Manhunter Redesign

This piece is the last of the watcher demanded redesigns from round one of my DC Universe head canon poll. As with many of the characters who made it to the top of the list, Manhunter is a fairly obscure anti-hero whose brief run in the 2000s achieved major critical acclaim. Since DanFalcon, kingziggy and AWRowland all voted for Manhunter, so this piece is for them.

Kate Spencer is what you would call a work in progress. She's a divorced, cigarette smoking district attorney who often spends more time working than raising her son Ramsey. Hardened by years of seeing criminals go free, Kate became the vigilante known as Manhunter, exacting her own brand of justice against those who the law has set free. Her rogue status and undeniable results have made her into a desirable agent for black ops organizations. From Amanda Waller's A.R.G.U.S. project Task Force X to the D.E.O. to Batwoman's Outsiders squad, Kate has been approached to lend her talents many times but has yet to ally herself with any one in particular. Who will she choose?

I'd known of Manhunter as a series for quite some time, especially since DC Comics was promoting it heavily during one of my most intensive phases of buying individual comics. Her book was constantly plugged in the back pages of just about every comic at the time, but I (surprisingly) never picked it up. Shortly after the dissolution of her title, Kate was folded into the Birds of Prey (which I was reading). I was really impressed by her design and loved seeing a female lawyer kick butt outside of the courtroom. Years later, I was able to borrow several of the (now out of print) trade paperbacks of her self-titled series. I enjoyed them immensely, so much so that I'd probably count it among some of my favourite comic book runs. As such, it felt right to include her in the list of characters that I wanted to add to my head canon DCU and I was so glad that a few of you wanted to see me redesign her. (For those who watch Arrow, you'll actually realize that Kate Spencer is in the show - albeit portrayed much differently than in the comics)

As with a good chunk of the characters I've redesigned so far, Kate has only had one costume. This meant that I had my work cut out for me. I decided to do a little bit of a megamix, taking elements from Kate's costume, as well as the Green Lantern baddies who share the same name and the Paul Kirk Manhunter. Though Kate carried a staff as part of her arsenal, I went with Paul's weaponry as it conforms to my rule thus far of keeping weapons unique to the characters using them. Since I've got the staff reserved for Robin, I opted to give Kate the Predator-esque handheld blade Paul carried, as well as a pistol and a throwing knife. Still, she's got her signature clawed gauntlets. Hair-wise, I made it a little longer and put it into a low braid. 

As always, I love hearing from you guys so please feel free to leave a comment below letting me know what you think of the art and of Manhunter herself.

Enjoy!