The CW Has Its Lesbian Batwoman: Out Actress Ruby Rose

The CW has cast Ruby Rose, an out-lesbian to play Batwoman in a new DC Comics-based series. will be suiting up as the DC hero Batwoman for The CW, Variety has learned.

The network already has a framework for her launch, as she will make her first appearance in an annual crossover event of its other properties from the DC universe, including Arrow, Supergirl, The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow.

Don’t look for her on her own just yet. The character has her own troubles to solve before taking on the crime wave that’s always threatening to leave Gotham City into a lawless cesspool. Even if the show gets picked it up, it won’t debut until the fall 2019-2020 CW season.

But it is possible to see her in action soon. The Australian native will be one of the leads in the pre-historic shark-as-monster movie, The Meg, which hits screens across America in the coming weeks. Rose has also been seen in featured roles on Orange Is the New Black and Pitch Perfect 3.

And, as we reported recently, Batwoman is only one of two new lesbian superheroes that DC comics is now pushing out to TV and the big screen.

Although the role is as-yet upcast, the CW has announced that in December she’ll become part of the “Arrowverse” (so called because Arrow is the portal show through which many of the DC characters have entered their own series domains). A Batwoman series is in the offing. they say — although that may depend to some degree upon her reception from the Arrow audience of fanboys and their female counterparts.

Former Vampire Diaries executive producer Caroline Dries is spearheading the project alongside Arrowverse archangel Greg Berlanti.

As for the character, written by Dries and based on her counterpart in the comics, Batwoman has the same itch for vigilante justice and dead-of-night detective work as her better-known counterpart, Batman. Batwoman has come and gone several times from the DC universe, and now returns as an out-and-proud lesbian named Kate Kane (an homage to Batman’s creator, Bob Kane).

Over the past dozen years, DC has struggled to make its characters an indelible part of the cultural zeitgeist, perhaps in part because the imprint’s original heroes were drawn in such primary colors; always doing what’s right, never seeming to have serious character flaws or relationship problems that couldn’t be resolved in a few panels. Conversely, Marvel superheroes have been multi-dimensional from the moment of their creation. Obviously, with Superman and Batman both being orphaned at a young age, there were exceptions. But now, DC — which is already at the forefront of introducing LGBTQ characters on the printed page — is looking to up the ante.

On the big screen, DC is hoping to parlay the 2016 box office disappointment of Suicide Squad into something they hope audiences will find more appealing: Birds of Prey.

In the film Harely Quinn (Margot Robbie) with gather an all-girl group of heroes, according to TheWrap. In addition to Huntress, Orphan and Black Canary (both of whom have appeared on episodes of Arrow), the crimefighters will include lesbian Gotham City detective Renee Montoya.

She’s Dominican. She’s lesbian, and she’s a superhero who can selectively shut out pain and control her nervous system at will. And she’s also a badass kung-fu expert. Once she takes on an alter-ego, she bears a remarkable resemblance to Michael Jackson decked out in his “Smooth Criminal” gangster getup — except that she’s missing a face beneath her fedora. Thus her secret identity as The Question.

To complicate matters, she has a fling with Kate Kane (yes, the same Batwoman headed to TV) and is forced out of the closet after being framed for murder by Batman’s old enemy Two-Face, whose advances Montoya spurned for obvious reasons.
after the supervillain falls in (obviously unrequited) love with her.

At the moment, the Montoya/Question feature is still being called Untitled Girl Gang Movie. The director attached is Cathy Yan, DC’s first Asian female director.

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