DC Comics Review: Detective Comics #857

Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics,

Rating: ***

The final part of the opening story arc of Batwoman in Detective Comics is here.  The creative team of Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III continue to do a fine job with Batwoman, but I’m starting to think that the end is near for me on this series until Batman becomes the main focus of the book again.  I like Kate Kane aka Batwoman and I think Greg Rucka has done a good job so far with the character, but for me it’s not enough to keep me interested.  I may stick around to see the next story arc which will be an origin story, but we’ll see.

Anyway, the last time we saw Batwoman, her father had been kidnapped by the Religion of Crime and their leader Alice.  Kate’s hooked up with some former members of the ROC who are capable of turning into various creatures.  Their leader is a man named Abbot.  Kate leaves the party she was attending with Abbot to suit up and go after Alice.

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DC Comics Review: Detective Comics #856

Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics,

Rating: ***

A pretty good issue here.  Part three of the “Elegy” story arc as Kate Kane the Batwoman continues her fight against the Religion of Crime (ROC).  In our last issue we saw the leader of the ROC, Alice, and her followers stand ready to take out Batwoman and her father, but a group of monsters show up.  The monsters are there to help Batwoman and they attack the ROC.  Their leader is a werewolf and he helps Kate and her dad get to safety.  The werewolf changes back to human form and tells Kate’s dad that they are the true believers.  I’m assuming these people were apart of the ROC before Alice took over.  We learn that the werewolf is man named Abbot who was the “bodyman” for the last High Madame Whisper A’Daire.

What I enjoy most about the character of Kate Kane is not her activities as Batwoman, but more so the person behind the mask.  Writer Greg Rucka writes a great scene with Kate and her father and follows it up with a dinner party they attend where Kate meets up with Maggie Sawyer.  Sawyer was first introduced in the pages of Superman back in the 80s, but she has since been “transferred” to Gotham City and the Batman universe.  Will we see a romance develop here?

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DC Comics Review: Detective Comics #854

Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics,

Rating: ***

Batman: Reborn continues in the pages of Detective Comics this week. Big changes have been happening in the world of Batman and one of those changes is that Batman will not be appearing in the pages of Detective Comics. Instead we have the new Batwoman Kate Kane flying solo in Detective Comics with Greg Rucka as writer and J.H. Williams as the new artist for the book. Batwoman is not a character that really grabbed me when she first appeared in the pages of 52.

According to Wikipedia, Barbara Gordon was originally supposed to return as Batgirl a while back, but wanting to be more diverse and continue to have a handicapped character, DC decided to bring back Batwoman instead.  It seemed more like DC wanting to do a bunch of different things here: 1) Bring back a Silver Age character. 2) Bring in a new female character in the male dominated world of super-hero comics and 3) make her a lesbian to show even more diversity. I have no problem with any of these reasons, I just think DC mishandled her introduction to the DC Universe and didn’t give me a reason to care about this character. However with this first issue of her in Detective Comics, they’ve taken a good first step in giving me a reason to read stories about Batwoman.

With the prices of comic books going up, and being the father of two children and a mortgage to pay, comic books can be an expensive hobby to continue. So I have the various titles I collect on a very short leash.  If after an issue or two I don’t find myself interested in the story anymore, the comic gets dropped from my pull list.  This first story has a good beginning and its given me a reason to stick around.

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