How The New Batwoman’s Detective Skills Repeat Old Batman Methods
While Batman is noted for being the world's greatest detective, the new CW Batwoman's Ryan Wilder is giving him a run for the money by using a few classic Batman detective skills. Batman used his keen intellect, logical mind, and advanced tech to track down the clues of a case. Thus far in CW Batwoman's young season, Ryan Wilder is showing that she too has a keen intellect and the ability to think quickly on her feet when faced with a mystery. Most recently, she employed a storied Batman tactic in the form of Matches Malone, to help get vital information from notable assassin Victor Zsasz.
When he needed to glean information from Gotham’s criminals, Batman adopted the persona of Matches Malone. In comic book storylines, Malone was a New Jersey gangster and arsonist, known for keeping a match stick clutched in his teeth. Originally, Matches was a small-time gangster whom Batman saw some good in. After his death, Batman would often assume his identity to infiltrate Gotham gangs and gather intel on underworld movements. The disguise gave Batman street credibility in criminal circles.
After her first awkward encounter with hitman Victor Zsasz ended with him firing a grenade launcher at Batwoman, Ryan tried another method to uncover his employer’s identity. For that, she used a page out of Batman's Matches Malone playbook. Unlike Batman, though, she did not have to create a criminal persona with street cred from scratch. Ryan already had one in her pocket. She approached Zsasz as the ex-girlfriend of the drug dealer Angelique Martin. It was apparently Martin's crimes that landed Ryan Wilder in jail. The name recognition gained Ryan an audience with Zsasz, at which time she used the ruse of wanting to outbid his current employer to hire him. To authenticate her performance, Ryan said the target would be Alice, whom Ryan initially sought to kill to avenge her adoptive mother’s death. The encounter allowed her to get close enough to clone Zsasz's phone and determine his client was this season's big bad, Safiyah.
Whether intentional or not, season 2's Batwoman also inadvertently used one of Batman's undercover Matches Malone techniques the first time she put on the Batsuit. She needed information on where to find Alice. She also knew the False Face Society roaming the streets of Gotham would not give her the information. They would be more willing to share with an intimidating, powerful figure like Batwoman, however, so she donned the costume and took to the streets.
The CW's Batwoman has given Ryan Wilder a backstory that gives her advantages as a detective that Batman didn’t have. As Ryan told Luke she'd lived a life surrounded by criminals. During her time incarcerated at Gotham's Blackgate Prison, she learned how to assess threats and figure out which of those were most dangerous, as she relates during her interview for a security job in Batwoman season 1 episode 2, "Prior Criminal History." She explains she became particularly good at reading people, that "faces can tell you a lot." This was a skill she expertly used following Sophie's slip up during her interrogation in the same episode, to deduce that Alice was Beth Kane.
With the head of the False Face Society being revealed as Black Mask and the involvement of Safiyah in current Gotham woes, the CW Batwoman's Ryan Wilder is going to be calling on those detective skills more and more. Her channeling Batman's Matches Malone in her run-in with Zsasz could be just the precursor of the tactics and skills she will borrow from Batman as she continues her path to becoming Batwoman, protector of Gotham, and a legitimate contender to the Caped Crusader's title as the world's greatest detective.
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