One of Batwoman’s most notable features is the shock of red hair that flows around her mask.
However, at the Television Critics Association summer press tour, Batwoman executive producer Caroline Dries revealed that the hero won’t sport that wig for the first two episodes of the new Arrowverse show, reports The Wrap.
“That’s gonna come up in Episode 3 when she really embraces her role as Batwoman,” explained Dries. “She puts on that suit — as we can see in the pilot — because she’s trying to scare her enemy.
She’s not necessarily trying to become Batwoman; she’s just trying to disguise her identity and be a fearful opponent to her nemesis… It’s an origin story, so it’s a gradual realization to ‘Oh, actually I’m gonna keep my own identity.'”
Dries comments build upon the character’s journey showcased in the upcoming series’ first official trailer. In that clip, when Kate Kane (Ruby Rose) originally discovers her cousin Bruce Wayne was Batman and decides to don his batsuit to go after some bad guys, the citizens of Gotham think she’s Batman.
However, she doesn’t want to “let a man take credit for a woman’s work,” implying she adds the red wig to forge her own superhero identity.
In fact, the wig is so important that Rose observed, “It’s the character. I think that Kate Kane made a decision that she wanted people to recognize that if there’s a bat in the sky, they weren’t gonna confuse that bat with Batman. That’s her changing that identity so people don’t think that.”
So, unlike the fully-formed superhero seen in last season’s Arrowverse crossover “Elseworlds” where Batwoman was first introduced, the series will step back and provide a very deliberate introduction to Kate Kane’s evolution into the hero.
Batwoman airs on Sundays at 8/7c on The CW. The series premieres on October 6.