Batwoman #3 – Review

By: J.H. Williams III (co-writer & artist), W. Haden Blackman (co-writer), Dave Stewart (colorist)

The Story: As always, having too many women in your life can be a big problem.

The Review: Comics rely on a sympathetic collaboration between words and art.  When the artistic pedigree of a title reaches the kind of heights you see here, sometimes the story becomes almost irrelevant, which can be tough on a writer-centric reviewer like me.  But so far, this title has managed to beat the odds and be a powerful force on both a visual and textual level.

Take the opening of this issue.  Setting aside the jaw-dropping imagery for a moment, the scene itself has great integrity.  It not only starts you off with an immediate sense of peril, it also has importance to the story long after it ends.  When the Weeping Woman drags Kate into the depths of a Gotham river, Kate takes on the form of her twin sister.  You don’t know if this is a supernatural effect from the ghostly lady, or if it’s Kate’s drowning fancy of how her sister might have died, but whatever it is, its effects can be felt throughout the rest of the issue.

Kate carries the trauma of that experience back home with her, and it unfortunately leads to a very messy confrontation with her cousin.  It’s a very painful exchange.  Kate’s near-miss earlier that night has clearly rattled her, and she projects that anxiety onto Bette in the harshest way possible: You don’t have what it takes… The only thing you ever lost was a beauty pageant.”

When Bette originally appeared as the flippant, attention-seeking Flamebird, you were almost forced to not take her seriously.  But in the pages of this title, she’s shown her dedication to the Bat has been sincere (even at the cost of ditching of her sunny outfit and taking on the codename of “Plebe”).  Her wounded reaction to Kate’s rejection tells you exactly the pain she’s feeling, even before the quiet tears come: “Why, Kate?  What did I do?  What happened?”