of Old Gotham as the Wayne family or the other bluebloods. (Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood v1 #1)

Powers and abilities

Helena had learned the art of throwing from her cousin Salvatore Asaro. (Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood v1 #4)

She preferred to use a specific kind of Kung Fu that she learned from Richard Dragon. (Birds of Prey v1 #85)

Batman commented that Helena's Atlas of Organized Crime in Gotham was an outstanding piece of work. (Birds of Prey v1 #90)

Notes

• The Huntress Helena Bertinelli was created by Joey Cavalieri and Joe Staton where she made her first appearance in The Huntress v1 #1 (April, 1989).
• The character was based on the Pre-Crisis Helena Wayne that was created by Paul Levitz, Joe Staton, Joe Orlando, and Bob Layton.
• In Back Issue! v1 #38 (2010), Staton noted that, "I think Paul [Levitz] realized that I felt my involvement with Helena had been abruptly cut short [by the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths], so I was always in line to be a part of any reworking of the character. I don’t recall how Joey Cavalieri came to be the writer on the Helena Bertinelli version, but I think we did some nice work on that run. Helena Bertinelli could never have the deep resonance of Helena Wayne, because she didn’t have the whole Batman/Catwoman backstory at her command, but Joey worked her into a different mythos, that of the mob, also dark, noirish".

Alternate Versions

• In Injustice: Gods Among Us v1 #6 (2013), an alternate version of Helena Bertinelli as Huntress appeared in the setting of the Injustice reality set in the Multiverse. Helena was a member of the Justice League but did not continue her membership with the League following the destruction of Metropolis and Superman's transformation of the League into a police force. When the President of the United States asks Batman to stop Superman's Regime, he obliges and is given Huntress' name, along with those of other people who have not aligned with Superman. Batman finds her and recruits her to the Insurgency's cause.

In other media

Television

• In Justice League Unlimited, the Helena Bertinelli Huntress appeared in the animated television series set in the DC Animated Universe where she was voiced by actress Amy Acker. Helena Bertinelli was the daughter of Mafia crime boss and mobster Franco Bertinelli. As a child, she saw her mother and father murdered by Steven Mandragora, who lusted for power. This event sparked her desire for revenge as, years later in her adult life, she would train herself to become the costumed vigilante known as the Huntress. She was part of the expanded Justice League roster as a faithful member following the Thanagarian invasion. Huntress was also among the teams sent to contain the Dark Heart. All this time, she lusted for revenge on Mandragora. She infiltrated his mansion and did not hesitate to kill him by shooting all the arrows she had—only he wasn't there. J'onn J'onzz had discovered her intentions and informed the authorities. Huntress was consequently fired from the Justice League. In her final moments aboard the Watchtower, she managed to persuade the Question into helping her, in return for information on Project Cadmus. He agreed, and tracked down Mandragora. He was held in a safe house, watched over by King Faraday and his agents, along with Green Arrow and Black Canary, who are on watch outside the building.
• In Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the Helena Bertinelli Huntress appeared in the animated television series where she was voiced by actress Tara Strong.
• In Arrow, Helena Bertinelli appeared in the live-action televsion series set in the Arrowverse where she was portrayed by actress Jessica De Gouw.

Films

• In Birds of Prey, Helena Bertinelli as Huntress appeared in the setting of the live-action film where she was portrayed by actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Video games

• In DC Universe Online, the Helena Bertinelli Huntress appeared in the MMORPG where she was voiced by actress Claire Hamilton.
• In DC Legends, the Helena Bertinelli Huntress appeared as a playable character in the iOS video game.

Appearances

• The Huntress v1: (1989)
• JLA Secret Files and Origins v1:
• JLA v1:
• Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood v1:
• Birds of Prey v1:
• Outsiders:
• Secret Six:
• Birds of Prey v2:
• Grayson v1:
• Grayson Annual v1:
• Birds of Prey:
• Detective Comics v1:

External Links

• DC Database Entry
• Comicvine Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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