Holy Bat-family, dear readers!
Yes, as the headline suggests, The CW’s Arrowverse is to introduce Batwoman.
The news was revealed as this week’s ongoing networks upfront presentation, with CW head Mark Pedowitz revealing that the next crossover event will be adding “the city of Gotham into the Arrowverse. This will be another full-throttled, action-packed event.”
As per EW, Arrow star Stephen Amell added, “We’re incredibly excited to announce that we’ll be doing another crossover event this fall on The CW, and we’ll be introducing a new character. For the very first time appearing, we’ll be fighting alongside Batwoman, which is terrific. The crossover is going to make it to air in December. I need to leave right now and start filming it.”
Terrific indeed, Stephen.
To date, the shared Arrowverse realm of Arrow, The Flash, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and (kind of) Supergirl has made mention to plentiful Bat-tropes, such as name-dropping Gotham, Blüdhaven and even Bruce Wayne, not to mention a whole host of famed Bat-villains have been utilised across those shows.
For those not familiar with Batwoman, she’s a character who’s found herself back in the spotlight again in more recent years, although her origins actually date back to a 1956 debut as Kathy Kane in Detective Comics #233. The Kathy Kane character was a creation of Edmond Hamilton and Sheldon Moldoff, and soon become synonymous with the Silver Age expansion of Batman’s supporting cast of players.
In more recent years, Batwoman was given a spruce up as part of DC Comics’ New 52 reinvention. Now while The New 52 as a concept was largely flawed and found wanting for a number of reasons, the change to Batwoman was one of the more positive moves to come from the rejig. After seemingly dropping off the face of the Earth, Batwoman was brought back into the fold in that 2006 refresh, reimagined as Kate Kane, a Jewish lesbian with bucket-loads of cash behind her. Inspired by Batman, she decided to use her hefty resources to don the cape and cowl and become one of Gotham City’s protectors.
In the last month or so, Arrow has been renewed for a seventh season, The Flash for a fifth, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl both for fourth years. As alluded to by Stephen Amell, the next crossover between these shows is pegged for this December; and it’s then that we’ll see Batwoman brought into the picture.
What this means for the Arrowverse going forward remains to be seen, but it could open up a whole pandora’s box of possibilities if the powers-that-be see fit.
