Batwoman #3

[aeka]

I'm surprised this hasn't been posted yet, so I guess I'll go ahead and do the honours.

Picking up where the last issue left off...

Shit got real so fast, I had a hard time picking four pages to post! D:

Comments

[sherkahn]

It really is one of the most consistently beautiful and well designed comics I have seen in years.
And it's GOOD, with mystery, drama and action worthy of a Bat-title.

[aeka]

Agreed. The first two issues read like both a detective story and a gothic horror tale (two things I really love) in one, but this book really picks up the pace with the drama and action. I wonder how badly her encounter with both the Weeping Woman and the DEO lady is going to affect her in the next issue.

[mullon]

Why does Kate look better when she's wearing the Batwoman outfit? Is that an artistic choice?

[katya]

I know I read something recently where they said they color her so black and white because she knows exactly who she is, which is awesome, but it still bothers me sometimes. I think the shading is off when she's not in costume, which may also say something about her character.

[icon_uk]

I think I find the snow-white skin to be over-stylised (and it's never clear whether it really is that tint of white, or it's just an artistic-emphasis choice), and her eyes tend to be slightly... I think the closest word would be over-emphasised or exaggerated (as in the scene where she's crying). The mask makes the white skin look more like a deliberate contrast to her costume, and the eyeholes are more regular.

Beautiful nevertheless though.

[katya]

This book pleases me a lot more than I initially expected. I picked up the book Kate debuted in a few years ago and wasn't impressed, so trying out the new run was a last minute decision for me.

I do wish the background information starting out was more coherent since she's one of the characters I don't know much about (Her dad is who now? She has a dead sister? Or... her sister was supposedly dead, then came back, and is dead again? And honestly I'm not sure who Flamebird is at all) but I'm enjoying the story anyway.

[dr_archeville]

Has Kate always been so Joker/nuHarley white?

[ravenous_raven]

Yep, consistently. A quick run through the tag will show that she's been that way for a while. Someone made the Joker connection on the last Batwoman post too, as she was wearing purple and green...

[ravenous_raven]

You know, Kate has a point. This might seem like Batman trying to push Spoiler out of the vigilante business, but Stephanie had a drive and a goal to bring her father down and get him out of her life and her mother's. She found out that she was good at being a vigilante and wanted to help people, so she kept going, something Bats eventually had to recognize.


Bette? She's always been just a bored teen, right since her conception as a Robin fangirl who tried being a superhero on a lark. She never seems to understand reality, such as an arc with a framed Beast Boy a few years back that had her waltzing into the jail in her Flamebird costume and holding a check for Beast Boy's bail. Unsurprisingly, the cops ripped it up and told her that they don't take checks from people in costumes.


Vigilantes go through so much that they need something to stand for and to believe in when things get bad in order to keep them going. What does Bette believe in? What drives her to keep going?

[biod]

I don't know what drives her, but when Nightwing (ie the reason she became Flamebird) told her in no uncertain terms to quit in that Beast Boy mini, she kept on going and was quite the little Badass.
I think I understand where Kate's coming from, but I would like Bette to get some more respect, thank you very much.

[biod]

Fuck Yeah, Flamebird!

[thefiretonight]

YES.

[grimmbear]

If you want motivation.. how about guilt? Here is a girl who has everything handed to her yet due to her family she sees the world from a common man's viewpoint. In the real world sure she's insane but hers is not the real world. in her world the fantastic happens every day so why not put on a costume and fight for the underdog?
Is she stupid... sure but her heart is in the right place (until the Joker gets to it).

[pyrotwilight]

...Whoo boy. Read that too fast and thought Bette was kissing Kate. 0.o

XD

[biod]

Me too. It was very discombobulating.

[jeyl]

"You're a bitch, Kate Kane."

No you're not. You're the queen of the new DC. You've got talent, you've got class, and HOLY SH**! You're wearing a sports bra under that suit! Tell me that alone doesn't make you more awesome than any Catwoman we've had this year.

Kate, you're the only comic in the new 52 that I'm not worried about. It's like you're the only one who's been good to us. Wonder Woman is close, but the writers still believe she doesn't work because she doesn't have enough male presence in her origin.

[marco]

This. Which is so disappointing because I want buy/support and love the Wondy comic, but totes don't think giving her more male presence in her origin is needed or useful (and it supposedly helping to make her more relatable is just crap to me). But alas, there's Batwoman at least.

[silverzeo]

Uhhh,, why is Kate all pale again?

[espanolbot]

She's a goth.

[mrosa]

Williams III used to impress me with every page of his. I've been re-reading Promethea, and the layouts are just gorgeous. I keep thinking, though, that was just Moore and his dense descriptions.

His work on Batwoman for some time now has failed to hold me in thrall. And some panel layouts here are really simplistic.

I'm also getting tired of Batwoman and her "I'm so miserable" attitude. Is everyone Daredevil these days? Wait, no even Daredevil is like Daredevil used to be these days. Can't super-heroes just enjoy being super-heroes? God forbid they have fun on the job.

I think it's curious how these days origins is something that's always present in the characters' lives; they just can't shut up about it. In the past, it was just a rite, something to get out of the way and get on to the proper act of telling stories. Batman, Superman and The Flash didn't spend every issue wallowing in what made them thick. They just had adventures.

Does anyone even read Batman because his parents were gunned down? Because of the revenge backstory? I just read him because he dresses in a cool suit, has exciting adventures, beats villains up and has great enemies.

[drexer]

You'll note that those pages are mainly 'Kate' pages and as such they seem to move a bit around the edges but still maintain the expected consistency of a regular comic book.

The 'Batwoman' pages have a much more fluid layout with a much bigger range of transformation and multi-panel construction. The first pages of this issue are for instance quite exemplary in that.

[junipepper]

I love the whole aesthetic of this book, and I think the color choices work really well, with one glaring exception. I love the way her cape drapes; that's some damn fine drawing. And she's got that whole black and red thing going, and it's so complete, including even her skin and hair.

Which brings me to the glaring exception: The white face on the Batwoman looks great. But on Kate, the dead white all over makes her look like she's made of marble. Like she isn't quite real. She's in a different color palette from all the other people she interacts with. I really find the panel with Kate and Maggie kissing, disturbing because of the contrast between their skin colors -- one warm, alive, and ordinary. the other, um, not.

I really do like this book, I want to be on board with it, but that skin color on Kate just keeps jumping out at me. It kind of interferes with my enjoyment of the book.

[jaybee3]

I thought I was the only one who had issues with the uber-paleness of "regular" Kate (but I was so hesitant to say anything about JHWIII's art that I kept it to myself). It works for Batwoman (who being a "Bat" is supposed to be a creature of the night) but not for Kate. And its not even her natural skin tone - we saw in 52 and in the flashbacks of Rucka/William's Elegy origin that she wasn't this pale even just a few years ago.

[eyz]

The art is really gorg- OH SH1T!! IT's Flamebird! In costume! Post-New 52! How awesome is that?!? :D

[bazor]

I've got an ugly feeling in the pit of my stomach that something very bad, very graphic but very beautifully illustrated is going to happen to Bette.

[mrstatham]

I doubt it. Given Kate's in the wrong here, and Bette has handled herself well in the past, I expect we're going to get a kickass Bette moment followed by Kate realising she's been too hard on her, and what worked for her in terms of training isn't what Bette needs.

It'd also make a nice subversion of the talk I think Batman gave her about dead sidekicks.

[shadowpsykie]

Okay, i don't mean for this to sound as pejorative, but my first reaction when Kate said that i was like "You Bitch!" and then i saw the next panel and i was like, "Good for you Bette, good for you" and then i saw that final panel and i was like... "Heh, she agrees with me"

Also, i love this issue, and you are right "Shit got real" FAST....

oh god, i love Kate with Renee, BUT DAMN if this is floating my Kate/Maggie ship... wait... Kate... and Maggie Sawyer... Kate and Sawyer.... KATE AND SAWYER take II!!!

[sethgray]

Bette has been doing this LONGER than Batwoman. I really hope this doesn't turn into the usual sidekick trauma, and while Kate is off moping and feeling sorry for herself, Flamebird proceeds to kick some ass.

[mrstatham]

Again, I think that is what Blackman and Williams III are aiming for. The talk from Batman about dead sidekicks, and this, plus the Cutter story already featured Bette in jeopardy - I expect the seeming bad things about to happen to Bette to be really subverted.

[schala_kid]

The fact that this comic has La Llorona, the myth figure my parents and everyone else used to scare me shitless with, especially her taking the little kids.... Really gives me goosebumps.

Also Bette back as Flamebird! Fuck yeah!

[shadowpsykie]

you're latino/a? Hermana(o)! :D

[superfangirl1]

Poor Bette. But glad she going back to being Flamebird again. :)

[whitesycamore]

Well, this is a horribly soap-opery piece of crap featuring a character I'm steadily growing to hate. Pity.

[runespoor]

Though honestly, Bette is much more out of line that Kate is.

"Even if your mom and sister hadn't died you would have driven them away", my god, what kind of an odious statement is that?

[salinea]

yeah, it is pretty heinous.

[celestialchild]

You could frame just about any one of these pages and hang it on the wall.

[ibmiller.livejournal.com]

That last panel really makes me worried that we're going to have a dead Flamebird soon...

Also, the art is, as usual, jaw dropping. But I'm trying to puzzle out why there are drastically different renderings of Kate and Bette in the same frame...is it because Bette is going through her own "origin" story, since that's the kind of style Williams used in the flashbacks of Elegy? Or are the capes rendered differently when they're in costume? It's very cool, I'm just trying to figure out what the intention is behind it.