The Batmom

Batwoman 11

Batwoman Battles Maro the Shapeshifter on the cover of #11

COVERGIRL: Just shy of loving it. Full-on love the pale green python circling the action and the red-and-white-film-negative look on the right, but the monstrous face looks cheap. If that makes sense. Everything is as sharp and crisp as a new dollar bill except Sir/Madam Melty. Perhaps that’s the point. Let’s flip it open. 

INSIDE STORY: Sir Melty. The skully melt-head is Maro, or is it Sune, or is Sune Maro and Maro Sune, or are they everyone or at least a lot of someones?

The last one. Sort of. Maro is a shapeshifter. He’s also, thanks to Falchion’s demise, leader of the subterranean band of creepy misfits plaguing Gotham. He sets his freak minions to the task of smiting Batwoman and the rest of the city and delivers Gotham’s kidnapped children to a scaly green She named Mitera.

Batwoman battles the creepy misfits, saving her DEO partner Agent Chase in the process. But because Batwoman stopped Chase from killing Maro/Sune, Chase thinks she’s a traitor and tells Detective Sawyer the same. As Batwoman watches Chase and Sawyer from afar, she vows she will save the children.

Also, Kate pushes her relationship with Sawyer forward, sharing pictures of her dead mother, dead sister, and estranged father. Sawyer does the same, revealing she has a daughter she lost in a custody battle.

Also, with some encouragement from Uncle Jake, Bette Kane wakes up!

RAMBLE: Beautiful issue. Art art art let’s talk about the art: the contrast between Batwoman’s black + fire red and Maro’s nighttime-teal + black; the similarities (significant?) between Maro’s palette and that of Undersea Chase; the spread with sea-green Llorona and her tsunami shriek splitting the Batwoman-saves-Chase segments; the page immediately following, all oily blacks and ocean blue-green.

While I admire Batwoman’s character and enjoy the (often overstuffed) story, I go ga-ga for the book’s art. Bonkers gaga. Lady Bonkers Gaga Overtired Overcaffeinated Batmom Getting Silly for the Art.

Also, not sure why, but this issue I kept noticing the cool sound words. (Is a word onomatopoetic if it’s mimicking a sound but isn’t a proper word? They are:

SKEECH • SKIRCH • RRRMMMBBBLEBBBLE • RRRUUUMMMBBLLE • BAKOW • THUNK • KKRRINNGGK • DRNNGHKSHOOM • THOOOTH

WHO THE HELL ARE THESE PEOPLE?

Kate Kane: Survived a brutal kidnapping by terrorists that killed her mother and turned her sister into a crazy villain. West Point student, expelled under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Dating Detective Sawyer.

Batwoman: Kate’s awesome superhero alter-ego. Currently working with Agent Chase and the DEO, who will arrest Kate's dad if she doesn’t help them.

DEO: Department of Extranormal Operations

Jake Kane: Kate’s dad and military big-wig. Kate won’t talk to him, though he’ll talk to her. He's been sitting vigil at Bette's bedside for several issues.

Bette Kane/Flamebird: Kate’s cousin/Batwoman’s mentee, member of Teen Titans/tennis star. Has been unconscious for several issues.

Agent Cameron Chase: DEO agent. Currently working with Batwoman.

Detective Sawyer: Police detective. Kate’s love interest.

Falchion: Medusa kingpin. Dresses like a Roman centurion. Recently slain.

Llorona: Cursed ghost of an alcoholic mother whose children drowned; unwilling serving Medusa/Maro

Maro: Medusa second-in-command-turned-first-in-command.

Medusa: Mysterious, evil organization.

Sune: Mid-level Medusa management now working for DEO; sister of Maro

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

Batwoman is trying to bring down Medusa, a vile organization presumably responsible for kidnapping numerous Gotham children. 

Night of the Owls: 4Days4Posts

Owls have overtaken Gotham; not the ubiquitous owls that were to 2011 what whales were to 1981, but superhuman strigiformes hyperfocused on their prey. DC set the owls loose across 11 books in May, including Batgirl and Catwoman. I fell for the ploy talon, line and sinker and bought all 11.

And LOVED THEM. I want more books. I want a movie. I want Nightwing to come save me next time my cat brings me a live mouse in bed. 

So much good stuff happened, I’m going to split up into four posts: This One, Inside Story, Ramble, and Cool Art, which will be all pictures in part because there are so many of them you need to see, and in part because by then I’ll need to take a writing break and catch up on my Scramble with Friends backlog.

CBV Reads Batwoman #7

COVERGIRL: Nice angle, positioning readers close to the bad guy’s face, smashed into the glass floor of a submarine. Like my kids making pig noses on car windows. But violent.

 Can almost hear the “oof” leaking out from between his thuggish lips.

 Also, Batwoman’s orange isn’t Batwoman Orange anymore. Amy Reeder Hadley joined the team a few issues back; maybe she’s responsible? Or perhaps its simply because the colors pale when viewed through seawater? In any case, I miss Batwoman Orange, on fierce display on the cover of issue #1, to your right.

INSIDE STORY: 7 repeats the organizational concept of 6, divvying the book up by character. And for each character, a bullet:

• Jake Kane continues his bedside vigil, talking to his coma-swaddled niece Bette about his twin girls Beth and Kate, the former full of energy, the latter possessing marked determination. Beth is now dead. Kate is now a superhero.

• Batwoman’s daytime persona Kate is enjoying a chi-chi sushi date with Detective Maggie Sawyer when, mid-maki, she spots Abbott the Werebeast skulking outside the restaurant. (Aside: Abbot bears a passing resemblance to Fables’ Bigby.) Villain cartel Medusa is trying to run him out of town. Abbott offers to help Kate run Medusa out of town, but Kate calls him “freaky” and returns to Sawyer. Not sure of the backstory, but Kate’s being a rudey. At our house we keep a “positive points” chart, and Ms. Kane will NOT be earning any today.

• A week after her fancy Kate-date, Detective Sawyer swat-teams into a Medusa-den and captures Sune, sister of Maro, Medusa’s second in command.

• A minute later, Agent Chase (who I view as Sawyer-competition, though she has yet to reveal a fondness for Kate or, for that matter, humanity) orders Batwoman to retrieve Sune for the DEO.

• Batwoman does not pursue Sune, but instead takes on Medusa kingpin Falchion and his army of horror-movie freaks, including a fiercely goofy killer crocodile with the most awesome name of Waylon Jones. Bloody Mary also is especially striking, having crawled off the set of Carrie and arrived in Gotham with fiercely manicured red claws, all the better to pierce you with, my dear.

RAMBLE: Visually creative, especially the opening pages where Batwoman physically addresses the clawed thug who gutted her cousin Bette. Each character’s section features a distinct set of colors and presentation style: “Chase’s story” looks very clinical, while “Kate’s Story” presents our heroine as a bright spot in an otherwise drab daytime Gotham.

Whenever Chase appears, I worry for Kate’s relationship with Maggie Sawyer, though neither Kate nor Chase has given me any reason to fret. However, Chase beats Maggie in the hots department; she’s a sharp-dressed drag-ging Madonna to Sawyer’s middle-aged state senator. Not suggesting Kate go for the looker, just wondering what the creators are saying about each character. This is a visual medium, and I’m paying attention.

Favorite sequence comes at comic’s end. Supremely cinematic – all the horror-show freaks zombie-stepping towards Batwoman and Batwoman verbally tossing them aside:

“This is just getting ridiculous. Falchion! Let’s get on with it!”

WHO THE HELL ARE THESE PEOPLE?

Kate Kane: Survived a brutal kidnapping by terrorists that killed her mother and turned her sister into a crazy villain. West Point student, expelled under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Dating Detective Sawyer.

Batwoman: Kate’s awesome superhero alter-ego. Currently working with Agent Chase and the DEO, who will arrest her dad if she doesn’t help them.

DEO: Department of Extranormal Operations

Jake Kane: Kate’s dad and military big-wig. Kate won’t talk to him, though he’ll talk to her.

Bette Kane/Flamebird: Kate’s cousin/Batwoman’s mentee, member of Teen Titans/tennis star. Currently unconscious.

Agent Cameron Chase: DEO agent. Currently working with Batwoman.

Detective Sawyer: Police detective. Kate’s love interest.

Falchion: Medusa kingpin. Dresses like a Roman centurion.

Maro: Medusa second-in-command

Medusa: Mysterious, evil organization.

Sune: Mid-level Medusa management; sister of Maro

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

A slew of Gotham children are missing; presumably napped by a vile organization called Medusa. Batwoman/Kate Kane was prepared to seek Medusa and the missing children alone, but is now working with Agent Chase of the DEO after Chase threatened her father Jake. Police Detective Sawyer is also on the case, and is dating Kate. Kate’s cousin Bette, aka Teen Titan Flamebird, has been knocked unconscious by a bad guy with a hook, who turns out to be one of Falchion’s minions.