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]

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?

[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.

[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?

[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...

[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!

[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).

[runespoor]

I don't see what's wrong about people wanting to do good even if they do so for "selfish" reasons. At the end of the day, they're presumably still saving lives.

If Bette realizes she doesn't have "what it takes", then she can stop by herself later on. So far she's already been a hero, and now she's expressed the will to keep on doing that.

Kate is basically reproaching her for not having gone through the same things Kate has, which is understandable but unfair imo.

[mrstatham]

The same Beast Boy mini you mention also had Dick calling her out on her attitude, though, and she got that costume she's wearing in the last page as well as a new determination and drive to prove herself.

So.. Yeah. I disagree that she needs as definitive a reason as Kate to fight crime. She has determination, drive, and she wants to do the right thing. Kate even seems to admit her attitude is off to herself, and she has been riding Bette pretty hard in the same dubious and nasty fashion as her Marine training, which is something not every hero needs.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bette ends up saving Kate by the end of this story and explicitly spelling out that, in her own way, she's as skilled as Kate, because Kate is in the wrong - she's being deliberately dismissive and she knows it.

[mrstatham]

Kate really is wrong, too - hasn't Bette lost her own relative in the form of the old Batwoman, now confirmed to have existed again? Just because she doesn't use that as her reason for being a vigilante, doesn't mean she can't understand Kate's perspective. Kate is just really in the wrong here, and she clearly knows it.

The worst part is that now she's shoved her away, if anything happens to Bette, Kate'll blame herself.

[runespoor]

I'm about 99% certain that trying to keep Bette safe, at least until Kate is done with her current enemy, is the reason why she fired her, but. Er. Historically, that tactic tends to fail horribly when it comes to Gotham sidekicks.

I wonder if Bette wouldn't have been more likely to let it rest for a while if Kate had framed her rejection in different terms - terms that didn't come with an unthinking challenge to prove herself.

[sherkahn]

Both Kate and Bruce have different shading when they are "in character". I'm of the opinion that it is to emphasize some metaphysical quality of Batman and Batwoman that gives them qualities that transcend the page. And I like that artistic choice.

[mrstatham]

It helps distinguish between the regular identity and that of the vigilante, definitely. Williams III applies a really nice painterly style to the superhero sequences - we can even see it on Bette in that last page - and all the normal sequences have a nice flat-coloured quality. It's a really great way of working, and I think Amy Reeder is going to have a lot to live up to, although I get the feeling she'll be great, if a little more conventional.

[mrstatham]

I think her skin is actually meant to be that colour. It's goth pale, but I don't find it offputting - there's plenty of images of Dita Von Teese, for instance, where she's nearly as pale. And I wouldn't be surprised if she was the one who Williams III got some inspiration from there, given the design notes for Seven Soldiers specify Dita as inspiration for that series version of Zatanna, although Ryan Sook apparently didn't get the memo there.

[mrstatham]

Not really. In 52, she looked ordinary. Rucka, I think, tried the explanation that her experiences in 52 caused her new look, but then she was pale in Go, so... yeah. Retconned.

[pyrotwilight]

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

XD

[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.

[silverzeo]

Uhhh,, why is Kate all pale again?

[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.