Wrap it Up is a lot like my Provide Some Answers feature, which is about long-running comic book plots finally being resolved. This, though, is a more specific comic book occurrence where the plotlines of a canceled comic book are wrapped up in the pages of another comic book series. This would happen most frequently in Marvel Comics, but other companies did it, as well.

Today, we look at how the Justice League helped wrap up the Huntress' first ongoing series.

In 1977, the Huntress was introduced by writer Paul Levitz and artists Joe Staton and Bob Layton in the pages of DC Super Stars #17.

The clever hook is that she was the daughter of Batman and Catwoman of Earth-2 and when Catwoman was blackmailed into reverting (temporarily) to a life of crime and then was killed by her blackmailers, Helena Wayne took up the mantle of the Huntress (her father had ceased to be the Batman for a while at this point).

The Huntress joined the Justice Society and became a popular member of the team. She even had her own ongoing back-up feature in the pages of Wonder Woman. However, then Crisis on Infinite Earths happened and suddenly, Earth-2 no longer existed and certainly, Batman and Catwoman could not possibly have an adult daughter (okay, I guess they COULD have, as this is comics and artificial aging is as common as it is on soap operas and comic books have fancier aging processes that soap operas). So if someone wanted to do something with the Huntress, they would have to come up with a new origin for her. Well, Joey Cavalieri stepped in and that's just what he did when the Huntress launched in her own ongoing series in 1989 (working with her co-creator, Joe Staton, and Pablo Marcos originally on inks)...

You have to love the notion that, three years after Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, someone was still feeling the need to point out that DC Comics weren't necessarily for kids anymore.

Cavalieri's clever idea was to re-make Helena Wayne as Helena Bertinelli, a law-abiding young woman who happened to be born into a mafia crime family. At a family gathering, her whole family is murdered in front of her eyes....

She then decides to become a costumed vigilante to avenge her family but also to take down similar crime families to her dead one...

It was a good series.

DC helped promote the book a bit by having the Huntress guest star in Justice League America #26, which was one of DC's most popular books at the time, as she helps stop a brainwashed Blue Beetle from murdering Maxwell Lord...

Later, in Justice League America #30, Max uses his mental powers to actually force her to join the team...

However, while she was technically a member of the team, she really didn't do much and soon stopped appearing in the book.

Her own title ended with Huntress #19 (by Cavalieri, Staton and inker Bob Smith), with a three-part story that began in Huntress #17, in which a young genius whose family was killed by drug dealers starts making homemade bombs and blowing up drug dealers...

Batman and the Huntress team up to find the kid and then protect him from the gangs who are trying to kill him. In the end of the final issue of the series, Huntress leaves town with the boy, James, to protect him...

But what happened next?

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The Justice League titles were so popular back then that DC could just slap the name "Justice League" on to a book and it would sell and that's basically what they did with Justice League International Special #2 in 1991 (by Cavalieri, Staton and Smith) that saw Helena discover that there was a new vigilante in New York City basically killing in her name as the Hunter.

She has to go back to the City and she visits the Justice League for help (the League at the time was made up of Martian Manhunter, Blue Beetle, Fire, Ice and Guy Gardner, with Kilowog their technical support guy).

The Hunter turns out to be Helena's old bodyguard (and friend), who was killing cops who were on Helena's father's payroll, as he knew that otherwise they would try to silence Helena, since they would assume she would know about their connection to her father. Ultimately, another mob boss found the diaries. Her bodyguard was trying to protect her but he ended up making her an even bigger target...

The mob guys kill the bodyguard, but the Huntress gets away temporarily, but she's cornered, so she decides to return and face them head to head, which they think means the end of her, but, well, they forgot about her Justice League friends...

The head of the rival mob then accidentally died when a piece of the abandoned bridge collapsed.

The issue ends with Helena and James on the move again, as Helena feels that her life is now all in her control...

Of course, a year later, she ends up in Gotham City as a schoolteacher and we all know how that ends up (she becomes basically part of the Bat-family of vigilantes and eventually joins the Birds of Prey following a short second stint with the Justice League).

If anyone has a suggestion for a comic book series that was wrapped up in another comic, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!