Batwoman #0 – Review

by J.H. Williams III (writer/artist), W. Haden Blackman (co-writer), Amy Reeder (artist: Kate sequence), Dave Stewart (colors), Todd Klein (letters)

The Story: Bruce Wayne spends time observing, assessing and testing the newest, self-appointed member of the Bat family.

What’s Good: Regular readers of this site will know that I am a HUGE fan of both J.H. Williams III and Batwoman/Kate Kane, and that I’ve been anticipating this book since well before it was even officially announced. With that amount of waiting and hoping (not to mention the bar set by Williams and Rucka’s Detective Comics run) the disappointment potential on this series is relatively high. Not that I was terribly worried—J3’s hands are about the safest you could be asked to be placed in—but the loss of Greg Rucka as a writer is still a big one. Fortunately, this issue delivers in spades, and is 99% exactly what I wanted from this issue #0.

The artwork, it goes without saying, is absolutely gorgeous. And that’s not just Williams’ pages either; Reeder’s Kate Kane pages are very nice indeed, and quite reminiscent of Williams’ own “real world” pages from Detective Comics. The overall design of the book is absolutely brilliant too, divided nearly evenly between Bruce observing Batwoman by day, and Kate Kane by night. Additionally, while the art and design meets the bar that made Detective Comics so brilliant, it contains none of the interstitial panels that made following the story occasionally more difficult than it needed to be.

What’s Not So Good: While this issue does do a good job of introducing (or re-introducing, as the case may be) us to Kate Kane and Batwoman, it does so entirely from outside of herself. While I love the ‘Batman observation’ angle, we see only Bruce’s observations and thoughts on her. And while that does tell us a lot, I think the issue would have been even stronger had we been able to hear a bit from the woman herself, in her own words. This is especially true since Greg Rucka—who is, of course, no longer writing the character—gave her such a distinct and powerful voice. I’m a little miffed that I have to wait until issue #1 in February to find out how Williams is going to handle it.

Conclusion: An extremely strong beginning for Batwoman and her new title. While this issue had much more dependence on Batman than I’d have liked, the writing and especially the artwork is still top-notch. Everything about it demands a buy, and a preorder of issue #1.

Grade: A-

-SoldierHawk