A harsh critique...?
Okay, here's some honesty:
I only started reading this series because of a lesbian Batwoman.
I feel better having admitted that.
So… No tangents this time around about my personal life, let's just jump into the review.
This is part two of Batwoman's origin story and I was much more satisfied with this issue than lasts; unfortunately that's not saying much because this issue has some severe flaws.
My chief complaint (which is the most important) is that I'm just not buying this origin story. This woman, Katie Kane, was a graduate in the Army who was well on her way to becoming an executive officer before being discharged for her sexual orientation… So I'm not really buying that someone as studious and structured as this would get a bunch of tattoos and would end up putting on a Halloween costume to fight crime. I'm just having a hard time believing that. When I start having trouble believing the origin I'm going to have trouble believing in the character. It's not like Bruce Wayne or Dick Grayson was in the armed forces. Their mythology is believable because from a young age they set out to become something almost supernatural in its potency. It wasn't just a flippant decision that an adult made to fight crime after developing a strong ethical foundation for honor and duty. It wasn't so ORDINARY.
So I believe we can blame all this on Rucka which bums me out because he recently just wrote "Stumptown" which I thought was amazing. I feel like with this title he's just spinning his wheels with prophecy and monsters and lame nonsense origins.
I was most satisfied with J.H. Williams and his KILLER art.
If you've been reading this issue and the previous one you'll know that Williams has been going back and forth between two art styles when telling this story. When drawing scenes that take place in the present he uses his detailed, flowing, saturated style. When he draws scenes that are flashbacks he uses a sketchy, plain style that's brighter and less colorful.
He does something that I wasn't expecting (which I also thought was fairly clever) where he takes a scene and blends the two styles together. Williams uses his unique visuals to foreshadow what Kate was and what she will become with his art. It's a scene where Kate first encounters Batman and what we see is that Williams leaves Kate in the retro art while drawing Batman in his normal, saturated style. Words couldn't do this scene justice but what it conveyed was powerful and fantastic for the reader.
I can ONLY recommend this title for the art. Williams knows how to draw really hot, sub-culture women with bangs which I'm a total sucker for.
Besides that if you're curious about Batwoman's origin I'd just wait for the butchered summary that's bound to pop-up on Comic Vine.
