Batwoman returns
as sapphic sexpot

After 27 years, DC Comics is bringing comic book heroine Batwoman back to life, only this time she'll be a crime-fighting lipstick lesbian, reports The New York Times.

The sapphic Batwoman will appear in 52, a yearlong DC Comics publications debuting in 2007. The superhero's alter ego, Kathy Kane, is a lesbian socialite romantically linked with a female ex-police detective. The character of Batwoman first appeared in July 1956--though not as a lesbian--but was killed off in 1979.

The inclusion of a gay crime fighter is part of a new roster of ethnically and sexually diverse characters within the DC repertoire.

"We're trying a lot at the same time," Dan DiDio, DC's vice president and executive editor, told the Times, "but we don't know how it's going to be accepted." (The Advocate)