Batwoman vol 1 the many Arms of Death by Marguerite Bennett, James Tynion IV, Steve Epting, Stephanie Hans, Renato Arlem

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher. This review was embargoed by the publisher until today's date of publication

While I enjoy the Marvel and DC comics super hero movies, I have a harder time with the comic books which originated these same heroes. Part of that problem is in the way the female characters are hyper-sexualized. I don't believe this is productive and it certainly isn't appreciated. The movies do great without it, so why do the comic books cling to it so desperately? It's not remotely necessary.

Batgirl (as Bat-girl) has been around since 1961, and Batwoman appeared even earlier, in 1956. It's a shame then that neither of these has made it to the big screen, a brief appearance in the old Batman TV show notwithstanding. I was thrilled to learn that Joss Whedon will write, direct and produce a Batgirl film and even more thrilled that it will be based on Gail Simone's comic book work. Unfortunately there's nothing on the roster for a Batgirl movie the DC Extended Universe before 2021 at least so, although schedules can change, it looks like we have to wait a while for that!

This is one reason why I was pleased to read this graphic novel with writing by Marguerite Bennett and James Tynion IV, and art by Steve Epting, Stephanie Hans, and Renato Arlem, so we have at least one female writer and a female artist involved, and it shows. I was hoping for something a bit better than your usual fare and thankfully, I got it with this.

With the roaring success of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, which had some strong female characters, I was hoping for female super heroes from that world to arrive in its wake. Batwoman would have seemed like an obvious follow-up, but instead DC seems to have opted for more Batman movies instead. Until we get Batman's female counterpart on the screen, we have the graphic novels, and that's why I think it's critical that we get more like this one.

In a very small way, this is an origin story, but the origin is conveyed in a series of touching single frame images with a palette as red as Kate Kane's hair: Kate at age nine, shooting a bow, at twenty in the military, and at twenty-seven crashing into the frame as Batwoman. But something is missing, and this crashes into the story on the next pages. A car is rammed by a truck, parents and a child are kidnapped, a mom dead. Next, Kate is depicted in unarmed combat at West Point. It's all disjointed, as is Kate.

Because of this disjunction, I had, I confess, a bit of a hard time getting into the story, but it found its footing quickly - or I did, one or the other! There is a new drug on the street: Monster Venom - and it can literally do what its name says: turn people into monsters. In order to fight it, Batwoman finds that she has to revisit one of her own points of origin: the island of Coryana in the Mediterranean. Here she confronts more than just her past.

This novel contains not only the expected - and hoped for - action scenes, it also carries with it a journey into memory and pain, disillusionment and determination. And Batwoman proves equal to what's asked of her, even to the female villain who is like a breath of fresh air as villains go. I'd like to see more of her.

It's reassuring to know there's someone we can count on, especially since Batwoman seems to have her head together more than Batman does despite her traumatic history and self-doubt. I liked this story and I recommend it. The story not only works, it's intelligent and has depth, and the art and coloring, by Jeromy Cox and Adriano Lucas not only complement the story all the way, they bring it to visual life. I look forward to more stories like this one. Hopefully we won't have to wait on Joss Whedon to get them!

Batgirl Volume 4 Wanted by Gail Simone and Marguerite Bennett

Title: Batgirl Volume 4 Wanted
Author: Gail Simone and Marguerite Bennett
Publisher: Warner Bros (DC Comics)
Rating: WARTY!

Penciling: Fernando Pasarin.
Inking: Jonathan Glapion.
Coloring: Blond and Brett Smith.

This and the other graphic novel I'm reviewing today are probably the last DC comics I'll be reading and also coincidentally constitute the last of the graphics which I was denied a chance to read in advance review copy form. The publishers can deny you an early look, but they can't prevent you completely from reading and reviewing a book you've set your mind on!

This one beautifully presented and colored, in hardback with glossy pages and really great art work, but that's only a part of a graphic novel. The other part is story, and this one made little sense. Note that in saying that, I'm coming into this at volume four, having not read the previous three, but although this story proceeds out of the previous three volumes, it's not so obscure that you can't get into it and figure out what's been going on. While there are some notable exceptions, comic books after all, are not known for being deep!

Whenever you're reading a super hero story you have to let some things slide by or give up. Obviously there are no "meta-humans" in real life, and no vigilantes in the sense intended here, so you have to take that as a given going in. The problem isn't that per se, it's what's done with that premise which makes or breaks a good graphic story. It's for this reason that I've never been a fan of either Batman or Superman. I give the links in my blog because I think it's hilarious that the two characters are illustrated in wikipedia (as of this writing) in images showing almost exactly the same macho pose, but facing in opposite directions, like they're book-ends or like they're in confrontation depending on how you juxtapose them!

For me, these two characters make little sense at their very root, and while that lack of sense may have managed a passing grade in 1933 and 1939 respectively, it's not nearly adequate in 2015. I loved the Christopher Nolan movie trilogy, which rose above any routine issues I might have with the concept for Batman, but Superman has always failed with me, and comics have consistently failed to dig them out of their holes too.

Coming into this, and having enjoyed the Birds of Prey TV show, which features two of my favorite actors in lead roles, I was hoping for something good and cool - and different from the Batman world - especially given that the writers are female (which itself is something that's scarce in the comic book world). What I got was pretty much standard boilerplate comic book which any guy might have come up with. I was disappointed.

The story begins with The Ventriloquist, which was mildly amusing since I only just got through watching a Hercule Poirot TV show yesterday which featured a ventriloquist as the villain! There is no back-story (in this edition) for this character, and I'm not familiar with her, so while she was intriguing and interesting, she lacked substance, especially since she rapidly disappeared from the story never to be heard from again. Plus her weirdly morphing powers were rather weird to me.

That was like a prologue, I'm not a fan of prologues, but after this, the main body of the story took off with a vengeance, focusing on the angst Batgirl was facing after having taken action to save her mother which resulted in the death of her brother. Note that both Barbara Gordon and her brother are the children of the venerable police commissioner Gordon, but what Gordon doesn't know is that Barbara is Batgirl. She even tries to unveil herself to him, but Gordon, who wants Batgirl dead, turns his back, refusing to learn who she really is.

This is one of the things which made no absolutely no sense, but what makes less sense is that Gordon, who is obviously intimately familiar with his daughter's face, and who is very familiar with Batgirl's face having seen it numerous times, has failed to figure it out for himself. Barbara Gordon has long red hair and so does Batgirl, and her cowl fails to hide her eyes and the lower part of her face. How could he not figure it out?!

This is on par with no one grasping that Superman and Clark Kent are the same when the only "difference" between then is a pair of eyeglasses and a comma of hair. It's utterly nonsensical. But that's not as nonsensical as the flat refusal on the part of both Batman and Superman, to actually help the police. Both these guys, and particularly Batman, have access to technology and methods which could really aid police investigations and crime prevention if the so-called heroes were willing to share the technology and train the police, but neither of them ever does. instead they selfishly keep it to themselves, arrogantly assuming that they're the only ones fit to use it! This could be viewed as obstruction of justice!

Obviously other heroes do this same thing - for example, Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four comes readily to mind - and if they did this they'd be a lot less special in many regards - particularly Batman whose entire existence is predicated upon his superior training and technology, since he has no super powers. Again this is one of the things you must let slide if you want to enjoy the comic.

There were issues with this issue, such as the stereotypical hooligans in the mall who harass Barbara when she's out shopping (for shoes), because clearly all guys who wear spiked hair are closet rapists! There's a lot of gore and blood splatter. There's way too much angst, but that's stock-in-trade for comics books. In one instance this is hilarious because it looks like Barbara is crying ink - her tears are black! At first I thought this was some horrible seepage from her eyes caused by something which some super-villain had done to her, but it was just tears and artistic license.

The closing scenes when she and Daddy Gordon are running from super-villains (does Batman ever run from villains? I'm not in a position to comment, but it seemed odd), were simply not credible given what had come before. The interactions between them made both characters look like idiots and the whole failed "Hey dad, it's me, Barbara!" dénouement made Batgirl look weak, clueless and totally ineffectual. So overall, I can't recommend this. Aside from the art work, which was remarkable, there really was nothing heroic about this story. Marguerite Bennett's contribution was a really odd story at the end which had nothing to do with anything that had gone before. It wasn't entertaining to me.