Batwing #3 – Review

By: Judd Winick (writer), Ben Oliver (artist), Brian Reber (colorist)

The Story: Obviously, Batwing never saw those anti-fighting after school specials as a kid.

The Review: In this age of the decompressed comic, writers tend to draft stories that work better within the trade format than the typical serial style.  This trend has opened up new avenues of storytelling choices, but mostly it’s resulted in watering down the substance of each monthly helping of any given title.  DC certainly hasn’t helped things by reducing the average page count to 20 pages, turning some titles into mere wisps of story, ending almost right after they begin.

Three issues into this series, and it still feels like we haven’t moved on from the debut.  The status quo, tension, and conflict remains pretty much the same as when they started: Massacre killing off a member of the Kingdom, and Batwing in critical condition.  It would help if Winick filled the space with some entertaining character work, but he continues to keep the supporting cast sparse and largely absent.  This issue, only Matu appears, just once—and as a silhouette.

We do get a couple interesting, new factoids about our protagonist.  Unlike his privileged counterpart from Gotham, David grew up as one of the infamous Congolese boy-soldiers, and a fairly hardcore one at that: “Every armed man in the village met with a quick death…”  An intriguing development, to be sure.  Now you have to wonder how David went from young gunner to upstanding man of the law to sworn member of Batman, Inc.

Keep in mind, however, that David didn’t shoot alone.  The revelation that David had a brother, one as equally fierce a child warrior, can only bode ill for the future.  You’ll notice that anytime a character has a family member who’s mysteriously out of the scene, when they reappear, it’ll usually be in the context of some shocking cliffhanger, most likely the revelation that they’ve been the villain or villainous the whole time (see Professor X’s brother, Cyclops and Havoc’s brother, Batgirl’s brother, and Batwoman’s sister).