- For other uses of "Batwoman", see Batwoman (disambiguation).
- "Trust me, I know I'm not a symbol or a name or a legacy."
"Exactly, so why do you think you're worthy of wearing it?"
"Because I'm a number. I am the 327th baby of a black woman who died during childbirth that year. I'm a $20-a-day check to a group home. I'm inmate 4075, serving 18 months for a crime I didn't commit, but I can live with all those numbers because the mama who adopted me, I was her number one, but it turns out she's just one of a quarter million murders in this country who have not seen justice, and that is a number I can't live with, so you can have this damn suit back when her killer is dead." - —Ryan Wilder and Mary Hamilton[src]
Ryan Wilder (born c. 1991)[1] is the daughter of a late unnamed man and late unnamed woman, the adoptive daughter of the late Cora Lewis, and a homeless resident of Gotham City. She briefly assumed the mantle of Batwoman after finding the suit in a plane crash where the original superheroine, Kate Kane, went missing, determined to find her purpose and take revenge against Alice, her adoptive mother's killer. Ryan has since received Luke Fox and Mary Hamilton's blessing to operate as Batwoman in Kate's place, at least until Kate returns, becoming the second "Batwoman" and a member of the Bat Team in the process.
Biography
Early life
Ryan Wilder and Angelique Martin at a foster home
When Ryan Wilder was born, her mother died right after giving birth to her while her father had died sometime prior. As a result, Ryan was put into foster care,[2] where she met some girls who were bullying her, and Angelique Martin, who became her friend.
In 2003, Ryan was kidnapped by Candice Long. She was taken to a house where she was held for several days, until she was rescued by Angelique.[3]
She was later adopted as a teenager by Cora Lewis. Ryan would develop a strong relationship with Cora and come to see her as her actual mother. With Cora's guidance, Ryan was able to graduate from high school and eventually come out as a lesbian, which her adoptive mother was very accepting of.
Ryan and Cora move to their new apartment.
One day, Ryan and Cora were moving into a new apartment where they were attacked by the Wonderland gang. The gang killed Cora and their landlord, before proceeding to beat Ryan up until the arrival of their leader, Alice, prompted them to leave. Ryan tried to save her adoptive mother with CPR, only to find that she was dead, leaving her alone to mourn for Cora. Ryan was subsequently instilled with a lasting hatred for Alice and her gang. According to Ryan, her world fell apart that day.[2]
Without a path
Sometime after this incident, Ryan was framed for a committing a drug-related crime (it was insinuated that a Crows operative planted evidence against her) and served 18 months in prison; a lesser sentence for a greater charge presented to Ryan by the judge presiding over her case, that she was forced to make a plea deal of. Ryan was sentenced to Blackgate Penitentiary where she was left with no other choice but to cope within the prison’s rough and secluded environment, filled with ragtag occupants. For her own survival, lest she not live to see the day of her release, Ryan improved herself not just in body but also in mind.[4]
When Ryan was finally released, she was left living in a van with her mother's plant and struggled to put her life back together from scratch. It was implied that she even took up martial arts and did part-time teaching for people who were at least willing to hire Ryan for her tutelage and training services.[2]
Ryan had a troubled relationship with Angelique Martin, who subsequently hired Victor Zsasz to hurt her, which failed.[5]
One Halloween night, Ryan was walking through the streets of Gotham with a backpack and wearing a cat-ears hairband when she was approached by some criminals who ambushed and tried to rob her. They were about to kill her when they learned Ryan didn’t have much to offer, but she was saved by Batwoman. During the scuffle, Ryan handled and somehow capably threw a Batarang for the first time, disarming a robber from a distance while the vigilante fought the man's cohorts. Ryan then looked on in complete awe and admiration as the Bat-themed crimefightress used her custom grapple gun to depart from the scene.[4]
Discovering the Batsuit
Ryan finds the Batsuit.
Two months later,[4] Ryan was sleeping in her van one night by the riverside, when she was awakened by debris falling from the sky that landed right in front of her van; she went to see what it was when she saw an airplane crashing from the sky and into the waterfront. Ryan immediately rushed to it and found a man groaning in the wreckage. Unlike her adoptive mother, she was able to reach him just in time and revive him with CPR though she ended up puking as a result. She looks around and stumbles upon a red and black suit with a wig and figures out that Batwoman had been on the downed plane.
Ryan talks to Susan Stevens.
The next morning, Wilder went to Susan Stevens and said that something good had happened in her life. And seeing Ryan's noticeably bright and indeed positive mood, the parole officer asked if it was a home or a job vacancy, and Ryan said no. Ryan said that nobody wanted to employ a former inmate, even one with a martial arts background like herself. But that did not matter; not with the recent developments happening to her life.[2]
Ryan wears the Batsuit for the first time.
Ryan then decided to wear the suit and defeat some members of the False Face Society, and all while also with the intent of grilling them for information on Alice's whereabouts. Choosing to privately don the Batsuit in an unkempt public restroom, she produced it from her bag and proceeded to displace her civilian clothes. It took a while for Wilder to figure out how and even mildly struggled as she garbed the outfit unto her person along with its affiliated accessories (i.e. wiggled cowl, gauntlets, cape, boots and compartmentalized belt). She finishes in the end and there she was: fully-attired in the Batwoman gear and Ryan, for a moment, struck a hands-on-hips pose as she checks herself out and admires the view of her wearing the suit being shown in and reflected back at her from the room’s mirror before setting forth to undertake what she intended to do whilst wearing it that night.
Ryan says boo.
She soon homed in on her targeted individuals — a pair of masked thugs loitering by their parked car in a secluded alley and getting ready to get high on some acquired dope. Ryan, with her gear’s installed voice filter switched on to make her voice unrecognizable, arrived thinking she could take them by surprise and then subdue them easily in Batwoman's guise, only for one of them to pull her down as she perches upside-down trying to scare him from overhead, slamming Ryan hard against the pavement. Wincing as she was loomed down upon, Wilder curses herself under her breath for her own imprudence by not considering that the False Face Society, and particularly these two members thereof that she was now facing against, may not fear Batwoman. The one who slammed her lunges at Ryan again, grabbing her by the shoulders, but with her right hand she manages to bring out the Grappling gun in time firing it over his right shoulder and at the rafters from above, freeing then pulling the Batsuited Ryan upwards and away from the thug’s hold; only to remain suspended and clumsily swinging to-and-‘fro there for a brief while as she is continuously shot at by the criminals from below. She tumble-rolled then safely landed on all fours back on the alley’s street and getting back up on her feet, Ryan excitedly laughs in relief when she observes there’s not a mark on her as she stood up proper, realizing that wearing suit renders her impervious to gunfire. However, the cowl’s night vision eye-lenses were somehow incited and set into infrared mode by Ryan’s somewhat rough landing — causing her to unexpectedly see her attacker’s thermal readings though those lenses.
Ryan's reaction to accidentally shooting a False Face thug.
Confused, Ryan begins tapping randomly at the buttons on her gauntlets, unknowingly activating the suit’s tracker and allowing its present location to be detected from the Batcave by Luke Fox. She eventually presses what retracted the lenses and the thugs, wonder and ask themselves if they are being confronted by a “wannabe Batwoman”. At that point, Ryan, who was still experimenting with her gauntlets, jabbed at a button on the left one. This launches forth Batarang that embedded itself through the right leg of one of the thugs, excruciatingly sending him down on one knee. Ryan awkwardly apologizes as the injury was accidental and thereby not her intent, not when she planned to interrogate them for some intel and that cannot happen if she incapacitates both of them.
Ryan threatens a False Face thug.
The felled crook badmouths her in response and Ryan decides to use her own words. Telling them that she is searching for someone in the city’s criminal underbelly, and that their society may or may not have the information she seeks — hence the altercation taking place in the alley they are in. But the other masked thug did not appear ready to comply without a drawn-out fight yet. He tries to take this “Batwoman” on, resulting in the latter drop-kicking him onto the hood of his car and then rolling off to its side. The disguised Ryan kicks him again, slumping him by the vehicle’s right front wheel, and then menacingly threatens him with another button on her left gauntlet as she points the wearable item itself at him, hinting that she is still unsure of her suit’s overall capabilities and nor will she take responsibility for what will happen next after pressing that particular button if the goon doesn’t tell her anything useful.[2]
Meeting the Bat Team
Ryan refuses to relinquish the suit.
Obtaining new knowledge that not a single member of her Wonderland gang has been sighted for weeks, Ryan treks down into Gotham's underground sewers and was walking there all by herself when she was found by Luke Fox and Mary Hamilton, thanks to the Batsuit’s tracker evidently left still active. Spotting her costumed figure moving in and across of the tunnels, they mistook her for Kate in the Batwoman suit and ran up to Ryan only to see, in disappointment, that the young woman wearing the suit was one of color when she turned to face them. Understanding that they were confidantes of the original wearer of the suit she is currently donned in, whom this encounter just confirmed was the still-missing Kate Kane, Wilder blandly apologizes for disappointing them this way.
Mary declares that keeping the suit is pointless, for it has an encrypted GPS tracking signature, and that Ryan must return the suit to them on the grounds that is still the original Batwoman’s property. Instead, Ryan takes off the cowl and formally identifies herself to them, then crassly refuses to return the suit since she has yet to conclude her interests for having it and even derided Kate for what she believes were shallow reasons as to why the billionaire took on the mantle as Batwoman, in response to Mary emphasizing that the Batsuit was explicitly meant to be worn by a hero - and certainly not up-for-grabs or to frivolously adorn someone who merely happened to salvage it from the plane crash that night. Luke chides her, indignantly expressing to Ryan that she doesn’t even begin to understand the full significance of the suit she’s presently wearing, let alone what it stands for whenever Kate wears it.
Wilder confirms that, completely self-aware that what she stood for was practically next to nothing. That she did not have credit to her name and nor was she a symbol or a legacy, prompting Mary to challenge why someone like Ryan - with said questionable worth - should be in Batwoman’s literal trappings if that be the case? Ryan lashes out a retort that all her life she's been disadvantageously cornered and her foster mother, the person in Ryan's life who made it all bearable for the latter, was murdered with her killer still out there roaming free and that is just one case of many not graced by justice in the country; Ryan herself is an unjustly accused person and that she wanted to exact revenge for her mother's untimely death upon the parties responsible.
In conclusion, she callously assures Luke and Mary that she'll hand them back the Batwoman suit once she's finishes what she set out to do. And with that, Ryan used the grapple gun to get away leaving both of them impressed at Ryan’s skill with it and, at the same time, stumped at the rogue's macabre conviction.
Ryan reads the article about Kate.
Ryan then returned to her van and presumably figured out how to deactivate the traceable signal from the suit. In the following morning, she reads a news item in the newspaper about Kate's disappearance; Ryan was researching the person who wore the Batsuit prior to her, for the time of when Batwoman came to her rescue from a couple months back was still fresh in Wilder’s mind. She read and was moved by Kate's due story, leading to Wilder concluding that she was a real hero, suit donned or otherwise. Deciding that Kate Kane’s legacy deserves better and thus the suit needs to be in better hands, she promptly reactivates the installed beacon on the gauntlet so Luke and Mary could discern its location, and then she could surrender it to them when they arrive. Then Ryan fell asleep.
She was woken up by Luke's urgent voice on the suit’s communicator compelling her to get up and investigate. And right on cue as Ryan saw, after peering through her ride's rear door window, the Batmobile speeding towards her from behind so she started the van, culminating in a high-speed car chase across the abandoned amusement park where Ryan had her vehicle parked. As she drove past the rides, tents and stalls, Ryan asked if Batman was following her and Luke said “No!” over the comms, that it was actually Tommy Elliot, a fugitive from Arkham who looked like Bruce Wayne and would kill anyone to get the suit, not comforting Ryan in the slightest. Ryan opined to throw the suit out the window in hopes of drawing away the other vehicle’s driver away from her van and give up the chase, but Luke and Mary quickly said and insisted otherwise. For if Tommy got the suit then he would be Gotham's most dangerous person. Luke urges Wilder to get as far away from Tommy.
At Mary's hesitant suggestion, Luke succeeded at remotely hacking the Batmobile and Ryan managed to lose Tommy. Ryan’s armed pursuer now moving on foot gave her time to put on the suit and tried to catch him off-guard, but he had a shotgun with a single, substitute bullet out of Kryptonite - that was able to pierce the suit - loaded into it. Unaware of that, Ryan, again as Batwoman, descends down from the dilapidated roller coaster’s elevated tracks and lands several feet away from Tommy’s back. She announces that she knows the person there with her is not Bruce Wayne; and Tommy responds likewise, saying that neither is she Gotham’s premier queer heroine.
Tommy stands over Ryan.
Tommy fired, hitting Ryan square in the chest and knocking her down with the shot, and Ryan pretended to be down-for-the-count dead for her shooter to approach in order to collect the Batsuit from her body. When he got close, she rose up, grabs and disarms him, then tries to put Tommy in a submission hold using her legs and an arm around his neck, only for Elliot to roll-flip the dark-clad Ryan over himself breaking her hold. And clambering up her feet first, Ryan swung a low kick that sent her adversary to the grass-covered ground again. Ryan dodges a lunge then kicking him after he careens past her, leading to Tommy slamming to the rear doors of Ryan’s van and causing them to open. They continued to fight; Tommy swings his fists at Ryan, who avoids them using agile right and left side-steps before thrusting forth a straight kick, stopping Elliot, then doubles it down with a full-clockwise spin hitting Tommy across the face with a right backhand that spun and sends her opponent stumbling to the rear threshold of the Batwoman-outfitted Ryan’s van and she follows. Reaching inside for a usable weapon, Tommy grabs then broke her mother's plant in the van. This elicited a big “No!” from Ryan and got her so furious that she violently gets into the altercation, blocking his hits while cleanly landing unopposed some of her own. All of it amounting to her felling Tommy down on his back, then Ryan mounting on him and brutally beating him up on the grass until his fake face came out. Standing teary-eyed but victorious, she informed Luke that it was over.
She went to Wayne Tower, before dawn, where she coolly returned the suit, in a duffel bag, to Luke and Mary noting to them, unimpressed, that the suit was not as impervious as she initially thought and even tossed to Luke the Kryptonite fragment that Tommy fired at her, having apparently performed first-aid on herself to dislodge the shard from her body, much to his and Mary’s concern with the latter wanting to see Ryan’s sustained injury herself since weaponized substance was said able to kill the wearer of the Batsuit, but the latter dismisses it. Ryan apologizes for her part regarding the suit’s present state, then kindly wishes them luck at finding Kate.
Ryan Wilder's wound caused by the Kryptonite fragment fired at her by Tommy Elliot.
Ryan takes her leave as Luke further inspects the damaged Batsuit on Kate’s desk; but Mary runs after her forcing the former to stop by the office’s threshold, turning around to face the latter again. The influencer-in-the-making brings up all the things Ryan said the night before as to why she needed the suit, and the homeless vagabond resignedly accedes they were right and that she was not worthy to wear much less use it, and left. She then returned to her van; and that night, Ryan with her beloved plant (now in a new pot) between her legs sat atop of her van as she gazes up to the sky at the Bat-Signal and as she contemplates her recent actions as of late, Ryan winces and she discovers that her fresh Kryptonite wound near her collarbone was affecting her in some way.[2]
Returning to normality
She was next seen in formal attire and seated at a job interview at Bolton Security. Ryan, hoping to land a job there as security, confidently discloses her proficiency with the orthodox combative arts and the man, reviewing her offered file and resume, sees that she did time at Blackgate. Tentative, she confirms that though the circumstances that led up to her incarceration there were stacked against her - as she was presented by the judge with a choice in the plea she made, and it was either 18 months or 15 years that all made the difference. Sensing that bringing up her ex-con background was not giving her much headway with the interviewer’s good favor, Ryan continues saying her time at Blackgate hardened her to not only be able to stand for and defend herself if need be, but also sharply assess any given situation to single out potential threats or simply to glean on another person's drives and motives just by the look on their faces. The interviewer leans back on his chair, intrigued but hiding it well, then asks Ryan what she thinks of him and Ryan sighs, saying that he was already prepped to turn down her application.
Later, Ryan walked between the aisles of a grocery store in what appears to be the Vitamins and Supplement section. Browsing the merchandise, she tried to get an item from one of the shelves when her shot injury, courtesy of Tommy Elliot, began to act up again halting Ryan. She gets flashbacks of the night that Elliot shot her in and through the Batwoman suit. Wincing as she feels around her still-recent wound with her right hand until the aching begun to wane again, she switches her selection and instead picks up a small container of extra-potent Ibuprofen with her other hand. Shrugging and unsatisfied, she calls out for a grocer nearby if they have any generic versions of that particular medication; and that was when Ryan spots an armed robbery in progress; two masked men, whom she did not notice until then, had just entered the establishment. One of them stood as lookout by the entrance and with a shotgun held in his arms, while the other striding towards the counter brandishing a gun at the cashier standing by the counter's other side.
The cashier complies, extending out the cash to be taken and then pocketed by the one holding him at gunpoint. But that wasn't enough, it seems; demanding the grocery store’s office safe be opened next, the robber hits his hostage over the head with the butt of his firearm when the worker was slow to comply. And in an instant, Ryan was already on the assailant, hitting him in turn over the head with a piece of hard merchandise. The other one sees this and point his weapon at Ryan, forcing her to take cover behind the end of one of the aisles in proximity to both the door and the counter, and narrowly avoiding getting shot at the cost of destroying some merchandise. After a second shot was fired, she grabs another grocery item and forcefully throws it at the stalking gunman, drawing out a loud groan from the latter. He brandishes his shotgun to try shooting her for the third time, only for Ryan to close the distance again by sliding across the floor towards him and rising half-way up to intercept his aim. Then, Ryan stands up to kick him up the groin and between the legs. She wrenches the gun from the robber’s hands and followed-up by swinging the weapon’s butt at his head - sending him crashing against the displaying shelf near the entrance.
Ryan is surprised by a Crows agent.
But at that point, the other robber has stood up and recovered, ambushing Ryan from the side and behind with a rabbit punch that struck her at the back of the head and knocking her down. Miraculously, instead of inciting upon her more harm, he goes to help his felled cohort and together they ran off, leaving the grocery store as Ryan slowly rises up with her right hand over the occipital region of her head. Looking out to see that they're gone, Ryan then rushes over to the incapacitated grocer to inspect his condition. Just then, the sound of a gun click drew her attention back to the door to see a Crows agent pointing a gun at her and ordering her to submit. Ryan could only roll her eyes and she complied with a sad sigh.
Ryan is held on a Crows base.
She got takeno and later seen in one of the Crows’ interrogation rooms. And this was not an unfamiliar sight for Ryan. Even less of a stranger was the distinct Crow operative who came to badger her: Sophie Moore. Ryan, jaded, looks at Moore as the latter enters the room and both of them exchanged familiarity-filled glances at each other. Walking up to the table at the room's center where the younger woman whose right wrist was cuffed to and already seated at, Sophie tosses her some ice cubes contained in a sealable plastic baggie, then opened up a case file that she brought with her and stood at the table’s other side opposite of Ryan. Moore starts the conversation by humoring Ryan who takes the baggie and gingerly presses it against the aching back of her head, and Ryan similarly responds by teasing Sophie back about her hair, saying she likes it.
This sours Sophie’s mood a little, who would rather Ryan address her more formally but Ryan pipes up that they were too familiar with each other at that point to not be on a first-name basis. She then wonders if Moore got demoted, given the latter’s status in the Crows' ranks, yet currently overseeing a case of a petty armed robbery. Sophie responds in turn that such was a step-up in Ryan’s case, as she is usually brought in for questioning in regards of drug-related cases; apparently, she used to have a partner in that sad enterprise whom Ryan now parted ways with. Therefore, she could not give Sophie any information in that area. Ryan then defends herself saying that she didn’t rob the store, but Moore reviews the file detailing that Ryan was found standing over the unconscious cashier, with the shot gun at the crime scene bearing her fingerprints, and reading that out loud for Ryan to hear.
Ryan argues that she in fact tried to stop it from taking place - and a skeptical Sophie understandably has her misgivings of the former playing the role of hero. And given Ryan’s recent stint at Batwoman not so long ago, that she of course cannot divulge to Sophie, she could only nod silently at the Jacob Kane's right-hand woman. The room’s door opens and in came another Crows agent, the same one who arrested Ryan at the store. He whispers to Moore of having reviewed the establishment’s security footage, which confirmed Ryan’s side of the story. Sophie scowls at Ryan, who gave her a triumphant smile knowing that Moore has no reason to hold here there now that this whole affair had just been cleared meaning that she’ll have to un-cuff Ryan and soon. Sophie apologizes and proceeds to do just that. And she heads over to untether Ryan, the latter cynically comments that the last jumble-up she suffered as result of the Crows not doing their job right only resulted in her staying behind bars for almost two years.
As Sophie undid the cuff, she gives Ryan a piece of advice: if staying in that part of Gotham puts her at a disadvantage day after day, perhaps Ryan should just pack up and move elsewhere where her luck might change. That struck a nerve. Ryan asks where can she find such a place in a city where the word of Crows Security is essentially the law. And they’ve cuffed people like Ryan more times than can be counted because they were easier to bring into custody than a murderous criminal mastermind like Alice, or any member of her gang. She stands up, edges in and gets into Sophie’s face confronting the latter that she knows why Jacob Kane and the rest of Crows has yet to fully resort lethal force in hunting down the Wonderland gang, particularly Alice herself. Sophie gets nervous but hides it; she informs that any feeling of sympathy Jacob may have had for Alice is long gone by now.
Ryan stares at Sophie, confused and has absolutely no clue as to what the Crows agent meant by that. It was then revealed that she thinks Kane being secretly racist as the reason why he had been seemingly lenient towards Alice, by virtue of the criminal being Caucasian. Realizing that she may have said too much, Sophie gets defensive and promptly ushers Wilder away, showing Ryan the way out. Still nonplussed, Ryan repeats and muses on Sophie’s words, looking over her shoulder at Moore standing in the middle of the room as she left.[4]
Becoming the new Batwoman
Ryan at Mary's secret clinic.
She later goes to visit Mary at her clinic, finding the medical practitioner upkeeping the clinic’s inventory. Mary notices her and Ryan asks if her foster father knew about that place or Mary’s responsibilities there, and Mary replies that she somehow maintains the secrecy and thereby unnoticed by the Crows commander and, by extension, the rest of the organization he runs. Mary snidely comments how covering up controversial facts about their members was like second nature to the Hamilton-Kane family — bringing up that she now knows Alice is in fact Beth Kane. Mary did not appear perturbed that her visitor knows this, and Ryan reveals that she read up on the Kane family tragedy that separated Beth and Gabi from Jacob and Kate 16 years ago; how Beth’s body was never found, and how Alice’s interest in Gotham City seems to be so exclusively fixated on the Hamiltons and the Kanes. Moreover, how fixated Alice was with Batwoman, whom Wilder now knows is Kate. Ryan connected the dots following that conversation with Sophie at the Crows headquarters, and came to Mary for some confirmation.
Mary, with her back turned on Wilder and facing a cabinet she was restocking, could only give the latter an ambiguous reply. Ryan suspects it is because of sisterly loyalty, not unlike the one Kate apparently had for Beth, drawing Mary's angry retort that with Alice murdering her biological mother, Catherine, she would never cover for Alice and the last thing she wants is give sanction to Catherine's murderer. Realizing that she overstepped, knowing full well what Mary must have gone through in the wake of Catherine's demise, Ryan apologizes. Mary continues, detailing to the other woman the specifics of how her own mother died resulting from Alice poisoning both of them, then giving mother and daughter the cure that was only enough for one recipient of the toxin - sadistically leaving the distressed Hamiltons with the cruel choice of saving one and dooming the other.
Finally sensing kinship between herself and Mary, as another bereft soul who lost a loved one due to Alice's machinations, Ryan walks towards illegal clinic's proprietor and pleads her to tell where Alice can be found - promising that she will get justice for both Catherine and Cora who were taken ahead of their time by the very same sociopath. Before an overwhelmed Mary could reply, one of her orderlies wheeled in a stretcher with a sheet-covered corpse on top of it. Both Wilder and Hamilton go over to see, but cringed and distanced themselves away in disgust when the orderly lifts off the sheet covering the new arrival's upper body, revealing the decayed and maimed head of the decomposed yet-still-intact deceased and releasing the vile odor that deterred the women from getting closer to the corpse and compelled them to putting up their right hands over their mouths and noses in response lest they spontaneously puke as reaction to this gruesome and nauseating sight.
Not considering it too late to emphasize the obvious, Ryan points out that this was a lost cause as far as practical medicine is concerned. Mary, on the other hand, immediately recognizes the deceased; it was Jonathan Cartwright, also known as Mouse, Alice's second-in-command of the Wonderland gang.
Ryan stayed with Mouse’s body on a metal slab as Mary conducted her medical forensic tests in the other room when Luke walks in, quipping that people from all walks of life, and not necessarily living and breathing, can indeed come in and go from Mary’s secret place either at their own leisure, stressing Ryan’s presence there, or had to be brought by someone else in or out of the clinic in Jonathan’s lifeless case. Wilder rolls her eyes as Luke himself moves over to inspect the corpse, wondering what manner of fauna could have done this much damage — which he identifies as severe bite marks and apparently too many to count for the assumption that all of it was done by a single individual. Wilder morbidly voices that dying like this counts as unthinkable in her book. Mary approaches, denoting to Fox and Wilder that Mouse’s wounds happened after he died apparently by poison. And not just any poison; Mary affirms that the same toxin that claimed her mother’s life was used.
Only one individual outside of Hamilton Dynamics would have access to it; Alice. That befuddles Ryan, since it is by her understanding that Mouse was the only person Beth was ever close to since becoming Alice. A falling out between her and Mouse must have happened then, Luke opines but then further conjectures seeing how having Mouse in Alice's life kept the latter from slipping off the wagon full-time. Mary notes that Alice killing Mouse must symbolically mean the woman who used to be Beth Kane was now casting off the final vestiges of her dwindling sanity and that something far terrifying is heading at their direction with Alice at it's helm.
Just then, the corpse they were observing suddenly spasms. The spasm went on, intensifying until a bat burst from and flew right out of poor Jonny’s chest then glided about in the clinic. Witnessing that, Ryan screams and both Luke and Mary cast incredulous looks at her. Wilder reveals that she hates bats.
They later recaptured the bat and placed it inside a glass case. Wilder notes it coming out of Mouse postmortem that Alice must have allowed the bats to feast on his body - and they infested him from inside out as they fed, going through his prodigious amount of surface wounds. Finding the idea disturbing kept on flying within the case’s confines, Mary replies with a grimace that this must be how Alice sees “closure” should be like. Luke walks in with his smartphone in hand and informs them of just receiving a call from Julia Pennyworth. As be it, Alice paid her a visit to propose some kind of alliance between them, and concluded that by putting a butterfly knife’s sharp edge through Julia’s right side when the latter refused after expressing her distrust, pegging Alice’s growing desperation in light of Kate’s disappearance for coming to her like this. Thankfully, the harm itself wasn’t lethal though Julia can’t be allowed into action for a while. But that aside, Alice all but admitted to Pennyworth of having a massacre planned out and already in the works.
Mary suggests that means Alice will make so happen at somewhere densely populated in Gotham or perhaps a place hosting an event to draw in and hold residents by the masses, therefore very public. As she and Luke continued theorizing where Alice might strike, Ryan, whose attention was diverted to the TV broadcast overhead, tried to get theirs and directed the two others there in the room with her to look up at the broadcast; it showed the Batwoman Rally - protesting citizens who accrued themselves at Gotham City Plaza, chanting “We want the Bat!” over and over to show their grateful support of Batwoman, whom they like most anyone else believed was scared off into hiding by Jacob Kane following what happened between her and the Crows. Their congregating at the plaza is without a doubt the largest gathering of the city’s people from all classes at the moment, making them a viable target for Alice’s scheme.
Luke would grisly note the poetic irony of Alice going after the people who wish to see Kate Kane’s alter-ego alive and well. Mary voices that getting those people to leave the protest is now a priority and Ryan clarifies they won’t leave unless they receive such instruction from Batwoman, or at least see her with their own eyes to know that their protest for her return wasn’t a wasted effort. Then Mary and Luke began devising a plan of action to get those protesters to safety but then argued about having Julia pose as Batwoman again, in Kate’s stead. She’s done it before; Julia can just head to the rally as Batwoman and get the protesters to go back home, but Luke disagrees. Getting the injured Julia out there for any reason or purpose at all was out of the question for she was still recovering from a freshly-sustained wound literally at her side.
Wilder then speaks up, offering a bold solution: she could pose as Batwoman instead. Both Luke and Mary gaze at her, deadpanned. The former crossed his arms in front of him and bluntly points out the obvious fact that people will know at once that Ryan is not Batwoman. Missing the gist of Luke’s statement, Ryan insisted of having done well and competently as the masked vigilante when she gained possession of the suit. Flabbergasted, an annoyed Luke impatiently blurts out the obvious racial difference between her and Kate. Mary, on the other hand, was more considerate, reasoning that Ryan knows she is colored and probably made peace with that long ago as an individual. Luke ultimately relents.
And there Ryan was, moments later, once again in the suit, grappling from above and then touches down on the rooftop of one of the towering buildings in the vicinity of the protester-filled Gotham Plaza. Would have been a graceful descent, too, had she not stumbled slightly soon after landing and somewhat clumsily catching herself, much to her chagrin. From the Batcave and through the comms built into the Batsuit’s cowl, Luke assures Wilder that indeed nobody saw her lose balance as she landed; except, of course, for himself and Mary standing next to and just behind where he sat on his swivel chair as they both monitored Ryan via the Batcave’s surveillance feeds. Luke imparts, as side note, to Ryan the modicum knowledge that she could have used her cape like a parachute to more stabilize her descent at where she was right now, warranting a disgruntled reply from the latter saying that the former had the option of telling her that particular feature built into the suit but did not up until that point, which was marginally a concern since she just jumped and grappled down from the height of a far taller building than the one she just relocated on top of. Luke would only deprecatingly defend himself expressing that her transpositioning from the first building to the second was, in all respects, Wilder’s idea. Going to and climbing up an elevated ledge, then standing with caution over a roost that gave her a vantage view of the crowded plaza beneath, from several stories down, so that those protesters down there may likewise catch sight of her as well, Ryan then waited for pointers over the comms on how to look legitimately heroic and awe-inspiring as the vigilante she is trying to impersonate.
Seeing how publicity stunting like this is more her forte, Mary initiates coaching of the disguised Ryan on how to appear majestic as Batwoman; then began the former incessantly instructing the latter on what to do and what she should not for their plain, yet layered endeavor.
A skeptical Luke chose to remain silent the whole time while his eyes testily shifted from the live feed of the costumed Wilder on that rooftop to Mary standing behind him, graphically instructing Ryan to render the subterfuge convincing, and then back - keeping his personal thoughts and reservations to himself - as the young women talking from and at both ends of the comms he was regulating, to help them facilitate their distanced communication, went on with their antics, but crossing his arms over his chest and cynically rolling his eyes just the same at the awkwardness that he’s mediating, and allowing to happen, with the Batcave’s communication equipment.
Amongst the "Bring back the Bat" protesters, a teenage girl spots Ryan in the Batwoman suit and notifies the others of that, telling them of the bat vigilante returning at last before the public’s eye. Noticing she's garnering the crowd's sought attention just like she and the Bat Team planned - with her spoken words voice-filtered, of course - proceeded imploring to the rallied protestors to depart immediately from the plaza, for something terrible was about to happen there. Unfortunately, setting yourself atop of a tall establishment may not be the best way to send out a message if done vocally with the parties who were meant to receive it are at ground level and thus, significantly yards away below the speaking messenger; never mind trying to coax them into leaving if their reason for coming, in the first place, was at very least lay glimpse on the speaker.[4]
Confronting Alice
Failing to properly hear or comprehend even a single word from what “Batwoman” was saying to them, the protestors stood their ground showering adulation up at the vigilante, much to Ryan’s frustration. Her intent to usher them into taking their leave was instead going a slow downhill south, if moving at all. Just then, she heard the slow sound of clapping from somewhere behind her. Turning from her perch, she finds a less-than-impressed and condescending Alice standing only several meters away from her, all alone and slow-clapping as she regards Ryan, knowing at once that she is not her sister but also admitting that this person in Kate’s vigilante get-up is a complete stranger to her. Momentarily taken aback that Alice was able to subtly sneak up on her without being noticed, the shocked Ryan seemed fearful for a second — at the sight of the person whom the people responsible for Cora’s death, and brutalized Ryan herself in the worst day of her life, answered to — before the surprised look on her face ominously transitioned into one of daggers, glaring venomously at Alice as she turns her full attention on the notorious criminal.
Alice mock-congratulates this unknown female wearing Kate’s Batsuit in front of her for easily deceiving the hapless percentage of Gotham into thinking that Batwoman has returned alive and well; but Alice herself, by virtue of personally and intimately knowing the previous Batwoman. And in that awareness, Alice none-too-gently alludes the identity-concealed Ryan’s apparent fraudulence.
But being talked down as a fraud like that bore no weight for the life-hardened Ryan, and especially not when spoken by the one individual she wishes to fell, with her own hands and in person, more than anyone else in her life for essentially ruining it. Ryan jumps down from the ledge and starts walking slowly with growing menace in each step on the same level taken towards Alice, whose being there was registered by Mary and Luke thanks to their ongoing surveillance of what is concurrently happening there on the rooftop that Alice and Ryan are now at. Luke tries discouraging the latter from engaging the latter into an altercation, but Ryan disregarded that despite not ignorant of Alice's infamy as a proficient murderer, seeing how the latter had an indirect hand on the demise of Ryan's foster mother through her Wonderland gang entourage.
However, Alice remains unimpressed by this new Batwoman. She maintains her flippant attitude, dismissively inquiring the younger female's purpose for coming there that night in Batwoman's guise. The cowled Ryan grimly responds that she now has what exclusively used to be Kate Kane's so she accomplish what Kate herself was ever-unwilling to do time and again; executing her twin sister, Alice for the monster that Beth Kane has become.
Ryan's statement horrifies Luke and Mary at their end of their comms; Luke tried dissuading Ryan once again, reasoning that although what she suffered after crossing paths with Alice's gang was beyond forgiving, and he himself has a clear idea of how Ryan must have felt when she lost Cora, Batwoman follows a no-killing code. A code that Ryan must now abide in for wearing the same suit that Kate before her did. Ryan instead invokes and used Luke's own words from earlier against him - she is not the Batwoman that Kate Kane was.
Still standing by his conviction, an insistent Luke says he cannot condone Ryan's going after Alice with the intent to kill, prompting Ryan to reply that Luke couldn't stop her regardless; not when he's so far away Ryan while she, in turn, is this close to her target. With that, she reaches with her left hand to press one of the buttons on her utility belt, disabling the communication link she has to the Batcave and therefore; also with Luke and Mary much to the former's indignant protest at the surveillance.
Whipping out a pair of pistols, Alice repetitively shoots Ryan several times but to no avail since the Batsuit is bulletproof — with Ryan only having to get into rudimentary defensive stances and maneuvers to ensure that the bullets don’t get through where the suit’s safeguards are weakest she twists from where she stood and quarter-crouches to the left, covering her face with the length of her left arm then performing that exact movement in reverse, twisting her body as she quarter-crouches to the right. Only this time grabbing a fistful of cape with her right hand and then lifting it up-front between herself and Alice to better shield Wilder’s upper body, resulting in Alice’s fired bullets only bouncing off or getting stumped after striking the suit’s near-indestructible nano-material and then harmlessly falling down at her boots. That went on until Alice had no more to fire. Accepting that the suit is not only real, but also the very same suit that Kate wore as Batwoman, Alice, with a sigh as Wilder straightens up again, raising her masked head over the suit’s cape as she lowers the latter and realizing that her enemy just ran out of ammo, decides to change tactics and challenge Kate’s successor in a more direct fashion.
She tosses her guns aside after noting the suit being the genuine article, then questions if the same can be said of Ryan to be even worthy of having it, daring Ryan into unarmed combat. Brooding, the latter obliges. And together, they ran at each other towards the center of the rooftop where they clashed; as they fought, Ryan began to understand why and how Kate had a hard time fighting against the woman that Wilder is in skirmish with at that very moment, even with the Batsuit and its advantages on. She starts by taking the difference in size between them and her own speed advantageously by jumping high as she neared the incoming Alice to clothesline the latter with an outstretched right arm, only for Alice to duck down in time with Ryan’s limb only gliding through empty air as it sails past over Alice’s head and Ryan landing on her feet again. Next was Ryan executing a halfway, right-legged, counter-clockwise roundhouse kick quickly after regaining foothold followed by a backhanded arm-swing that Alice both serenely dodges in succession. Then Alice shifted to the offensive — she tries to feed her opponent with a right cross, that Wilder parries then counters with a quick but light punch to Alice’s gut that seemingly had zero effect. The latter then swings an overhead right hook over her smaller adversary, but Ryan catches it then forces Alice’s arm over her head as she ducks underneath so she could have a clear shot at Alice’s unguarded right flank.
However, Alice notices what Ryan was trying to do and so dodges down then corrects her stance to protect her dead-angle - narrowly avoiding the rising diagonal left hook that Ryan swung as she aimed for her target's head while the two of them are too close for comfort in each of the other's personal space. Alice then forcefully shoulder-tackles Ryan, shoving her by a couple gaits away and solidifying the distance again; Ryan regains balance and rounds up on her heels, in annoyance, to continue her assault on Alice. She went low with her left hand planted on the roof beneath her and splaying her legs from each other, instantly closing in before transitioning from this tripod-like stance to a fancy right-legged kick that would have hit the front Alice's mid-section had she not back-stepped at the last possible second.
Ryan pursues her retreating target, swinging her left arm at Alice who deftly leans back to spare herself the trouble of letting Ryan's fist colliding with the right side of her face. Then she bobs down and block-parries Ryan's extended right arm that the latter threw as a straight right from an angle, as Alice simultaneously rises again - exploiting her opponent's compromised equilibrium to spin a full 180 degrees and using that circular movement's momentum, and right hand, to pound the top of the cowled individual's head. Alice spins again to back kick Ryan in the abdominals, once again staggering the latter.
The skirmish between conflict between Alice and the new Batwoman went on. The former ducked down and slides forth, trying to kick Ryan’s legs and make the latter trip. Ryan avoided that by nimbly leaping over Alice’s swung right leg, and the latter turns to keep eyes on Wilder in plain view; this, however, left her down on one knee just as Batwoman again descends upon her foe. She tries to kick Alice up in the jaw using her right leg, but Alice slaps it downward with both hands and Ryan drew back her left arm to send a left cross at her adversary, who parries it with skill. Ryan carries on her failed attack with a near mirror-image right cross that Alice evades, grabs with her right hand then uses her other hand to grab hold of the small of Wilder’s back. She pushes her dark-clad opponent’s upper forward and down before pulling Batwoman up again by yanking back her cape, erecting Ryan by the shoulders where the cape was fastened on the suit.
Thinking fast, Ryan coils her right arm around the length of Alice’s left one, the one holding her by the cape, twists it upwards — as she, at the same time, traps her enemy’s left forearm between her right side and corresponding bicep — and seemingly immobilizes Alice for a moment. Ryan looks from Alice then at the latter’s captured limb, lifts her left arm over her head and brings it down as a karate chop to the defenseless Alice’s unprotected elbow, folding the limb by its joint while also releasing it from Ryan’s hold as she aggressively sends it downwards and unclasping Alice herself. Ryan spins on her left heel, trying to get Alice with a grounded, right-legged roundhouse kick to the right side of the head; but Alice timely steer clears down and under it, rotating from where she half-knelt that by the time she faces Wilder again, Alice was now kneeling on her left knee.
Grasping that it was too dangerous to let Alice actually get back on her feet, Ryan persists in her bid to take the criminal down for good. She rears back her right arm and swings forth a hefty haymaker - achieving what was decisively the most pertinent assault she inflicted on Alice, since the beginning of this tussle, by landing an authentic blow to the left side of Alice's head that made the appendage turn the other way, and coming complete with an audible snapping sound from the impact, that relatively disorients Alice.
Descrying that she has broken the defenses of a foe that was already down on one knee, Ryan stalks after her prey; stepping forward and, in an instant, she fronted herself at pointblank before Alice, face-to-face. Batwoman kept her target on a kneeling position by placing her hands on Alice’s shoulders, pushing down then sliding those extremities up and around the latter’s neck to hold her there fast and firm. Amused, Alice begs to differ and with her right hand, she produces and unveils her ace in the hole: a handheld wireless trigger that, with her thumb, she switches on as she raises it for Ryan to see.
Wilder blankly looks at it, staying held up in a self-assured Alice’s hand for emphasis, then back at its wielder who was still impeded down by the Bat-themed vigilante.
Ryan hears the bats arrive.
Ryan returns her attention to the restrained Alice and suspiciously studies her, bewildered for the latter was still holding up the just-triggered controller in her hand, and yet retaining her bravado in both mannerism and visage — in spite of being only seconds away from having her respiration seriously compromised by the literal hands of this mysterious and fresh new nemesis who popped right out of the blue tonight, and already pushing her mettle heavily against Alice on their first-ever encounter. Worried by the criminal upholding her composure in light of that, Ryan demands what Alice was up to with that gadget from which the latter had just squeezed the trigger on. Alice merely titters and shushes for Ryan’s patience. And soon enough, the echolocating mini-screeches and glide-flapping noise of countless, airborne bats began to fill the air. Alarmed, Wilder looks up and around trying to determine where the sounds were coming from. Those animals themselves amassing greatly from the sky above then down on that rooftop and further on Gotham Plaza — forcing Ryan to let go and flings herself away from Alice, as the bats flew between, around and past them.
They both took cover; Alice sprawled low and down, covering for herself with her right arm as she slowly and carefully clambers up again with her right arm guarding over her upper body, and Ryan once again assuming a defensive quarter crouch and makeshifting her cape as shield, with her left hand, to keep the gliding bats away as they careened past or flew in circles around Wilder. But it became clear in not time that she was not these winged rodents’ target. The bats made their way down and swarmed the general area of the plaza, sending everyone there into a frenzied panic. Some scattered while others lowered to the ground and then there are those who tried swatting off these chiropteran pests on their own.
With every last bat summoned by Alice now at street-level, Ryan abandons her vendetta for a moment, switching the Batsuit’s comms back on. Now that the comms are again active, Luke at the other end entreats from her a response and Ryan reports what just went down to the Bat Team while walking over to the rooftop’s ledge to inspect where the bats have glided off and down to. And from there, she witnesses utter chaos: Gothamites panicking and running for their lives as said winged critters clouded all over and sowed havoc upon them. As she tries gauging the magnitude of what Alice just did, a horrible possibility crossed Ryan’s mind — these could be the same bats that Alice horrendously catered Jonny Cartwright to. Mary muses if so, then that makes them live carriers for the deadly substance that killed both him and her mother, prompting Luke to sit up straight and Mary to take her leave for her presence may be required back at her clinic.
While a shocked and slack-jawed Wilder was preoccupied beholding the entropy taking place multiple stories below from where she was, Alice seized the moment to escape while probably she still could. She runs for the rooftop’s emergency stairwell exit and Ryan, still by the ledge and with enclosed hands on it, notices this after Alice opens the exit door, gets in and then closes it behind her. The sound of it shutting breaks Ryan’s attention from the damage that her nemesis had just caused; turning her head towards the aforementioned emergency exit and seeing Alice already gone, the female in the quintessential Batwoman suit chases after the diabolical criminal. Meanwhile in the Batcave, Luke espies through the sensors and relays to Wilder that a sub-sonic frequency is pulsing somewhere in the plaza — most likely a hidden transmitter planted by Alice that’s luring the bats there. He recommends Ryan to go down there and find it.
By then, Ryan had just gotten inside the emergency exit and looks down at the stairwell to sight Alice already several flights down and still climbing downwards thereof; the former promises to effect Luke’s request after a minute of Ryan taking Alice down 3 ways till Sunday. At a landing, she looks up to see the mystery Batwoman having followed her into the exit. Alice pauses for a moment and tauntingly smiles up at Wilder, further incensing the latter. Luke unabatingly objects that the bat-victims at the Gotham Plaza do not have the luxury of waiting for whatever minute of emergency assistance that Ryan could spare from them.
Alice then rushes from Ryan’s plane of vision and the latter, out of frustration, tempestuously pounds on the bar of the stairs’ grilling. And with that, she turns around and opens the door that was behind her again — going through it and returning to the rooftop. There, Ryan runs to, climbs back and again perches herself atop of the ledge vantaging the city’s plaza, where Crows commander Jacob Kane was blasting the raiding bats, one by one, with a shotgun. Luke recommends Wilder to incite the cowl’s eye-lenses so he could remotely set their allowed perspective into the mode that “views” sounds inaudible to the unassisted human hearing ability so they hopefully may locate the sub-sonic transmitter which was the root of this exacerbating misfortune. Effecting Luke’s earlier cape-as-parachute advice, Ryan quickly descends and safely sets foot somewhere on the plaza after selecting she should land there and then jumping off from the ledge, cape-parachuting down. Upon landing, she surveys her chaotic environment with and through the Batsuit’s white-tinted, sliding cowl lenses over eyes; the Crows, GCPD, Gotham news anchor teams and even the generic civilians already got their hands full with rabid bats in a biting frenzy to pay this new Batwoman much heed.
Via the said lenses’ detection of sub-sonic, this different iteration of Batwoman soon spots the source of the bats’ unprecedentedly aggressive animal behavior and reason for picking on the city’s panicked residents, like birds of prey, down at the plaza as these bats’ hunting ground for an all-you-can-infect buffet. The pulsing seems to be originating from one of the newspaper dispensers in a group of such close to where she landed on; so Ryan nears them and singles out the specific dispenser she seeks, disengaging the eye-lenses as she did. That way, she can then see in normal view when casing that particular vessel and urgently rips open its compartment door on the side using both hands, revealing the beeping contraption that Alice hid inside — hi-tech, but small enough to be carried by hand, and comes complete with a hanging strap.
Wilder takes it, exclaiming to Luke on the comms of her find; then she glances behind her as Ryan’s mind races on what she must do next. Not too far from where she is was Crows agent Sophie Moore doing her part saving helpless citizens from the attacking wild bats. She ushers a scared mother and her daughter into a Crows vehicle, then looks around for anyone else nearby who may need protection — not noticing until almost too late that a bat was gliding towards her from Sophie’s left. Thankfully, the critter was slapped down by Ryan Wilder’s right hand in the Batwoman get-up, who headed over to save Moore at the last possible quarter-minute after seeing that the latter needed rescuing. The agent observes this new arrival just as the costumed Ryan reciprocates to see if the former was alright. And like with her commanding superior, Sophie quickly distinguishes that this unfamiliar woman now garbed in the Batsuit is not her ex-flame, Kate Kane.
Sophie breathlessly asks who the other female was, and the latter pragmatically responds that she is Moore’s savior — and that’s all Sophie needs to know at the moment along with the fact that the frenzied bats have a toxic bite, so anyone who was bitten by them must be taken immediately into medical care. Wilder then walks past the Crows agent as she converses, through the comms, with Luke on what her next step should be. The latter suggests destroying the gadget and Ryan refuses; for even with the transmitter gone, this colony of poisonous bats will still remain in Gotham. And that’s assuming they don’t die first by dawn due to the toxin also running in their somatic systems. Luke brings up the “suggestion box” idea and one comes up in Ryan’s mind on the spot after looking down on and then up from the device in her hand. She darkly voices that neither of them shall probably like it, however. Later, the Batmobile sped over and across Gotham’s paved streets. It was apparently remotely navigated by Luke Fox, UGV-style, and brought over to Wilder’s location. Now there Ryan was, seated at the driver’s wheel, and driving so like mad from inside and with the sub-sonic transmitter sitting right behind the windshield of the very same vehicle that, not so long ago, went in hot pursuit after Ryan Wilder herself in her wheeled home for a van. And though this was definitely her first time in and actually driving the state-of-the-art, Bat-themed vehicle, Ryan was rather coping and doing well in that regard, soundly overtaking and driving past other moving cars as she steered on the streets — and all the while, a poisonous bat swarm gliding and flapping after the one she’s in, beckoned to the Batmobile by the device next to Wilder.
With Luke in the Batmobile’s comms, he and Ryan spar-quibbled for a while on where to best attract the bats chasing the latter without yielding spilled human blood on their hands. At the tactical end of the comms, a close-to-frantic Luke suggests a number of possible sites to bait the bats into — all of which were continually refuted by Ryan as she desperately drove. For being a homeless person herself, she knows that Gotham’s derelict community, or at least branching members thereof, can be found staying or concentrated in those areas. At some point, Wilder made the Batmobile do a crisp turn to the left, on an intersection, that fleetingly diverted the pursuing bats for a moment before they corrected themselves and went after the again.
Ultimately, and literally on the road taken, Ryan glimpses a Crows’ affiliated detainment bus — the same one that was brought to the plaza — driving towards the Batmobile and that gave her an idea, piquing Luke’s attention. But Ryan defends that it was probably best she let her actions to the talking. She abruptly hits the brakes, decelerating at once before the bus and compelling the latter’s driver to follow suit. Noticing this from the Batcave’s feeds, Luke demands Wilder of her intent only for Ryan to confess that she isn’t so sure herself as she takes the transmitter, exits the Batmobile and strides over to the detainment bus and begs its driver to exit his respective vehicle. When said driver refuses, Ryan reacts by pulling out her grapple gun and brandished it at the Crow operative, intrinsically turning a pressing request between a vigilante and a lawman into a stick-up.
Forced to do what the masked female said, the driver promptly opens the doors on the right side of the bus and exits it through them, mumbling ill at Batwoman as he walks past her. Wilder enters in turn and hangs the transmitter by the bus’ rearview mirror, then closes the vehicle’s passenger doors. Then she jogs towards the bus’ rear door just as the bats concentrate on where she left the device coaxing them onto the device’s position. She opens the door wide for the critters to fly into the bus to collect them all inside, while also raising her cape up and making sure that it covers her well enough to keep them away from herself. It did not take long before every one of Alice’s weaponized bats were now in the bus’ interior’ so Ryan closes it shut before rearing a few steps back and unlatches a compact incendiary from her utility belt; she unpins and tosses it under the bus’ chassis.
Just then, Ryan turns behind her to notice a homeless teenage girl getting up from and out of a ramshackle tent, hearing all that vehicular commotion. Yelling to take cover, Wilder rushes over to her side and wraps the teen in her cape in time just as the bus detonates — breathtakingly killing all the bats. She and the girl she just saved straightened up, as Ryan pulls back her cape from the younger female, at the sight of the destroyed vehicle; the latter wonders if the person next to her was Batwoman and Wilder declines. But the girl insists that Wilder is Batwoman, to her anyway, looking up with grateful admiration at the disguised Ryan in a way that she knew all too well. It was the same look she had when Kate Kane, as Batwoman, rescued her from those thugs only a couple of months ago. That gave Ryan Wilder an epiphany.
Ryan in the Batcave.
Ryan went to Batcave and received Luke and Mary's blessing to operate as Batwoman in Kate's place; at least until Kate returns; becoming the second Batwoman and part of the Bat Team in the process. Ryan started writing for Kate in his diary just like Kate did for Bruce.[4]
Fighting Victor Zsasz
Ryan Wilder, as Batwoman, later intercepted a clandestine transaction between a junkie and a masked slinger from the False Face Society, in some dilapidated Gotham alley. The slinger was initially hesitant to sell some of the gang's product, Snakebite, to the buyer saying that he's been getting plenty of orders from the latter frequently buying the drug lately.
Just then, a Batarang flung forth between them, knocking the case clear from the junkie’s hands and signaling the unanticipated arrival of a certain person. They both looked, and then up, in alarm at the direction of where the hand-thrown weapon came from as the new Batwoman - the one who was sighted during that night during the people's Batwoman Rally - grapple-descending from a literal high place. However, her dynamic entrance and descent into that alley shied from perfect when Batwoman got into a slight stumble upon landing that nearly imbalanced her following the touchdown.[5]
Facing her Old Kidnapper
Personality
Ryan in her civilian persona.
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Ryan as Batwoman.
Ryan is very stoic and committed to helping Gotham City.
Abilities
- Peak of human physical condition: As a relatively-new vigilante, former martial arts instructor and ex-convict, Ryan is in top physical condition for a young athletic woman of her age; she is able to maintain her bodily equilibrium while both moving or staying stationary in variable positions she's in, strong enough to throw or land blows that stagger her enemies much larger than herself provided Ryan judges and secures the right fulcrum between herself and her target, quickly outmaneuvering around her opponents with relative ease and easily landing safely well on her feet almost every time after descending from a great height (and that was before Luke informs her that she could have used her cape to stably parachute down for an infallible landing).
- Master hand-to-hand combatant/Martial artist: As a former martial arts instructor and ex-convict, Ryan is a highly skilled hand-to-hand combatant and martial artist who (according to her) is versed in at least half a dozen fighting disciplines and could even mentor others in that respect; although it was inferred that she had been out of active practice for some time; however, despite this, Ryan was still able to subdue members of the False Face Society and bested Tommy Elliot in their first confrontation. Even Alice took notice and appreciated Ryan's apparent intent to kill following the brief skirmish between herself and this new Batwoman, deeming that the latter will prove to be a "handful" in comparison to Kate, who always stayed her hand from delivering the killing blow when it came to combating Kate's own twin, Alice.
- Keen-level intellect/Expert investigator/Expert tactician: Ryan is very intelligent and a skilled investigator; she suspected Kate Kane of being the person behind Batwoman after she found the Batsuit from the wreckage of Kate's crashed plane and her encountering both Luke and Mary down in the sewers only confirmed that when they approached Ryan there, thinking she was Kate for sporting the specialized outfit on herself. The next morning, she read up the front page article in the newspaper (and the Gotham news-publishing industry, by virtue of due diligence, is very astute in their line of work) regarding Kate's life, further substantiating her discovery that Kate is Batwoman; due to the fact that the female bat vigilante arrived in Gotham City around the same time as the former and then later discerned Alice's connection to the Kane family as their long-lost Beth after Sophie unwittingly spills out to Ryan that Jacob Kane no longer holds sympathy for the serial murderer that used to be his daughter, Beth. Despite of Ryan's status living as a low-class citizen, she was able to figure out how to operate at least some of the Batsuit's advanced tech, in record time, but took longer to master the others - discounting the fact that she faced some difficulty exploiting them in the heat of battle for the very first time. As a former convict of close to a two-year sentence, Ryan is also experienced in threat assessment, gauging people and looking over her shoulder in order to survive, having been in the company of Gotham's worst during her stay at Blackgate and still thriving in the presence of the unscrupulous and uncivilized living here and there as a homeless person on the city's treacherous streets. That said, Ryan is very knowledgeable with the transient community of Gotham to know where such individuals or groups of them can be found clustered together or individually scattered after being pushed aside from the presence of the upper and middle classes, along with where those on the opposite side of the law would usually nest or briefly stay to simply enjoy their leisure. Ryan is also quite an adaptive thinker and problem-solver who can conceive immediate solutions and credible answers, respectively, on the fly; moreover, she is just as quick on her feet enabling her to execute them near-efficiently and close to flawlessly. With these serendipitous qualities, Ryan saw to it that Alice's toxic bats were expunged from the city without risking anyone else as collateral damage, using herself to lure them away as she sped off in the Batmobile. And as Ryan puts it, word-for-word to Luke and Mary, her time in the company of criminals acclimated Ryan with the workings of crime, organized or petty, in Gotham's dark underbelly - giving her the insight on how criminality plots and operates, particularly in their city. But most importantly, how to break off said perpetrators and their bearings, if need be, in ways that Kate Kane - due to her privileged upbringing - must have and inevitably overlooked.
- Stealth: Much like Kate Kane, Ryan has shown able to appear and disappear without much notice. This was seen on Ryan's first night wearing the Batsuit; she managed to sneak up in a dark alley and closed in on two masked thugs, who only detected her presence after she made it apparent with a Batarang she threw at them and when Ryan tried to scare one up-close.
- Expert driver: Even while near-panicking, Ryan's skills as a driver is at least that she can not only outpace the Batmobile for a time with her van, but even effect evasive maneuvers while driving to evade ordnances fired upon her from the former vehicle by Tommy Elliot. Later, in the Batmobile, she expertly drove the specialized conveyance through Gotham while being pursued by a colony of envenomed bats - making an abrupt turn at one point that momentarily threw them off as they were hot on Ryan's trail.
- Indomitable will/High tolerance for pain/Master survivor: A driven and determined individual, Ryan is nearly fearless and almost never gives up under most situations. After being shot with Kryptonite, Ryan immediately rose up again within seconds to readily fight and took down her shooter; she has shown able to put up with the lasting effects of the inflicted wound displaying signs of discomfort for only brief periods. Ryan would later display her tenacity in single combat against Alice - matching the latter nearly blow for blow, despite of the apparent size difference between them, until the former finally succeeds restraining the criminal by forcing her down on one knee and then gripping firm with both hands around Alice’s neck.
Weaknesses
- Kryptonite wound: After a shot of Kryptonite from Tommy Elliot, Ryan's blood changed in color around where she sustained that injury; the veins found in that area have also began to glow an incandescent green and spreading outwards from that point. Sometimes, the wound distracts Ryan from her current mission.
Equipment
- Van: Since Ryan got out of Blackgate, she no longer had a home. So she got a van, which is her current "home" that she lives and sleeps in.
- Batwoman suit: After finding the Batsuit, Ryan decided to use it to fight crime. After defeating Tommy Elliot, she graciously returned the suit to Luke Fox and Mary Hamilton. A while later, they agreed to let Ryan use it as part of her vigilante work. Luke also made new changes to the batsuit, like a new bat-belt and a new wig.
- Red wig: The get-up has a red wig that Kate Kane wore while fighting crime as Batwoman; so her enemies do not mistake her for Batman or Kate herself as she has shorter brunette hair in her civilian identity. In Ryan's case, this hides the fact that she sports a longer mane of untamed, dark-brown hair. And for a time, Ryan wore Kate’s same wig that is part of the Batwoman guise until the former adopted a new look to her own version of the Bat-themed superheroine who came before her — sporting a dual-toned, very curly brown afro with red endings spreading and trailing down the back of her cowl.
- Voice filter: As Batwoman, Ryan used a voice filter to disguise her real voice from individuals who knew and could recognize her while wearing the batsuit.
- Expandable bo-staff: Ryan used an expandable bo-staff in her battle against Victor Zsasz.
- Bat-Belt: Just as Kate did, she has her own version of the utility belt. Ryan's belt is very similar to Batman's in design, with the main difference of having a red-shaded coloration.
- Batarang: As Batwoman, Ryan used a roughly bat-shaped throwing weapon and has several of these at her disposal. It was seen that she has a natural aptitude for employing it as a hand-thrown projectile weapon even before coming into possession of the suit and the rest of Kate Kane's Batwoman equipment. Ryan can deploy these either by hand - either as a melee or throwing weapon - or by firing them from a special launching mechanism that Luke included into one of the Batsuit's gauntlets. Luke personally modified one of the Batsuit's custom-built gauntlets into a projectile weapon launcher; pressing a specified button on It would result in a Batarang fired forth from the wearable - an alternative way deploying the normally hand-thrown implement into battle.
- Grappling gun: As Batwoman, Ryan used a length of monofilament wire attached to a spool, primarily used for scaling or reeling on to buildings, swinging from one establishment to the next and ensnaring targets.
- Batmobile: On her second night of imposture as Batwoman, Ryan was allowed use of the Batmobile by Luke as she needed it to outpace a cauldron of poison-laced bats that were following her due to taking sound-transmitting device that was drawing them to Gotham, plaguing its citizens with a deadly toxin that Alice stole from Hamilton Dynamics.
Appearances
Batwoman
Season 2
Gallery
Promotional images
Batwoman
Season 2
Trivia
- Ryan's inmate number is 4075.[2]
- Ryan hates bats.[4]
- Ryan's favorite color is yellow.[3]
- Ryan's favorite animal is a snow leopard.[3]
Behind the scenes
- Despite being an original character created for the series, Ryan made her first comics appearance in Batgirl #50 (December, 2020).
- Although Ryan's first official image as Batwoman came out in October 2020, an image of her already in suit with several other heroes was released a month earlier on the DC FanDome, made by artist and publisher Jim Lee.[6]
- Ryan Wilder is the first starring protagonist to debut in the new multiverse's Earth-Prime.
- She is also the first character to replace the titular character of a series.