#I called him helena's absentee child because there isn't even a mention of him after that

[trackingthehuntress]

Who is James Cooper? A synopsis:

So I’ve been meaning to make a base post on this for a while, so here goes. Helena’s adopted child, forgotten by comics: James Cooper! Apologies if my image descriptions aren’t great (was planning on putting more panels when I said that, but that didn’t get in, sorry). WARNING - many spoilers ahead for Helena’s first solo. (please send an ask or a dm if you want content warnings for any of the listed issues.) 

Overall, this kid has it rough. However, through it all, he’s smart and caring. 

First appearance: The Huntress (1989) #9

[image description: a close up of a woman hugging a child. they are both dark skinned with black hair. the woman is wearing earrings. the child is wearing thick framed glasses.]

Because, see, we first meet James’ mom, Melinda. One reason I enjoy the first Huntress solo is that a good percentage of it is focused on civilian characters. This issue opens with Melinda narrating. She is a writer for a newspaper column, and the comic’s narration is the article she is working on, expressing how though her neighborhood is unsafe she feels a responsibility to stay. She expresses it better than I do, what can I say, I’m no writer. Anyways, she comes home to James being bothered by his little brother’s distractions. It’s cute.

Anyways, next we have James at his science fair. This year, his project is on “the issue of nuclear proliferation”. He explains how it would actually be pretty easy for anyone to build a nuclear bomb, given how much material would be easy to hijack. Once he explains this, someone pulls a gun on him and kidnaps him. Cut to someone telling Melinda her son was taken right from the science fair. 

Huntress (1989) #10

Here, we find out that James was kidnapped by a gang that wants people to know they mean business. They threaten and hit him in attempts to get him to agree to build the bomb, but he only starts to cooperate when they bring his family into it. Tragically, they kill his mom and little brother without telling him, because she had been putting up missing posters and organizing efforts to look for him. 

Huntress (1989) #11

The narration of this issue is that of a close friend of Melinda’s finishing her article. We see her funeral. However, no one knows where James is still, and he is almost done with the bomb. 

Huntress (1989) #12

Things have been awful for James. The gang is consistently violent towards him, and he is living in fear of their usage of his bomb. However, remember that Helena Troy post? That’s right, our favorite master of disguise has gotten a tip about what happened to him and is coming to rescue him! Back to James, though, they’re already telling him they’re keeping him alive so he can build a second bomb. yeah. So James is huddled with some members who are keeping him away from Helena, who has gotten ahold of the bomb, when she delivers her own ultimatum: “Let him out unharmed, or I detonate it and kill us all.” This doesn’t work, but her next threat does, so they send James out and he gets safely to Helena and her friend’s van. She’s tipped off the cops to the nuclear material still at that base, but knows the gang will probably get away. They drive off into the sunset.

And now that that’s resolved, we don’t see James again... for another four issues. 

Huntress (1989) #17

Now here, we get James’ pov. We open with him about to meet with a potential adoptive family, but he's a tad jaded and bitter about them, and his lot in life, feeling unfairly trapped and imprisoned while the gang that killed his mom and brother gets off scot free. He escapes the adoption center via climbing out of a window. He sees happy families and mourns his own. Walking on, he goes to their old apartment and recovers their belongings. Then, he hatches a plot... via robbing an atm (hadn’t noticed til now lol) to get the supplies, he figures that if he can hit enough of the places the drug dealers frequent, he can bring peace to his neighborhood. 

Huntress (1989) #18

“They took everything from me. That was their first mistake. Because now I've got nothing left to lose.”

So yeah, he’s in a bad place right now. Tl;dr, a guy named Rage has managed to unite New York’s gangs in search of this bomber. Batman and Huntress are hoping to find James first, though. They see him holding a small box, and pursue him to an underground... sewer system, maybe(?) where he reveals his home. He’s got a bed, pictures taped on the walls and pipes, and jars and boxes of various foodstuffs. He shows them that his package wasn’t a bomb, but a microscope his mom had given him for Christmas. Now, batman says it’s time to bring him to justice, but Huntress is defensive of James and not too keen on this idea.

Huntress (1989) #19

Huntress and Batman have a little debate over what to do with James, who you’d imagine would be going, “guys, I’m right here?”. However, they resolve this, by having Batman pose as the bomber to give the gangs a scapegoat. James’ last bomb goes off before he can defuse it, but Batman manages to keep himself and Rage from harm. Then, we cut to our epilogue, complete with Helena looking over at James and her landlord, thinking, “I guess family is where you find it”. But yes, it ends with Helena and James packing up to move out. This is the last issue of the Huntress (1989) series. 

But wait, there’s more!

Justice League International (1987) Special #2

Helena gets this special in the spotlight, and it’s used to be a sendoff to the above series. It is set three months after the above issue, and Helena Bertrand has set them up in their own little white picket fence house. It’s a cute opening, with one of James’ inventions, a woodcutter named the tin woodsman, knocks over helena as she’s chilling in a hammock. Basically, she’s trying to give him a good childhood. It’s unclear how they define their relationship, as they seem about 6-10 years apart. I think Helena might call him her son, don’t think James would be calling her Mom or anything, though. 

Back to plot - Helena’s got to come out of retirement to take care of a loose end, so she drops James off at the Justice League for them to babysit him, which is pretty hilarious. You can see how protective he is of her here - he dumps a  chemical solution he made on Blue Beetle, who was using the cameras on the suit they gave her to eavesdrop and spy on her confrontation, and uses the distraction to mess up the controls. Then, he gets to ride with Blue Beetle in the beetle to as he goes to give Helena backup. The issue ends with Helena concluding she needs to be on her own again, incinerating the Huntress costume, and moving her and James to a new apartment. Presumably they’ll be laying low for a bit. 

And then... gone forever. That was my attempt to sum up all of James Cooper’s comic appearances. I just think he shouldn’t have been forgotten after that, what do you think?