COMICS IN THE CAN- Episode IV (Batwoman #27)

COMICS IN THE CAN
I used to have time to read my comics in a coffee shop. Now I have to read them in the bathroom. Then I write reviews of them. I wash my hands in between.

BATWOMAN #27

Wolf Spider? Really?

Wolf Spider.

Ok, hang on, we'll get to that. Yes, the first comic from the Big 2 I'm reviewing is Batwoman. No, it's not my favorite superhero title. It's not even my favorite DC comic, probably not even in my top ten. But it is, yes, one of the books my Very Special Lady likes to read from my pile every month. So, dear reader, see my last review for why that's an important thing to uphold.

Just gonna come out and say what everyone is thinking that we all thought as soon as the news came out but have been confirmed on since it happened: Batwoman has not been very good since JH Williams III and W. Haden Blackman left. It's been mostly all over the place. Disjointed and meandering. I get that the new team will need a little time to get themselves on the same page (so to speak). But come on. Wolf Spider? That's what you lead with out of the gate? Maybe there's more to this character that has yet to be revealed, but right now he's just a mercenary burglar that doses his victims with some sort of hallucinogen then knocks them out of windows. Which is exactly what happened in issue 26.

We pick up issue 27 in midair with our heroine plummeting to her death from the above referenced window. Miraculously, on the way down, she has a serious and lengthy hallucinogenic experience that pretty much covers all the fears/ inadequacies/ mistakes/ disapproving father figures from her life in the time it takes her to fall 40 or 50 stories. A long, strange trip, indeed.

But, of course, being the strong woman in control of her emotions (also the title character) she gets it together enough to aim for an awning with some convenient trash bags below it. Wolf Spider escapes and has a rendezvous with his/her mysterious employer. Batwoman stumbles back to the apartment she's sharing with some woman and her tween kid ( I honestly was so annoyed by Wolf Spider during last issue I didn't pay attention to what this domestic arrangement is all about) and painfully pulls off all her costume pieces/ body armor and strews them about the apartment such that her roommate's Belieber child easily finds them and begins screaming at the top of her lungs in the middle of the night. So the roommate wakes up to see what Hannah Montana is screaming about and there's Kate Kane half naked and beat all to hell. CLIFFHANGER.

I mean, it wasn't ALL bad. The trip illustrations were cool and effective and different enough from the non-trip art to keep me ensconced.

I'm gonna continue to give this book a chance and for the new crew to figure it out. Not just because it's in my own best interests to keep my Very Special Lady in the comics she likes, but hey, it's a Batman book about a red haired lipstick lesbian. 

My three most favorite things in the world.