Detective Comics #858: 20 Year Itch
I don’t really care if Greg Rucka is accurately portraying a billion dollar lesbian turned crime fighter. Sexuality is something that comics has seldom gotten right. After all let’s not confuse comic books with the next great American novel. What I do like about Batwoman is her motivations. To no surprise, the loss of a parent is the common denominator in all of the bat titles.
Batwoman's origin is slightly different loss but the results are no different. At the end of last issue, Kate discovered a shocking revelation that the woman she was fighting could very well be the family member she thought long dead. While cooped up in her Batcave (that oddly has a tree growing through it) she begins to replay in her mind the events that inevitably lead to her growth into a costumed crime fighter.
The origin of Batwoman is very different from Batman in that Kate was already raised in a military family. Her father is her only remaining family member and the equivalent of Alfred. This new development within the issue might split the two apart. The prevailing theme in this issue is trust. In the military you learn to trust your life in someone else’s hands but once that trust is put to the test, how could it be that the one closest to Kate might be the biggest liar? If that’s true, doesn’t that forever change the mantra of Batwoman?
The final page is powerful if not soul shattering.
Rucka is using this arc to deconstruct Batwoman as well as give us an origin. By the end of this arc I am expecting big changes. J.H. Williams III did a phenomenal job of using variation on his art style to denote past and present. As we see Kate Kane grow up, the line work is more graphic and simplified palette. As it switches to present day, the rendering is more tonally realistic. The design is esquisite.
As powerful as Batwoman is, Rucka’s Question back up story is pretty flat and uninspired. To be fair, the back up is shorter and more to the point but why bother then. I would prefer if the Question’s back up story was somehow intertwined with the main story or inter-related.
Rating: Borrow it.
