Comic Info
Comic Name: Batwoman (Volume 1)
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: J.H. Williams III/W. Haden Blackman
Artist: Amy Reeder/Trevor McCarthy/Rob Hunter/Pere Perez/Richard Friend
# of Issues: 6
Release Date: 2012
Batwoman (1) #6
Reprints Batwoman (1) #6-11 (April 2012-September 2012). Children are being kidnapped and murdered as part of a sacrifice in Gotham City. Chase and the D.E.O. and Batwoman are on the trail of the cult of killers, and Kate realizes that it could put her at odds with her girlfriend Maggie Sawyer and the GCPD. Jacob watches over Bette as she fights for her life, and Maro Ito works to make Medusa and her followers more powerful than ever…Batwoman will be tested on all fronts if she hopes to survive!
Written by J.H. William III and W. Haden Blackman, Batwoman Volume 2: To Drown the World is a DC Comics New 52 superhero comic book collection. Following Batwoman Volume 1: Hydrology, the collection features art by Amy Reeder, Trevor McCarthy, Rob Hunter, Pere Perez, and Richard Friend. Issues in this collection were also collected as part of Batwoman: Haunted Tides.
I really enjoyed Batwoman: Elegy and was excited that the New 52 was giving the character her own series. Batwoman 1: Hydrology was ok, but the character still had a lot of potential. While I still enjoy the character, this writing of this collection turned me off to the series.
The story is rather straightforward, but the story is written in this weird out-of-order sequence that doesn’t enhance. A movie like Pulp Fiction tells the story in a non-sequential order, but it does it in a way that makes you want to watch it again and enriches the story. Here, it takes an average story and makes it confusing. Some events are happening two weeks in the past some are thirty minutes the past, some are twenty minutes in the future, and some are in the present…it would have been a better story if it was just told in a normal style (and probably would have been shorter).
Batwoman (1) #8
The series deals with a lot of angst involving Kate and Maggie. Once again, it feels like it should be spaced throughout the issues in a normal fashion to show why Maggie and Kate are having doubt. Instead, you don’t know why Maggie is particularly upset about the murders because of her daughter, and you don’t have Kate’s fears that she and Maggie are butting heads on the investigation. Both are valid stories, but how they are presented here, they lose their emotional tug.
I do still enjoy a lot of the art, but the page layouts are also not conducive to reading. Batwoman: Elegy played a lot with the comic book format, but the story flowed. With a story that is jumping all over the place, the last thing I want to deal with is trying to figure out which panel to read next.
Batwoman 2: To Drown the World was a real disappointment and lost all momentum for me on the series. I read the first few issues of the storyline but then stopped when I realized I wasn’t enjoying it. Going back and reading the issues as a whole, I still have the same problems and feel like I almost had to “force feed” myself the issues…which is something a comic book should never do to a reader. Batwoman 2: To Drown the World is followed by Batwoman 3: World’s Finest.
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