Trained by her elder cousin after it became apparent that she was haunted by her family's murder when she was eight, Helena Bertinelli initially designed her uniform based on what she learned from her cousin, Sal, although she was also inspired by the Batman, whom she had a chance to see in action when she was sixteen.
In all of her suits, she wore a Christian cross either around her neck, used as a cape clasp, or as earrings.
In her first foray as the "Huntress", Helena donned a purple Kevlar-lined leotard with a short blue cape, purple boots and gloves, and a domino mask to hide her identity. |
Facing increasing activity as the Huntress, Helena evolved the suit to cover the entire body for additional protection; now a full-bodied suit of black and purple, with a full-body-length cape and additional weaponry and equipment pouches, including a wrist-mounted blowgun, in her gauntlets and arm pouch. To keep the time, Helena wore a Rolex wrist-watch just below her wrist-launcher. This often caused the watch's crystal to become damaged due to it's proximity to the launder when it was fired. In her cowl, Helena also had 3rd generation starlight lenses that only worked half the time. |
Receiving additional funding from an unknown benefactor (Thomas Elliot), Helena redesigns her look with upgraded materials and a slight flair to show her body off. |
By the end of the first formation of the Birds of Prey group, Helena had once again evolved her suit to fully cover her body while still keeping its colour scheme and equipment upgrades. She also developed a reinforced-armour variant, made out of a thicker material with additional shoulder guards and heavier gauntlets. |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Helena and the Huntress-suit vr1 first appeared in ‘’The Huntress, 1989’’, four years after ‘’Crisis on Infinite Earths’’, and was presumably based on the Huntress costume of Helena Wayne; a character who was killed-off in the Crisis on Infinite Earths event (although the Helena Wayne character and her costume was later resurrected in the ‘’Infinite Crisis’’ event in 2006).
- The Huntress-suit vr1 was replaced with the “Rubber Nun” Huntress-suit vr2 in 1996, which wouldn’t be replaced by the “Hush” Huntress-suit vr3 until the Batman: HUSH storyline in 2002.
- In 1999, during the No Man’s Land event, Helena opted to don a Batgirl Uniform to use the absent Batman’s reputation to her advantage in the ruined city of Gotham. After going through three variations of the suit, Batman had her retire the persona; after which she returned to the “Rubber Nun” Huntress-suit vr2.
- Huntress-suit vr4 was designed by Paulo Siguera.
- Before joining the Birds of Prey, Batman and Oracle constantly inserted location transmitters into Huntress' equipment to keep tabs on her.