Batwoman Annual #1 – Review

By: Marc Andreyko (story), Trevor McCarthy & Moritat (art), Guy Major (colors)

The Story: Behind every good Batman is a Batwoman—ready to take him down.

The Review: Considering how sudden and dismissively J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman were shooed off this title last October, the least DC could do was offer a resolution to their long-invested storyline, which was also cut off when Williams-Blackman left. DC did one thing right in committing this annual to that task, but their inability to bring back Williams-Blackman for this special occasion almost guaranteed the annual’s failure.

Without Williams-Blackman, Andreyko basically has to guess how his predecessors would’ve ended their own story and execute it as best he can. Andreyko’s very capable of course, but this is asking too much of any writer, especially when Williams-Blackman had set up conflicts that require a careful, delicate touch to untangle. There’s simply no way Andreyko could’ve divined Williams-Blackman’s intentions to wrap up their plotlines as planned. Even so, that’s no excuse for him to throw sense and integrity out the window just to get the job done.

Batwoman #24 – Review

By: J.H. Williams III & W. Haden Blackman (story), Trevor McCarthy (art), Sandu Florea & Derek Fridolfs (finishes), Guy Major (colors)

The Story: If you’re gonna go after Batman, you might as well make it worth his time.

The Review: I’m afraid we can’t get down to business until we discuss to some extent the circumstances leading to Williams-Blackman’s impending departure.  After sorting through all the various accounts of what happened, the whole controversy boils down to this: frustrated by regular, oft-times sudden editorial interference and a mandate that Kate Kane cannot marry, Williams-Blackman chose not to continue a story that was increasingly no longer their own.

Since I don’t know the specifics behind the other editorial mandates reported of, I won’t comment on those.  At any rate, editor-creator tensions are old hat for mainstream comics, and by and large, it’s often impossible to tell exactly when and how they affect any given series.  Only on these rare occasions when a writer airs his grievances publicly do we get real evidence of how an intended storyline gets thrown off course or stonewalled by a decree from above.

Batwoman #23 – Review

By: J.H. Williams III & W. Haden Blackman (story), Trevor McCarthy (Trevor McCarthy), Guy Major (colors)

The Story: Apparently, to Batwoman, love is night sweats and terrifying fever dreams.

The Review: There are a lot of contradictions wrapped up in the Bat-family, but the one that perhaps fascinates me the most is despite their airs of being the most straight-to-the-ass-kicking vigilantes in the DCU, they’re also the ones with the biggest dramatic streaks.  The fact they responded to tragedy by dressing up like bats should tip you off already, but you might still be surprised how often you see them acting like the master thespian.

Even Kate, with all her military upbringing and top-class training, is susceptible to a bit of melodrama on the right occasion—and it has to be the right one, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to take her seriously at all.  Demonstrating her commitment to Maggie by injecting herself with Fear Toxin has got to count.  It’s a big, soap opera moment, with Maggie helplessly stretching out a hand, protesting, “Kate!  No!” while her lover swoons, muttering in martyred fashion, “Now I’ll know what you went through, Mags…”  But hey—comics!

Batwoman #20 – Review

By: J.H. Williams III & W. Haden Blackman (story), Trevor McCarthy (art), Sandu Florea (inks), Guy Major (colors)

The Story: If you start thinking you can take the Batman alone, you need an intervention.

The Review: My favorite thing about this title is its willingness to allow all its characters to have a voice in the story, to make decisions and have a life that isn’t dictated by Batwoman’s actions.  That’s not to say the series doesn’t take on an additional burden with that.  The more rounded and independent characters you have, the more attention and development they demand.  By taking on a life of their own, they can shift the story in ways the writer didn’t intend.

While Williams-Blackman obviously have an interest in explaining how the D.E.O. came by Batwoman’s sister in the first place, I’m not sure that merited a six-page long, somewhat rambling narrative from Chase.  It really opens up more mysteries than it closes, as we don’t know how the Religion of Crime got their hands on Beth or even how she was revived.  Bones admits that where the sarcophagus in which she was found is concerned, “Hell, we still can’t figure out if it’s magic, or alien tech, or something else entirely.”

Batwoman #19 – Review

By: J.H. Williams III & W. Haden Blackman (story), Trevor McCarthy (art), Walden Wong (inks), Guy Major (colors)

The Story: Chase and Kate demonstrate that every sisterhood is its own beast.

The Review: Where Batwoman really separates itself from the competition is how much effort has been put into developing the supporting cast as fully-rounded characters, with lives and problems outside of whatever Kate’s got herself up to at the moment.  At this point, you feel like you know Maggie Sawyer, Jacob Kane, Cameron Chase, and Bette Kane as intimately as you know Kate herself, which is a rare and special kind of achievement for a superhero series.

How often do you get a series where a supporting character is so compelling she can have her own series.  At one point, Chase had just that, and here, Blackman-Williams demonstrate why.  Her vendetta against “the capes and masks” is clearly a manifestation of witnessing her father die from his wannabe superhero aspirations.  There’s a genuine pathos to Chase’s bitterness that makes this otherwise ludicrous set of circumstances feel real.  In some ways, her perspective of the whole costumed capers thing (“cosplay”) is very convincing; in some ways, you can easily be swayed into viewing her as a hero in her own right.

Batwoman #18 – Review

By: J.H. Williams III & W. Haden Blackman (story), Trevor McCarthy (art), Guy Major (colors)

The Story: Batman and Batwoman squabble over who gets to take what for their trophy case.

The Review: All in all, the Medusa storyline took three arcs and eighteen months to get from start to finish.  That’s a long time for any superhero title these days to spend on a single antagonist.  While Williams-Blackman did break up the action with quite a few smaller plot threads within the overarching story (e.g. Bette’s fall and recovery, Maggie and Kate’s relationship, etc.), this doesn’t change the fact that they put our heroine into a fictional rut.

For that reason, this issue is our first chance to see Batwoman take on a new mission, giving us a sense of the kind of challenges that sets her apart from the rest of the Bat-family.  Unfortunately, she’s not exactly operating according to her own agenda now, is she?  With the D.E.O. calling the shots, Batwoman winds up tackling opponents usually under her counterpart’s domain.  By doing so, she is no longer her own woman; she becomes the redundant, derivative hero we all dread—and she knows it, too.  Thus Colonel Kane observes as she threatens Mr. Freeze, “Look at her posture…  She’s posing, play-acting.”

Batwoman #16 – Review

By: J.H. Williams III (story & art), W. Haden Blackman (story), Dave Stewart (colors)

The Story: Even monsters love their mommies.

The Review: Although I readily agree that as a half-visual medium, comics shouldn’t really need too much text to move itself along, I don’t actually think a heavy script is a flaw unless it doesn’t serve a purpose to the story.  It’s one thing when a writer injects a whole lot of fluff for no other reason than simply to enjoy the sound of his own voice, but if all that text actually tells you something that the art itself doesn’t, then that’s a good reason to have it in there, right?

In this case, if you didn’t have all that character narration in each scene, much of the issue’s subtleties and development would be lost.  Dialogue and art can only convey so much; neither can really let you delve into a character’s mind or reveal the fantastic details that make a living, breathing story.  Williams can deliver nearly any imagery possible, but even he can’t convey smell through visuals.  Do you realize how rarely comic book writers pay attention to these kinds of things?  As Batwoman fights her way across Medusa’s army, she notices,

Batwoman #13 – Review

By: W. Haden Blackman (story), J.H. Williams III (story & art), Dave Stewart (colors)

The Story: Old-school monsters versus new-school warriors—guess who wins.

The Review: This has been a pretty grand week for Wonder Woman.  Not only did her critically acclaimed ongoing series release a new issue, but she got her a personal arc in Justice League and a sizable guest role here.  This gives us the rare opportunity to examine her character from three different angles at once.  Brian Azzarello’s Diana is compassionate, classy, wise.  Geoff John’s Diana vacillates between blithe naivety and hardened conviction.

Blackman-Williams offer a Diana who winds up coming across as the most human of all of them.  If she appears at first blush as somewhat remote, it has everything to do with Batwoman’s anxiety at merely being in her presence.  While Kate makes a valiant attempt to keep it cool, her nerves manifest in little ways (the plane she pilots shudders every time Wonder Woman speaks).  Well aware of her comrade’s tension, Diana keeps quiet, wisely or not, and seems distant for it.

Batwoman #12 – Review

By: W. Haden Blackman (story), J.H. Williams III (story & art), Dave Stewart (colors)

The Story: Amazon meets Marine.  It may be a match made in heaven.

The Review: I’ve spoken quite a many times on the enigmatic persona of Wonder Woman, how remote and difficult to pin down she is, but now lately, I wonder if that’s as negative a quality as I’ve made it out to be.  In a way, she can’t avoid being removed from us because of her unique nature.  As a mixture of goddess and mortal, as a member of a mythic race, as someone who prescribes to a lifestyle and ideology all her own, maybe she has no choice but to stand alone.

That may explain why, after all these years, Wonder Woman still has no one you can consider her definitive partner.  I don’t count her Trinity status, which often just feels like her getting shoehorned between the World’s Finest.  Nor do I view her relationships with Donna Troy (if indeed the character still exists in the new DCU) or Cassie Sandsmark as true partnerships; she’s more of an occasional mentor, happy to meet up every now and then to dole out a new Amazon warrior trick, but uninterested in any long-term collaboration.  And we’ve definitely never seen her get intimate with any of her peers in the superheroine community.

Batwoman #5 – Review

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

The Story: Screw the Ghostbusters—Batwoman’s on the case!

The Review: Kate Kane as Batwoman faced a lot of scrutiny from the moment she came into existence, and although her sexual preferences were the most controversial, I think even if she’d been straight as an arrow, people would still look at her with a doubtful eye.  Anyone who takes on “Bat” in their name is bound to have tough comparisons made on them, and since she presumes to hold herself as the female equal to Batman, she has even more to live up to.

So it’s been a great pleasure to see her doing just that.  While her methods and attitude to the work have obvious differences, she’s shown just as much of a hyper-competence and willingness to do the most radical things to get the job done.  You may have been wondering how she planned to grapple with the Weeping Woman; ghosts aren’t exactly within the Bat-family’s usual line of work, after all, not even with the Dark Knight himself.  And it must be said, the spiritual tactic she uses to figure out what’s to be done, and her execution of it, is both surprising and brilliant, something Batman would do in his most esoteric, probably the best praise of all.

And like any great Bat-story, Batwoman’s confrontation with the Weeping Woman has just as much dramatic depth as it does action.  What really makes the scene sing is how it shows Kate as both human and superhuman at the same time.  If we can take the theory that every Batman rogue represents some different aspect of the hero’s character, and apply it to Batwoman, the Weeping Woman represents Kate’s grief and guilt over the loss of her sister.  While she will probably always think of Beth with regret, Kate makes it clear she will no longer feel guilt over what happened, as it was not her fault.  The Weeping Woman, however, can’t say the same.

I won’t spoil the sequence for you by describing the specifics, but I can say that in addition to showing Batwoman’s ability to be both unmoved and compassionate at the same time, we also get a name drop of her next mark, one the D.E.O. also want to take down.  While Chase and Bones describe Medusa as a “criminal cartel,” that begs the question: what the heck kind of criminal cartel can summon demons to possess stray spirits and compel them to kidnap kids?

Batwoman #4 – Review

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

The Story: Unlike another firebird themed heroine, Bette Kane may not rise again.

The Review: I’m always doubtful when artists take on the writing role, and that’s admittedly a bit unfair.  After all, there are those who dedicate themselves entirely to writing and yet much of what they produce is disappointing, to say the least.  And I’m honest enough to admit that as a writer, the idea that someone can draw and write well irks me to no end.  So it’s with some chagrin but mostly pleasure for me to say that Williams is doing wonders in both art and words.

And before anyone gets indignant, yes, Blackman co-writes the series and his role in its success is undoubtedly essential, possibly critical.  Whatever the case, he and Williams have produced some of the most consistently gripping scripts in the new 52, and this issue exemplifies that with every page.

Let’s start with the opener.  Last issue, Bette reacted quite violently to her cousin’s declaration that she’s not cut out for the vigilante business.  Here, she goes out of her way to prove Kate wrong and in the process does almost the opposite.  While she makes small work out of your common thugs, and shows some grit against an impossibly bigger opponent, her bravado (“You know how many heroes have me on speed dial?”) ends up her undoing.

In most circumstances, the scene would underscore Flamebird’s trademark egomania, but then she follows up by stressing she’s “the real deal.”  Considering how pained she was being told she didn’t have what it takes, her boasts here feel less like overconfidence and more like an attempt to convince herself of her competence.  That makes her defeat all the more painful to watch; you’d like for her to beat the odds, but she only highlights her own limitations.

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?”