Steph was asking me earlier about Batwoman, a "new" character who recently debuted as part of the Batman Family. Specifically, because Batwoman is being introduced with a flurry of media coverage over the fact that she's actually a lesbian (gasp)! More specifically, the powers-that-be have referred to her as a lipstick lesbian, which will obviously make her more palatable to the fandom majority (when they're not busy foaming at the mouth over how her dirty lifestyle will infect the children, apparently)
First of all, Batwoman isn't a new character; she's a revamped character from the Forties, Fifties, and Sixties - Kathy Kane was the Golden Age Batwoman, who fought crime alongside her version of Batman with her own sidekick, the original Bat-Girl. Bat-Girl (as opposed to Batgirl) was her niece, Bette Kane.
Frankly, despite the "Bat-," both of them took a "Bird of Paradise" view of their costuming which seems counterproductive to stealth warfare in the gloomy cityscape of Gotham. Typically, in love with Batman and all of that.
(Unless it was ghost-pencilled, this is some Dick Sprang action)
Somewhere along the way, Kathy was erased from reality and a different Kathy was around tangentially but never became Batwoman. Bette became Flamebird and occasionally hung out with the Teen Titans and had a better costume and more of a personality. The Batman TV show in the Sixties introduced the world to Yvonne Craig playing Barbara Gordon, daughter of the police commissioner, who became Batgirl; Craig made the character quite popular and she ended up in print, where she currently operates as wheelchair-bound Oracle, a keystone of the Batman comics. After Barbara changed identities, an Asian assassin girl was made the new Batgirl and had some memorable adventures. I liked her, although I think I preferred Craig's Batgirl. And for a long time, there was no Batwoman.
Until now. The new Batwoman is Kathy Kane, but is not. She's Kate Kane, which doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but she does have a better colour scheme:
(Pencils by Joe Bennett, courtesy of 52 #7)
Red & black work better for a Batwoman than red & yellow. Unfortunately, any hope that lesbian stereotypes would lead to practical footwear like combat boots, no, sorry, this woman fights crime in high heels. Man. And the mask is a travesty, it looks weird and makes her forehead ridiculously elongated. But she pulls out the tough-girl attitude with the almost silent fighting.
I'm purposefully ignoring the goofy angle on her breasts, which make me assume that her costume is composed of some sort of highly compressed styrofoam.
Now, it should be pointed out that Kathy - I'm sorry, I mean Kate - is not the first lesbian on the Moon in DC Comics. The first one I can think of specifically was Maggie Sawyer, a tough-talking cop who headed up the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit, a friend and ally of Superman. Only she moved over to Gotham City to head up the police-procedural comic Gotham Central which included a longtime Gotham cop character Renee Montoya - who came out as being homosexual as well.
That's Renee up there thinking "hot damn" as Batwoman makes the scene. She's since struck out on her own as a private detective and she's got a partnership going on with one of my favourite characters, the Question, but apparently Renee follows the early Lois Lane School of Comic Book Womanhood: she hasn't got a clue that Batwoman is actually her ex-girlfriend, socialite Kate Kane.
And the other lesbian characters prominent at DC? Holly Robinson is the longtime best friend and protegé of Selina Kyle - Catwoman. In fact, while Selina's off having a baby Holly has picked up the Catwoman costume (having been trained by, amongst other people, Wildcat), and she's maintained a long-term, committed relationship with her girlfriend Karon.
So that's four main lesbian characters and one lesbian supporting character and where are they all? Gotham City, the longstanding "bad city" (as Michael put it), which disturbs me with its implications (Over in Metropolis, the "good city," Jimmy Olsen has to make do with his cryptohomosexuality). Now, on the one hand this bothers me, but at least this way they can maintain the long-standing Batman/Catwoman sexual tension with Batwoman and Catwoman. I'm sure a lot of femslash will pumped out over the internet.
At least with Holly taking over as Catwoman - well. I love Holly. I loved the Ed Brubaker "noir" run on Catwoman with a fiery passion, where Holly was an integral supporting cast member with a lot of screen time and very little focus on her sexuality (while a decent focus on the fact that she had a sweet relationship with Karon) - she wasn't foregrounded as a lesbian, she was foregrounded as a sidekick, a fighter, and a potential hero on her own right. She earned her chops and taking over for Selina as Catwoman makes sense - she follows through with the destiny that the various boys to be called Robin never get to fulfill - they don't get to be Batman.
As far as Kate Kane is concerned - besides the fact that I still want to call her Kathy - I'm reserving full judgement until I've seen another artist draw her (although I'm still going to hate the mask and the heels) and seen her actually some full-on dialogue. At least she's not going to put up with the kind of thing that the Golden Age Batwoman laughed off all the time:
(Art by Dick Sprang)