Batwoman Fans Launch "Kate Kane is Batwoman" Twitter Campaign

For fans of The CW's Batwoman the last few weeks have been a roller coaster ride of news about the show's central character Kate Kane. In May, fans were stunned when it was announced that series star Ruby Rose is exiting the role of Kate Kane/Batwoman and will not be returning for the show's second season. At the time, it was indicated that the role would be recast, but last week a casting call surfaced that indicated the show would be dispensing with Kate altogether and, instead, would seek out a new character to don the cape and cowl. This was confirmed by showrunner Caroline Dries and now, fans of the Arrowverse series just aren't having any of it. They've taken to social media to launch the #KateKaneIsBatwoman campaign, urging the network to simply recast the role.

During the virtual ATX Television Festival, Dries explained to fans that while the show did consider going forward with a recast of Rose's Kate Kane and, more than that, episodes of Season 2 had already been written, series executive producer Greg Berlanti convinced her that the series needed to move away from Kate -- the character who is, in comics, canonically Batwoman.

"So, to be honest with you, I did consider the soap opera version for a hot minute, selfishly, because we had a couple episodes already written, and transition-wise, it would be seamless [since] we already started breaking season 2," Dries said. "But upon further reflection, and Greg helped me make this call and he's way smarter than me about this sort of stuff, he's like, 'You know, I think we should just reboot the character in terms of reboot Batwoman as a different character.' Just to also respect everything that Ruby [Rose] put into the Kate Kane character."

For fans, this is even more troubling than the idea of the character simply being recast. As many fans have noted online, Batwoman's story is so deeply rooted in the personal as it pertains to Kate Kane's life that making Gotham's protector anyone other than Kate Kane would be awkward at best and force a complete shift in the show at worst -- especially as the first season of Batwoman built its world strongly around the intersection of Kate Kane's personal life and her heroic life. As the cousin of Bruce Wayne/Batman, Kate had easy access to the resources needed to serve as Gotham's protector not to mention the dramatic elements offered by the antagonistic relationship between Crows leader Jacob Kane -- Kate's father -- and Batwoman as well as the fact that the primary villain on the series was none other than Kate's long-lost twin sister Alice/Beth (Rachel Skarsten). The connection made for a very personal conflict between the characters, one that left Season 1 on quite a cliffhanger with Alice enacting her most devious plan yet to go after Batwoman by giving Tommy Elliot/Hush Bruce Wayne's face.

In response, fans have begun flooding the tags "#SaveKateKane" and "#KateKaneIsBatwoman" on Twitter as well has started a Change.org petition demanding that the powers that be for the series change their mind and move forward with simply recasting the Kate Kane role. Want to see what they're saying? Read on for a selection of posts in the campaign and be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Batwoman will return January 2021.