Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Appearance Spotlight: Nocturna (with bonus vampirism!)

Nocturna, aka Natalia Knight, first appeared in Batman #363 (July 1983). When a radioactive laser accidentally robbed her off her skin pigmentation and made her sensitive to light, she turned to burglary to pay for treatments (and to keep up the luxurious lifestyle she had grown accustomed to).


Paul Dini wanted to use Nocturna in The New Batman Adventures, with plans to make her a straight-up vampire. However, the WB wouldn't allow it. This is what she would've looked like:


A different version of her named Natalie Metternich (or Natalia Mitternacht) appeared Post-Crisis in Robin #100 (March 2002). This take on her could secrete a pheromone that made people around her become emotional and lose their inhibitions. Although she never went by Nocturna in her initial storyline, later appearances in other books had her go by that name. In Salvation Run #4 (February 2008), she's even given a similar look to that of her unused DCAU design. She continues to look like this through later appearances, such as Gotham Gazette: Batman Alive?


In the New 52, a third version of Nocturna debuted. Natalia Mitternacht appeared in Detective Comics #9 (May 2012) as an Arkham inmate who had killed her husbands. By Batwoman #34 (August 2014), she was revealed to be a vampire.


I have not seen this version of her with the DCAU look yet, but I hope she gets it. I do prefer when canon immigrants are wholecloth and not piecemeal. But I'll take what I can get!

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