Book: “Batwoman (Vol.2): To Drown the World” by J.H. Williams III, W. Haden Blackman, Trevor McCarthy (Ill.), Rob Hunter (Ill.), Pere Pérez (Ill.), Richard Friend (Ill.), and Guy Major (Ill.)
Publishing Info: DC Comics, January 2013
Where Did I Get this Book: The library!
Book Description from Goodreads: Six lives, inextricably linked in the past and present, each on a collision course with the others: Batwoman, fighting for duty and vengeance against a threat of arcane power. Detective Maggie Sawyer, investigating a case that could end her career. DEO Agent Cameron Chase, commanding a vigilante she despises. Colonel Jacob Kane, clutching at a life that’s slipping away. Maro, a new villain corrupting Gotham City. And Kate Kane, wrestling with decisions that will test her loyalties.
J.H. Williams III and W Haden Blackman continue their stellar BATWOMAN run, joined by senational artists Amy Reeder and Trevor McCarthy! Collects BATWOMAN #6-11!
Review: We’re going back to Gotham, folks, and we are still ignoring the obvious Caped Crusader in favor of his female, lesbian counterpart. I am, of course, talking about Kate Kane, also known as Batwoman. We’d left her off at something of a crossroads, as she had joined a group called the D.E.O., whose goal is to take down another secretive group called Medusa. Medusa has been kidnapping children in Gotham, and Batwoman hopes to find them and return them home…. And then there’s Maggie Sawyer, Kate’s lover who is a detective for the Gotham police department… And then there’s Jacob, Kate’s father, who is keeping vigil by his niece Bette, who is in a coma after her stint as Firebird went awry… AND THEN there’s Maro, an agent working for Medusa, who is doing a lot of the kidnapping dirty work….
What I’m getting at here is that there are a lot of perspectives. Specifically, six. With jumping timeframes and scenarios that told the story out of order, or deviated from the story completely to keep tabs on other past stories! And that was a bit much to follow, if I am being quite honest. Just as I would be getting into one perspective, we’d suddenly jump to another one, which made it very hard for me to get invested in any of the storylines that were being presented. Not to mention that I would find myself having to go back and remind myself what the linear progressions were so that the stories would make sense in the end. It felt like most of my time was spent turning pages back to remind myself just where I was in the plot, and then have to skip back AGAIN to remind myself of how we got to THAT point in the first place.
And the biggest problem with this was that it took a lot of the focus off of Batwoman herself. I am reading this because I want to know what is going on with Kate Kane. Sure, it’s nice getting some background on what Medusa’s endgame is, or what the D.E.O is thinking in regards to the whole situation, but not nice enough to keep on hammering it into the plot line like a puzzle piece that just doesn’t quite fit, no matter how hard you try to make it fit.
There are positives though. I really enjoyed the use of Urban Legends in the origins of the Medusa plans. As a huge fan of stories like The Man with the Hook and Bloody Mary, it was super neat to see them thrown into this story and given a neat and creepy little twist. Plus, the art continues to be absolutely gorgeous, with vibrant and bright colors and stark, dour shades of grey and black. This matches the tone to this series quite well, as it’s mostly very dark and edgy, with moments of sweetness and light, specifically between Kate and Maggie. Normally I am the first to complain about the darker tones and grittier stories that some of the DC Universe has applied to it’s stories. But I feel that it works really well for Batwoman, if only because it’s a deliberate contrast to what she was when she was first created in the 1960s. To go from a glamorous and somewhat incompetent love interest to a tough and complicated crime fighter in her own right, the darkness and edge suits Kate Kane very well, and I’m glad that she has the chance to explore it.
I’m going to hope that things go a bit better in the next volume, and that the perspectives die down a bit. Just get back to Kate.
Rating 5: The origins of the villains was very original and the art is still gorgeous, but the story gets muddled with too many perspectives.
Reader’s Advisory:
“Batwoman (Vol.2): To Drown the World” is included in these Goodreads lists: “The New 52” and “Fantasy and Sci-Fi Featuring Lesbian Characters”
Find “Batwoman (Vol.2): To Drown the World” at your library using WorldCat!
Previous Reviews of “Batwoman”: “Hydrology”
The Library Ladies 