Manhunter
31 years ago - Kate Spencer is born in California.
27 years ago - 4-year-old Kate's father murders her mother. She is placed in state custody.
23 years ago - 8-year-old Kate starts to learn to fight to take ownership of herself and her environment.
13 years ago - 18-year-old Kate is accepted into California State University to study pre-law, paying for school with a variety of boxing and judo scholarships.
14 years ago - 19-year-old Kate wins the USA Judo Senior Nationals, becoming the youngest US Senior Champion. She meets Peter Robinson in college.
10 years ago - 21-year-old Kate marries Peter Robinson while still an undergrad.
9 years ago - 22-year-old Kate graduates and starts Law School at the University of California.
8 years ago - 23-year-old Kate's son Ramsey is born. She begins interning in the Los Angeles District Attorney office.
6 years ago - 25-year-old Kate passes the bar and begins working as a prosecutor for the LA District Attorney.
5 years ago - 26-year-old Kate and Peter Robinson are divorced. She loses primary custody of their son Ramsey.
3 years ago - 28-year-old Kate is assigned to the prosecution of members of the Order of St Dumas. She meets Dylan Battles, a weapon technician in protective custody, and gains access to several hidden Dumas weapon caches.
2 years ago - 29-year-old Kate, furious when Nathan Prince escapes prosecution, uses weapons from the Dumas cache to kill him. She blackmails Dylan Battles to maintain her weapons, becoming the vigilante Manhunter. She is targeted by Angela Hawkins for assassination, but defends herself.
1 year ago - 30-year-old Kate Spencer is arrested by the DEO. Director Bones permits her to continue operating as Manhunter, sometimes farming off-the-books assignments to her. She works with Oracle & the Birds of Prey to unlock secrets of the Order of St. Dumas.
now - 31-year-old Kate Spencer meets Sandra Knight, who influences Director Bones to bring her into the Freedom Fighters.
Manhunter is a really interesting legacy in DC Comics, in that there's pretty much always been SOMEONE going by the name, sometimes several someones, just not always someone you'd necessarily care about. We have a few other Manhunters in the history of our timeline to illustrate this, but our modern Manhunter, Kate Spencer, is something else again. The innovation of Kate was pretty simple; just make a great character in a great book. We might tweak a bit at the edges, at the way that story interacts with the rest of continuity? Otherwise this is one of those times that we just have to include a character, and our work is basically done.
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Manhunter's Comic HistoryKate Spencer appeared for the first time as the star of her own ongoing series, Manhunter, starting in 2004, the creation of writer Marc Andreyko and artist Jesus Saiz. She was a prosecuting attorney who decided to use her access to some supervillain weapons and armament to become a vigilante. It's a well-worn framework of a story, but the real strength here was in the characters, most notably Kate herself. She was an unbelievably compelling character, in that she was really kind of a train wreck of a person.
The mid 2000s were a pretty awful time to try to carve space in DC's publishing lineup. Despite the positive response the book was scheduled to be cancelled after issue 25, but fan backlash actually got them to bring it back for a further 13 issues. Kate would go on to become part of the Birds of Prey, and would appear in several other comics as an established part of DC's catalog running right to the new 52. It is very cool that Kate has managed to thoroughly claim the mantle of Manhunter for herself, but what really got her there was her own story, and that story just isn't really being told anymore. Kate can play a lot of different roles in the world, but it's pretty important that she always remains free to remain the main character of her own tale. |
Our Manhunter StoryAs we said, the primary goal with Kate is to make sure that the core of her original story remains intact. She's still a prosecuting attorney (a good one), she's still a mom and ex-wife (...), and she still chooses to use a bunch of villain weapons to become the new Manhunter. We just want to tighten up the route it takes to get here.
The biggest part of this is the role that the mantle of Manhunter actually takes on its' way to Kate. We're streamlining this quite a bit, trying it more to the history of the Order of St Dumas, so much so that this is going to be part of the origins of the prior two Manhunters. While comic Kate's costume is actually derived from, among other things, Darkstar technology, we're going to make the whole thing related to Dumas and the Prior manhunters, so it's a more literal adoption of a more literal mantle. We're also taking her interaction with the larger world of DC and adjusting it to fit the structure of our timeline. She's not going to be the granddaughter of Phantom Lady and Iron Munro (because... why?), and we're going to more quickly bring her to the attention of Director Bones and the DEO, because if we don't it kind of strains credibility that she'd be able to continue to operate for that long. Finally, while we're going to have Kate work with the Birds of Prey, we're actually going to make her a member of the Freedom Fighters, just like the previous Manhunter. It makes sense given her interaction with Bones, and also allows her role in the world to keep expanding, so that fantastic personal story of hers gets to keep being told. |
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