Manhunter (comics)

Kate Spencer, lookin' smoking

A DC Comics series from 2004 to 2009 created by writer Marc Andreyko artist Jesus Saiz and tying into the Identity Crisis crossover event. Kate Spencer is a Los Angeles Federal Prosecutor by day, but after the supervillain Copperhead gets a lesser sentence and escapes, killing his guards she takes equipment from an evidence locker and blows Copperhead's brains out, leaving a message on the wall with the name "Manhunter."

Kate is the eighth DC character to bear the name Manhunter, but is otherwise unconnected to the previous holders of the title.

After the cancellation of her own book, Kate appeared in Birds of Prey, Streets of Gotham and more recently Justice Society of America.

Not to be confused with the Martian Manhunter.

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Tropes used in Manhunter (comics) include:

• A Boy and His X: The story of Ramsey and his dog^[1] is integral in several portions of the series.
• Adult Fear: In an early issue Ramsey winds up in the hospital after finding her staff and shocking himself with it, and the incident takes its emotional toll on Kate.
• Affirmative Action Legacy: Though she is unconnected to the previous Manhunters, Kate is the first woman to bear the title, and the Distant Finale shows that her son Ramsey, who is gay, will take the title as well. The same storyline also introduced a new version of Jade, who was an adopted Asian-American teen.
• Anti-Hero: Kate mostly seems to fall into Type III, though she gets perilously close to Type IV or V at times too.
• Awesome Yet Practical: The suit, which not only has tech built in to protect her from psi-powers, but covers her body completely and avoids Combat Stilettos.
• Badass Normal
• Bastard Bastard: Kate's birth father, Walter Pratt, who killed her mother in front of her when she was a baby. He was the child of Iron Mundro and Sandra Knight, and while the two did get married later, Sandra hid the fact that she was pregnant from Munro and gave the child up for adoption
• Billy Needs an Organ: Kate is reunited with her birth father when he kidnaps Ramsey for an (involuntary) bone marrow transplant, since he is dying of blood cancer. He then finds out that Ramsey is not a match, so he tries to lure Kate in. It does not end well for him.
• Boxed Crook: One of the first things Kate does is recruit Dylan Battles (real name Rich), a former Mook specializing in technology, by reminding him that she got him off on a plea deal for giving her information about his employers, and it would be all too easy for said former employers to find him if he does not cooperate.
• Category Traitor: When Director Bones refuses to send back-up to help Kate rescue a group of Mexican women from superhuman organ-thieves, she tries to guilt-trip him by insinuating that he has forgotten what color his skin would be, since despite the fact that he literally looks like a skeleton, Bones is in fact a black man. He immediately tears into Kate and essentially tells her "Shut up, you don’t know shit about being black, so don’t you dare patronize me and act like you understand what it means to be a minority."
• Convenient Miscarriage: The stress from the Self-Made Orphan situation below causes Kate to miscarry, and worse, she did not even know she was pregnant at the time.
• Double Standard: Writer Mark Andreyko remarked how people complained about Kate being "unlikable" when the book first came out, and this was his response in an interview:

I was like, she's no more unlikable than Wolverine. Is it because she's a woman you find that unlikable? My biggest inspiration for creating Kate was Helen Mirren in "Prime Suspect." If you haven't seen it it's amazing stuff, Helen Mirren plays a homicide investigator who is a drinker and a smoker and is bad at relationships and is this deeply flawed character. But because she was a woman we hadn't seen that before.

• Drop What You Are Doing: When Kate sees that the Justice League has shown up in her office her latte goes flying, but Green Lantern John Stewart catches it using his ring's powers and remarks that he knows how expensive those lattes can be.
• Expy: Andreyko drew heavily on Helen Mirren's character Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect for Kate's character.
• Fag Hag: Kate, which she lampshades. Her paralegal Damon Matthews, who she is probably closest to of anyone in the cast, is dating Todd Rice, aka Obsidian, of Infinity, Inc. A Flash Forward also shows that her son Ramsey is gay and inherits her title.
• Flying Brick: The suit is reinforced, and her staff allows her to fly.
• Hair Color Dissonance: Kate's hair color varies Depending on the Artist. In the series it is mostly shown as brown with some red highlights, but some cover artwork, including the page image, show it as Shiny Midnight Black.
• Hello, Attorney!: Superhero escapades aside, Kate is a respected prosecuting attorney. This despite her repeated belief that courts can render a "verdict of death."
• He Who Fights Monsters: Kate is well aware of this trope, and in an early issue has a dream where she rescues Batman by shooting the criminals holding him hostage, and after she frees him he calls her out for being no better than the villains.
• Humiliation Conga: Dylan, when recounting his backstory, shows a montage of such moments, including getting sucker punched by a dolphin.
• Hypocritical Humor: When she first takes Dylan to a restaurant he is about to light a cigarette and she asks him "You think it's wise to break the law in front of an officer of the court?" but when he asks her a second later if she wants a cigarette she accepts. Also counts as a Hypocrisy Nod.
• Karma Houdini: It was seeing Copperhead become one of these that first inspired Kate to don the costume.
• Ladette: Even before donning the Manhunter armor, Kate smoked, drank and had more balls than many of her male coworkers.
• Legacy Character: Though Kate is one of many heroes to call herself "Manhunter," she does not have any connection to the previous incarnations except for her staff, which was used by a previous Manhunter, Mark Shaw. Shaw later becomes a supporting character.
• Long-Lost Relative: During the series Kate meets her birth father, Walter Pratt, but the circumstances are not good at all. Later, she learns that her grandparents are Sandra Knight, aka the original Phantom Lady, and Iron Munro.
• Los Angeles: In the original series, Kate is based out of LA.
• Made of Iron: Even without the reinforced suit, Kate's noted as being tougher than average. This is probably because her grandfather is Iron Munro, who was also notoriously Made of Iron, and was in fact created as a stand in for Superman.
• Mama Bear: Do not hurt Ramsey. If you do, you are in for a world of hurt. Despite this, she is...
• Maternally Challenged: With her son Ramsey. It is one of the things that led to her divorce.
• Name's the Same: Someone is killing off all the surviving heroes named Manhunter.
• No Smoking: Averted. She smokes like a chimney, and at one point lights a cigarette with her gas burner because she cannot find her lighter.
• Parental Issues: In an early issue Dylan makes a crack about "daddy not taking you to the circus" and Kate angrily says that he should never talk about her personal life like that again. We later find out that Kate's father murdered her mother in front of her when she was a baby, and though she did not know this for years the trauma of seeing it is implied to have affected her deeply.
• Pay Evil Unto Evil: Kate is a firm believer that the supervillains of the world, if they can not be contained, should be eliminated. This has lead to some friction between her and other members of the hero community.
• Self-Made Orphan: Kate winds up killing her own birth father after he kidnaps Ramsey
• Invisible to Gaydar: Damon Matthews, who at one point blatantly hits on Hawkman.
• Taking the Kids: After their divorce Kate's ex-husband Peter got custody of Ramsey, though Kate still sees him some weekends. Early in the series after Ramsey's accident with her staff Peter gets a court order keeping her away from Ramsey and threatens to sue for full custody. She takes this as well as you would expect.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Averted. Kate does not follow the standard superhero rules of not killing her villains.

1. ↑ who is more than he appears