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Ryan Wilder is one of the two titular main protagonists (alongside Kate Kane) in The CW's 2019 TV series Batwoman, serving this role in Seasons 2 and 3, and a supporting character in Season 9 of The Flash.
She is a homeless woman living in Gotham City who becomes the new Batwoman after the original Batwoman, Kate Kane goes missing after her plane crashed, leading Ryan to find Kate's Batsuit. Though Ryan originally wore the suit to get revenge on Alice for killing her adoptive mother, Ryan started operating as the second Batwoman to protect the people of Gotham while helping search for Kate.
She is portrayed by Javicia Leslie as an adult and by Ava Augustin as a child.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
When Ryan Wilder was born, her mother died right after giving birth to her while her father had died sometime prior. As a result, Ryan was put into foster care, where she met some girls who were bullying her, and Angelique Martin, who became her friend.
In 2003, Ryan went to Hero Galaxy Comics in Wayside Heights, to collect some comic books, where she was kidnapped by Candice Long, who convinced Ryan to look at the comics in her van. She was taken to a house where she was held for several days, until she was rescued by Angelique.
She was later adopted as a teenager by Cora Lewis.
Ryan would develop a strong relationship with Cora and come to see her as her actual mother. With Cora's guidance, Ryan was able to graduate from high school and eventually come out as a lesbian, which her adoptive mother was very accepting of. One day, Ryan and Cora were moving into a new apartment where they were attacked by the Wonderland gang, who were squatting in the room at the time.
The gang killed Cora and their landlord, before proceeding to beat Ryan up until the arrival of their leader, Alice, prompted them to leave. Ryan tried to save her adoptive mother with CPR, only to find that she was dead, leaving her alone to mourn for Cora. Ryan was subsequently instilled with a lasting hatred for Alice and her gang. According to Ryan, her world fell apart that day.
Without a path[]
Sometime after this incident, Ryan entered a troubled relationship with Angelique Martin. Victor Zsasz came to know about the women's domestic problems. After being together for some time, Ryan noticed that Angelique's drug use had turned her into a different person. Trying to restore Angelique to normalcy, Ryan found and stole her drugs. As she left Angelique's house, though, she was noticed by two Crows, who discovered the drugs Ryan was carrying. They charged Ryan for drug use, and though she asserted that they were not hers, the Crows did not believe her, causing Ryan to serve 18 months in prison; a lesser sentence for a greater charge presented to Ryan by the judge presiding over her case, that she was forced to make a plea deal of. Ryan was sentenced to Blackgate Penitentiary where she was left with no other choice but to cope within the prison’s rough and secluded environment, filled with ragtag occupants. For her own survival, lest she not live to see the day of her release, Ryan improved herself not just in body but also in mind. In this meantime, Ryan met Crows agent Sophie Moore.
When Ryan was finally released, she was left living in a van with her mother's plant and struggled to put her life back together from scratch. It was implied that she even took up martial arts and did part-time teaching for people who were at least willing to hire Ryan for her tutelage and training services, no one wanted to hire someone who was incarcerated in prison.
One Halloween night, Ryan was walking through the streets of Gotham with a backpack and wearing a cat-ears hairband when she was approached by some criminals who ambushed and tried to rob her. They were about to kill her when they learned Ryan didn’t have much to offer, but she was saved by Batwoman.
During the scuffle, Ryan handled and somehow capably threw a Batarang for the first time, disarming a robber from a distance while the vigilante fought the man's cohorts. Ryan then looked on in complete awe and admiration as the Bat-themed crime-fightress used her custom grapple gun to depart from the scene.
Discovering the Batsuit[]
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Personality[]
As a civilian[]
Initially, Ryan was cheerful, carefully laid back and had a happy life. However, after the death of her adoptive mother, Ryan's life gradually fell apart due to the fact that she was not getting a stable job and the criminal justice system not giving her an adequate supplies needed.
As Batwoman[]
After Ryan became the new Batwoman and met Team Bat, she now has a family to look after.
While first starting her journey as Batwoman, Ryan uses the suit to pursue a personal vendetta, without thinking about what the symbol actually entails. Unlike her predecessors, she is not weary about killing her enemies, especially Alice, a criminal for whom she blames her adoptive mother's death.
Upon wearing the suit, Ryan realizes how her actions touch people's lives, especially those in which she has shared a poor lifestyle. Ryan uses this revelation as fuel to replace the missing Kate Kane and fully step into her role as Batwoman. She adopts the no-killing rule that comes with the title and personalizes the suit to better represent her.
Further along into her vigilante career, Ryan is very stoic and committed to helping and protecting Gotham City and its residents. Coming from an unpriviledged background, Ryan's mission of helping Gotham's impoverished citizens is personal and she is willing to do whatever she needs to assist them.
Ryan is seen as witty and comical at times, but can ultimately become serious and intimidating should the circumstances require her to be. She is greatly admired by almost all law-binding citizens of Gotham and is seen to be the hero that represents her city.
Abilities[]
- Peak of human physical condition: As a relatively-new vigilante, former martial arts instructor and ex-convict, Ryan is in top physical condition for a young athletic woman of her age; she is able to maintain her bodily equilibrium while both moving or staying stationary in variable positions she's in, strong enough to throw or land blows that stagger her enemies much larger than herself provided Ryan judges and secures the right fulcrum between herself and her target, quickly outmaneuvering around her opponents with relative ease and easily landing safely well on her feet almost every time after descending from a great height (and that was before Luke informs her that she could have used her cape to stably parachute down for an infallible landing).
- Master hand-to-hand combatant/Martial artist: As a former martial arts instructor and ex-convict, Ryan is a highly skilled hand-to-hand combatant and martial artist who (according to her) is versed in at least half a dozen fighting disciplines and could even mentor others in that respect; although it was inferred that she had been out of active practice for some time; however, despite this, Ryan was still able to subdue members of the False Face Society and bested Tommy Elliot in their first confrontation. Even Alice took notice and appreciated Ryan's apparent intent to kill following the brief skirmish between herself and this new Batwoman, deeming that the latter will prove to be a "handful" in comparison to Kate, who always stayed her hand from delivering the killing blow when it came to combating Kate's own twin, Alice.
- Keen-level intellect/Expert investigator/Expert tactician: Ryan is very intelligent individual and an excellent investigator; she suspected that Kate Kane is Batwoman after she found the Batsuit from the wreckage of Kate's crashed plane and her encountering both Luke and Mary down in the sewers only confirmed that when they approached Ryan there, thinking she was Kate for sporting the specialized outfit on herself. The next morning, she read up the front page article in the newspaper (and the Gotham news-publishing industry, by virtue of due diligence, is very astute in their line of work) regarding Kate's life, further substantiating her discovery that Kate is Batwoman; due to the fact that the female bat vigilante arrived in Gotham City around the same time as the former and then later discerned Alice's connection to the Kane family as their long-lost Beth after Sophie unwittingly spills out to Ryan that Jacob Kane no longer holds any sympathy for the serial murderer that used to be his daughter, Beth. Despite of Ryan's status living as a low-class citizen, she was able to figure out how to operate most of the Batsuit's advanced tech, in record time, but it took her longer to master the others - discounting the fact that she faced some difficulty exploiting them in the heat of battle for the very first time. As a former convict of close to a two-year sentence, Ryan is also experienced in threat assessment, gauging people and looking over her shoulder in order to survive, having been in the company of Gotham's worst during her stay at Blackgate and still thriving in the presence of the unscrupulous and uncivilized living here and there as a homeless person on the city's treacherous streets. That said, Ryan is very knowledgeable with the transient community of Gotham to know where such individuals or groups of them can be found clustered together or individually scattered after being pushed aside from the presence of the upper and middle classes, along with where those on the opposite side of the law would usually nest or briefly stay to simply enjoy their leisure. Ryan is also quite an adaptive thinker and problem-solver who can conceive immediate solutions and credible answers, respectively, on the fly; moreover, she is just as quick on her feet enabling her to execute them near-efficiently and close to flawlessly. With these serendipitous qualities, Ryan saw to it that Alice's toxic bats were expunged from the city without risking anyone else as collateral damage, using herself to lure them away as she sped off in the Batmobile. And as Ryan puts it, word-for-word to Luke and Mary, her time in the company of criminals acclimated Ryan with the workings of crime, organized or petty, in Gotham's dark underbelly - giving her the insight on how criminality plots and operates, particularly in their city. But most importantly, how to break off said perpetrators and their bearings, if need be, in ways that Kate Kane - due to her privileged upbringing - must have and inevitably overlooked.
- Stealth: Much like Kate Kane, Ryan has shown able to appear and disappear without much notice. This was seen on Ryan's first night wearing the Batsuit; she managed to sneak up in a dark alley and closed in on two masked thugs, who only detected her presence after she made it apparent with a Batarang she threw at them and when Ryan tried to scare one up-close.
- Expert driver: Even while near-panicking, Ryan's skills as a driver is at least that she can not only outpace the Batmobile for a time with her van, but even effect evasive maneuvers while driving to evade ordnances fired upon her from the former vehicle by Tommy Elliot. Later, in the Batmobile, she expertly drove the specialized conveyance through Gotham while being pursued by a colony of envenomed bats - making an abrupt turn at one point that momentarily threw them off as they were hot on Ryan's trail.
- Indomitable will/High tolerance for pain/Master survivor: A driven and determined individual, Ryan is nearly fearless and almost never gives up under most situations. After being shot with Kryptonite, Ryan immediately rose up again within seconds to readily fight and took down her shooter; she has shown able to put up with the lasting effects of the inflicted wound displaying signs of discomfort for only brief periods. Ryan would later display her tenacity in single combat against Alice - matching the latter nearly blow for blow, despite of the apparent size difference between them, until the former finally succeeds restraining the criminal by forcing her down on one knee and then gripping firm with both hands around Alice’s neck.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Ryan is an original character created for the Arrowverse and had her first comic debut before the release of the second season of Batwoman.
- Ryan's introduction forced the show the abandoned the Kane sisters plot and adapt a legacy/successor storyline.
- Ryan replaces Kate Kane as the main protagonist; following Ruby Rose's departure from Batwoman.
- Ryan's inmate number is 4075.
- Ryan hates bats; which is similar to Bruce Wayne hating bats in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy.
- Ryan's favorite color is yellow.
- Ryan's favorite animal is a snow leopard.
- Ryan has never been on a plane; before she went to Coryana.
- Ryan shares a couples things from Kate Kane. They both are vegans and lesbians.
