DC Relaunch: Batwoman

As I've mentioned before, the world of Gotham is a big place, ever expanding. Very few villains go away, and new ones pile up all the time. So it's no surprise that there's some counter action to that as well. In the weekly year long series 52, we were introduced to Kate Kane, and her beginnings as Batwoman.

Batwoman does not handle the same type of adventures that Batman does. No, hers are much more surreal,  more dreamlike, and more deadly. Her primary opponents are those who follow the religion of crime, under The Crime Bible, and they've nearly killed her. Like Bruce Wayne, Kate Kane not only comes from money, but from old money, being one of the legendary families of Gotham. She is very hard-nosed, and still very new to the business of the superhero. In our brief looks into her world, she's taken some heavy hits, and has uneasily balanced her life as Batwoman and her life as Kate Kane. As she becomes enveloped in more of the former and less of the latter, both worlds become stranger.

I've made it this far and surely there's at least one person reading who has been adding to the end of every sentence he reads, "...and she's a lesbian." Well congratulations, here's your paragraph. Yes, Kate Kane is a lesbian. It's been handled rather gracefully, I think. Whenever the character was first announced, that was pretty much all some people caught. You'd wondered if they bothered to read the comics in the first place. "DC Introduces Lesbian Character, Batwoman," they'd read. And that was mostly it. It tells us about as much about the characters as does saying, "Batwoman likes pie." In both cases, we know what to expect. In the first, we do expect that at some point Batwoman will develop a romantic interest that will likely be a woman. In the latter, we expect Batwoman to be eating pies. In both cases, we are given background information, but nothing real about the character. DC and its writers have treated Batwoman better than that, and have portrayed not a stereotype, but a real person dealing with their life.



JH Williams III is one of my all time favorite artists. There are few other artists, in my opinion, that are currently doing layouts in comics better than he is. He's currently at the top of his game. He's also writing the book, adding to the legion of writer/artists that DC currently has in their employ. He's got some help though, and honestly, who doesn't need backup these days. W. Haden Blackman will help out on writing and Amy Reeder will assist on art. Blackman has mostly worked within the Star Wars universe, both in video games and comics. Amy Reeder is best known for her amazing work on Madame Xanadu with Matt Wagner, and her own work, Fool's Gold, which was published by TOKYOPOP. Williams has worked in the Bat universe before, specifically working on Batwoman with Greg Rucka in the pages of Detective Comics, and in "Batmen of All Nations" story with Grant Morrison in the pages of Batman. He is also well known for his work with Alan Moore on Promethea.

With 52 being her debut, that is one place to look for in terms of previously published Batwoman material. She's also made notable appearances in a few Renee Montoya/The Question stories in that time, but this is the definitive work to look for if you want to see something similar to what this series may be like:

Batwoman: Elegy by Greg Rucka, JH Williams III, and Jock

Tomorrow! Getting back to the men-folk of the Bat-universe, beginning with Nightwing! 3 more days and we hit The Dark! And later today... maybe something!