Yesterday morning my productivity got derailed faster than a cat seeing a shiny thing when the news dropped that team LezWatch fav, Vicki Cartegena, will be playing Renee Montoya on Batwoman.
It’s no secret we love Vicki here at LezWatch.TV. While not all of us saw her (criminally) short run on Gotham, we all watched her in Almost Family and adored her. She’s an awesome actress, a kind human (which frankly we need more of), and …
Wasn’t She Already Renee?
Yes she was! Over on Gotham, Renee was in the MCU (Major Crimes Unit), partnered with Crispus Allen. The two were looking into the case of the death of the Waynes. They worked along side Jim Gordon.
Comic book aficionados, and anyone who saw the recent Batman movies, knows Jim Gordon’s the police commissioner. It’s a little more rare for people to know Crispus Allen becomes “The Spectre” but generally you get the idea. It’s Gotham. Weird shit happens.
Sadly on the series Gotham, Renee and Crispus were written out after the first season. For Renee, she had hooked up with Barbara Kean (who later went on to go back to Jim Gordon, yes, have his kid, go evil, and come back from it), realized it was a bad idea, walked away and … we never saw (or heard) from Renee again.
How is this Renee Different?
She’s … not, actually, but this is a TV show about comic book characters, so roll it back a little.
Gotham Renee was in MCU. Batwoman Renee is in charge of the ‘freaks’ division:
Cartagena’s Montoya is a former GCPD officer who left the force when she could no longer stomach the corruption inside the department. She now runs the “freaks division,” which hasn’t seen a lot of action… until now. Righteous and pragmatic, and LGBTQ+, she’s a woman with a very personal (and mysterious) mission to help clean the streets of Gotham in the right way, by whatever means necessary.
Source: Deadline
Now. If you’re a comic nerd, you maybe just had a moment of “What?”
Maggie Sawyer (not the Supergirl one, the comics one) was head of the Special Crimes Unit, a special branch of the Metropolis police force that handles superpowered menaces when Superman is unavailable.
Doesn’t that sound familiar?
The Maggie/Renee Swap
When Maggie Sawyer was introduced to Supergirl as a Latinx character, I was heavily confused (and to be honest, a little peeved). They rewrote her to be … basically Renee, only from Metropolis (not Gotham). At the time, I gathered it was due to Renee being an active (kind of) character over on Gotham. Still, the whole way they wrote out Maggie, having her be a low-key Renee, bugged the heck out of me. It was a waste of the name.
I joked that to fix the space/time continuum, they needed to have Renee come back and fill the void of Maggie. After all, don’t we deserve to have a successful lesbian with a kid? Maggie’s original storyline was from the pre-“Crisis on Infinite Earths” era (late 1980s), so her being closeted and hush-hush made sense. Still by the late ’90s, she was dating Toby Raynes, a reporter for the Metropolis Star (Vesper Fairchild is single, IIRC, and maybe Rachel Maddow wouldn’t mind a guest spot or two).
Who Is Renee?
Well that is the question isn’t it.
One of the hallmarks of Renee (in the comics) is that by the end of “Gotham Central” she’s quit the force over the corruption. After the events of “52” (a year without superheroes, and honestly one of my favourite arcs) she becomes the anti-hero “The Question.”
Sure sounds like a mysterious mission, doesn’t it?
My hope is that we get Renee using the ‘Freaks’ job as a way to be The Question. Even if we just get bad-ass boss Renee, I’m going to be super happy.
What are your wishes for Cartegena’s fabulous return to Renee?
