Batwoman Synopsis Released

Since the announcement a year ago that Batwoman was coming to the Arrowverse, fans have been eagerly awaiting the heroine’s arrival in her own solo series on The CW and now there are a lot more details about the series, including new stills from the pilot as well as an brand new series synopsis released ahead of The CW network’s upfront presentation in New York today and giving us a better look at Batwoman’s world.

As was mentioned during the “Elseworlds” crossover last fall, Batwoman will see a Gotham City without its Batman while an unlikely vigilante — his cousin, Kate Kane (Ruby Rose) — rises to take his place as the city falls deeper into crime and despair. However, it won’t just be to save the city that Kate suits up as Batwoman. She’ll be trying to save those she loves as well, even if her relationships are strained at best. You can check out the updated Batwoman synopsis in full below.

Kate Kane (Ruby Rose) never planned to be Gotham’s new vigilante. Three years after Batman mysteriously disappeared, Gotham is a city in despair. Without the Caped Crusader, the Gotham City Police Department was overrun and outgunned by criminal gangs. Enter Jacob Kane (Dougray Scott) and his military-grade Crows Private Security, which now protects the city with omnipresent firepower and militia. Years before, Jacob’s first wife and daughter were killed in the crossfire of Gotham crime. He sent his only surviving daughter, Kate Kane, away from Gotham for her safety. After a dishonorable discharge from military school and years of brutal survival training, Kate returns home when the Alice in Wonderland gang targets her father and his security firm, by kidnapping his best Crow officer Sophie Moore (Meagan Tandy). Although remarried to wealthy socialite Catherine Hamilton-Kane (Elizabeth Anweis), who bankrolls the Crows, Jacob is still struggling with the family he lost, while keeping Kate –– the daughter he still has –– at a distance. But Kate is a woman who’s done asking for permission. In order to help her family and her city, she’ll have to become the one thing her father loathes –– a dark knight vigilante. With the help of her compassionate stepsister, Mary (Nicole Kang), and the crafty Luke Fox (Camrus Johnson), the son of Wayne Enterprises’ tech guru Lucius Fox, Kate Kane continues the legacy of her missing cousin, Bruce Wayne, as Batwoman. Still holding a flame for her ex-girlfriend, Sophie, Kate uses everything in her power to combat the dark machinations of the psychotic Alice (Rachel Skarsten), who’s always somewhere slipping between sane and insane. Armed with a passion for social justice and a flair for speaking her mind, Kate soars through the shadowed streets of Gotham as Batwoman. But don’t call her a hero yet. In a city desperate for a savior, she must first overcome her own demons before embracing the call to be Gotham’s symbol of hope. Based on the characters from DC, BATWOMAN is from Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television with executive producers Greg Berlanti (“Arrow,” “The Flash,” “Supergirl”), Caroline Dries (“The Vampire Diaries,” “Smallville”), Geoff Johns (“Arrow,” “The Flash,” “Titans”) and Sarah Schechter (“Arrow,” “The Flash,” “Supergirl”). David Nutter (“Game of Thrones,” “The Flash,” “Arrow”) and Marcos Siega (“The Vampire Diaries,” “You”) executive produced the pilot.

The synopsis appears to indicate that much of Kate Kane/Batwoman’s comic book origin will be intact for the Batwoman series. In comics, Kate is kicked out of the United States Military Academy for having a lesbian relationship with her roommate and also embarks on a brutal period of training afterwards — though in comics it’s Kate’s father who sends her off on that training and it’s not clear how that will be translated in the series. Batwoman also appears to be maintaining the tragic family backstory as well, as Kate’s mother and twin sister were both killed in comics when she was a child with Kate being the only survivor of the three.

The biggest change that will stand out to fans of the character is the strained relationship between Kate and her father, Colonel Jacob Kane. In comics, Colonel Kane largely served as Kate’s “guy in the chair”, providing technical knowledge and other communications to his daughter while she’s out in the field. The synopsis doesn’t eliminate that possibility for the father-daughter relationship down the line, but it seems that at least starting out we’ll see the pair at odds — or, at least, Batwoman at odds with Colonel Kane.

Additionally, the synopsis notes that Kate is still “holding a flame” for her ex-girlfriend, Sophie — an officer in her father’s Crows Private Security firm. Batwoman will feature the first, openly-lesbian superhero to lead her own Arrowverse series (Black Lightning, which features the openly lesbian hero Thunder, is a separate series and not part of the Arrowverse), something that is exciting for series star Rose.

“I get to be Batwoman,” Rose said when she was first cast in the role. “I feel like the reason I kept getting so emotional was because growing up watching TV I never saw someone on TV that I could identify with, let alone a superhero. I’ve always had this saying, well not me, Oscar Wilde, which is ‘be yourself because everyone else is taken’ and so I always lived by that motto and the second motto when I came into the industry was ‘be the person that you needed when you were younger’ and I feel like one motto sort of led me to the other and I just kept crying about it.”

Batwoman will debut on Sundays this fall on The CW.

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