Real Name: Helena Rose Bertinelli
Occupation: Teacher
Weight: 5ft 11in
Height: 148lbs
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Black
Base Of Operations: Gotham City, Mobile
Group Affiliations: Birds Of Prey, Batman Family, JLA, Outsiders
Marital Status: Single
Relatives: Franco Bertinelli (father, deceased), Maria Bertinelli (mother, deceased), Pino Bertinelli (brother, deceased), Don Santo Cassamento (biological father, deceased), Tomaso Panessa (uncle)
First Appearance: Huntress #1 (April 1989)
Created by: Joey Cavalieri , Joe Staton

FIRST ORIGIN
In the first version of the Huntress' origin story, Helena Janice Bertinelli was a silent, withdrawn girl, having been kidnapped and raped at the age of six by an agent of another Gotham crime family.

Sent away to boarding school by her parents Guido and Carmela, and assigned a bodyguard, she hid her fear and shame until the age of nineteen. At a cousin's wedding, she witnessed the murder of her entire family at the hands of the assassin Omerta the Silencer, ordered by a capo named Mandragora. With tragedy heaped upon injury, she began a 'Holy Crusade' to put an end to the crime families. To this end she began to travel, accompanied and trained by her bodyguard Sal. Eventually she returned to the USA and made her debut as the Huntress.

The unpleasant details of this story were ignored in the six-issue miniseries Huntress: Cry for Blood (2000), which retold her origin with significant revisions.

CURRENT ORIGIN

young Helena Rosa Bertinelli believed her father to be Franco Bertinelli. In reality her father was Santo Cassamento, the Don of a rival family, (who had been having an affair with her mother Maria). When a Capo named Mandragora ordered the assassination of the entire Bertinelli family, his then-underling Cassamento arranged it, but sent word to spare Maria. The assassin misinterpreted the message and left eight-year-old Helena alive, instead.

In the aftermath of the assassinations, her maternal family sent her to Sicily to live with her cousins, the Asaros, a family of assassins. Psychologically scarred, Helena decided to learn to hurt those who had hurt her. From the ages of eleven to fifteen her cousin Sal trained her in a variety of weapons and hand-to-hand combat techniques, and schooled her in the concept of omerta. When Sal and his father were suddenly arrested in a crackdown on mafia families, a shocked Helena was sent away to boarding school in Switzerland. Finally understanding the activities in which her family had been enmeshed, Helena vowed to wage war on the criminal underworld--especially the mob.

At sixteen, she briefly returned to Gotham to attend a party held by her her mafia-connected maternal uncle, Tomaso Panessa. There she had her first encounter with Batman. Helena was inspired by seeing the fear on the faces of those relatives she loathed when Batman made his dramatic appearance. Planning a career as a vigilante, she soon went to university at Palermo, where she enrolled in a Mafia studies program. On graduating, she used all of her education and training to return to Gotham and become the Huntress.

Years later, after some counsel from Richard Dragon and a little help from love-interest the Question, Helena would discover the truth of her parentage and her family's slaying. She confronted Cassamento, who had long ago realized that his daughter's return coincided with the debut of the Huntress. He threatened to reveal her identity to the rest of the mob if she did not work for him. To preserve her identity, she went to her uncle Tomaso, and, revealing that Cassamento was responsible for Maria's death, made a familial request that Cassamento be eliminated.

Helena partnered with Nightwing on a mission against the mafia. The young heroes succumb to lust and engage in a brief but passionate affair. After they end it, Helena confesses to Nightwing that she seduced him partly because she thought it might help get her into the "boys club" of Batman's world.

While both heroes have moved on with their lives, there is a lingering attraction between them. Nightwing cares about Helena as a friend, but is frequently annoyed when she brings up their sexual past...which she does just to annoy him.

Huntress briefly allied herself with the Outsiders while Nightwing was leading the team. At the end of this mission, it was revealed that the Huntress had slept with Nightwing's teammate and friend Arsenal at some point.

Batman has rarely accepted the Huntress, believing her techniques to be too unpredictable and violent. Admittedly, others in the Batman family have felt different; Tim Drake has always had a good relationship with her even when his mentor hasn't; early on in his career he worked together with the vigilante. Batman sponsored her membership in the Justice League so he could keep an eye on her, but ultimately forced her to resign when she almost "crossed the line" by attempting to kill a villain.

Soon after this, an earthquake leveled Gotham City, the United States government declared Gotham City a "No Man's Land," and Batman disappeared. To bring order to the city, Huntress temporarily assumed the mantle of Batgirl (she discovered criminals feared her more than they did when she was the Huntress). When Batman returned, he informed her that, if she failed him, she would have to give up the costume.

Later, when Huntress, despite being all by herself, failed to protect Batman's territory from Two-Face and his gang of over 200 criminals (while Batman himself was bound and unconscious), Batman nonetheless held her responsible and formally stripped her of the Batgirl mantle.

Later, in the final days of the "No Man's Land" storyline, Huntress was shot several times by the Joker when she prevented him from kidnapping and murdering the newborn infants of Gotham City. She almost died, which seemed to earn her Batman's respect. However, this was only temporary; after the "No Man's Land" storyline ended and she recuperated, Batman and his "family" became distant and combative again when she was framed for a series of murders

More recently, the Huntress became involved with both Oracle and Black Canary in the comic series Birds of Prey, becoming close friends with Black Canary in the process. However, she left the small team when she believed Oracle was manipulating her.

Following Black Canary's asking her for aid in a battle against the Silk Brothers (twelve fighters said to be on par with Lady Shiva) and Oracle's move to Metropolis, Huntress came to terms with Barbara's actions and returned to the team. She currently appears in an ongoing subplot dealing with her attempts to take down the Gotham mafia internally by parlaying her family heritage into a position as a capo. She eventually earned Batman's respect by compiling a "mob atlas" of Gotham.

One Year Later Huntress works with other members of Oracle's group: Black Canary, Lady Blackhawk, Lady Shiva, and Gypsy. With Black Canary's departure from the team Huntress and Lady Blackhawk are Oracle's top two agents, with full access to Oracle as needed (along with Black Canary, should she decide to return).

Parts of these bios came from: Wikipedia