Helenaween #2 - Batman Family #18

June / July 1978

16th March 1978

Batman Family #18

A Choice of Destinies

So after DC Super-Stars #17, which was cancelled with issue #18, the next solo story for Helena is in Batman Family #18. And suitably for Helenaween this Huntress might be cursed as that would equally be cancelled by #20. Even All-Stars only lasted five issues until #74! Though to be fair, Adventure Comics lasted till 503, and Wonder Woman till the Crisis.* 

Still, it shows how the dreaded Implosion meant a lot of characters and teams were shuffled around to find a home long enough to finish their story!

Between this shuffle, Huntress has joined the JSA in All-Star #70 and #71, which this issue tells us has been about a year since the death of her mother.

This might be why, at the start of the comic, she's feeling a little restless at her civilian job as a lawyer at Cranston, Grayson and Wayne. They're an ethical law firm, basically fighting for the people of Gotham, explicitly calling out Ralph Nader.**

The day starts badly with Helena having to deal with a sexist jerk, Roger Demarest, whilst the senior partner (Cranson) helpfully exploits how she got a partnership out of Law school at only twenty-one! And not to take the sexist side, but it probably helped that the two other names of the firm is her Father and step-brother! Though, despite being a little ham-fisted, it works better than Pee Gee's and Wildcats' "banter" as no effort is made to make Roger a likeable character in the slightest.

Anyway, rather than do a day's work to prove her worth, Helena decides to instead investigate a series of suspicious fires that have been happening in South Gotham. South Gotham is, at least in Earth-2, even more run-down and destitute than the rest of the city.

After a warning from a small chill to a group of locals, Huntress follows them to the latest fire. What then follows is a few pages of Huntress rescuing a few of the locals trapped in the fire, it's very well done with a setback and Helena being capable, but not too capable, but as a sequence, it's not very interesting to recap!

Helena swapped back to her civilian identity, which raises the question of just where she keeps the thing. Because whilst it's not later Huntress type of skimpyness (just why does she need to keep her stomach revealed?), there isn't that much space to hide a full dress, jewellery and matching boots. 

And you might say, well, they're probably the same boots, but no Huntress has thigh-high boots, whilst Helena's only come to just below the knee!

And we barely have time to wonder about this, or appreciate that whilst people were saved, they have now lost their homes and possessions.

Because in a handy alley, not far from the fire and all the assembled people (including Firemen), a mysterious person is giving another bomb to be planted by the very child we saw earlier warning the others!

And yes, it is a little silly, but it keeps the story rattling along with it only having eleven pages to tell the setup of this story, because yes, it continues in the next issue!

The interesting thing to consider is that this is completely a story that didn't need superheroes in it to tell the tale, being one of those Bronze Age stories concerned with pointing out the social ills of the time. Though I'm personally quite glad that we got Helena in the story!

* Though pre-Crisis Wonder Woman has the last laugh by lasting a whole nine days longer than Helena!

** Who I had to look up, and at this point, is the lawyer who wrote Unsafe at Any Speed among other things.