The character of Batwoman was originally conceived by Bob Kane in the 50’s as Katherine Kane, heiress to the second largest fortune in Gotham and nighttime vigilante Batwoman in response to a growing public belief that Bruce Wayne and Batman was homosexual. She was intended to be his female counterpart, his romantic interest and his guarantee to the less tolerant populous that Batman was interested in the opposite sex. After some time, due to declining sales, her character was phased out of continuing Batman comics and became a vault property for DC comics.

The modern incarnation of Batwoman was re-introduced during the series “52” as a former romantic interest for Renee Montoya, Gotham City detective. In the series, she worked with Montoya and The Question to help fight Intergang. She later was kidnapped and summarily rescued by Montoya who had now taken up the mantle of The Question. During the conflict with Intergang, Kane was critically injured and was very nearly used in a sacrificial ritual to complete a prophecy from the “Crime Bible”, a plot point that followed her through Elegy.

Despite her appearances in both 52 and Final Crisis, the comic that got me and I assume most readers interested in her character again was Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams’ III run on Detective Comics (issue 854 to 861) which is my main focus here. In it, Katherine Kane once again faces off against the 13 covens of the Crime Syndicate, The Religion of Crime, and transforming monsters that are the True Believers. The book jumps back and forth between time periods, from the current where Batwoman is fighting Alice and the True Believers to her distant past and being raised by her father up through her time at the United States Military Academy, her rebellious years following her separation from the academy, and ultimately her decision to become Batwoman. As Batwoman, Kane uses her family’s excessive wealth (a character point unchanged from the original incarnation) to create her own bat lair and her father, an Army Lieutenant Colonel, becomes her version of Alfred, operating her command center, acquiring her equipment from his military connections and helping Katherine to train under his various special ops connections.

As far as comics go, this is one of the most beautiful comics I’ve ever seen. J.H. Williams is at the top of his game and is putting out some inspired work here. Page construction is beautiful, the changing art styles to fit the setting of the story are clear and distinct, and the action sequences are dynamic and powerful. Williams also draws some extremely emotional and visceral sequences such as the reveal of Kathy Kane’s tragic past in issue 858.

A big part of the interest in Batwoman has been due to her sexual orientation. Back in 2006 when it was announced that they were reviving the character, DC announced that she was going to be lesbian and a romantic interest for another DC hero and she became the highest profile homosexual character in DC comics at the time. Kane is portrayed in the comic as a openly rebellious woman who is as secretive about her personal life as she is about her Batwoman identity. She is challenged many times for her beliefs and belittled as they are called a spectacle and her acting out as a reaction to the tragedy in her past but she holds to her convictions in a strong representation of inequality and homosexual pride. As Batwoman, her costume is very sexualized (modest in comparison to someone like Power Girl, though) which has led to a bit of criticism from LGBT groups who complain that lesbianism is always portreyed with a straight-male interest in mind, however, Rucka and Williams focus the story in such a way that her sexuality becomes a non-issue when she is in costume.

Since Rucka’s run, and possibly due to the declining sales of Detective Comics following Grant Morrison’s run, Batwoman has been given a much lower profile, playing sidekick to Dick and Damian in Batman & Robin and being not much more than a plot device otherwise. However, with the onset of Batman Incorporated this week, it is very likely that she will be given a higher profile as the Batman organization expands to cover more area. I would like to see her character to be given an ongoing because she is strong enough to carry it, but opposition and lack of interest may be too much for her own ongoing to survive.

You can find Greg Rucka on Twitter here. Rucka’s website is www.gregrucka.com. Williams’s website is www.jhwilliams3.com

NEWS IN COMICS:

» Hawkeye has been given another series for Marvel execs to cancel.
» “The Wolverine” is the title for the next Wolverine movie. Hugh Jackman will return and it will be directed by Darren Aronofsky.
» Batman is getting a love interest and a villain. It could be two of these six ladies: Anne Hathaway, Keira Knightley, Blake Lively, Natalie Portman, Naomi Watts and Rachel Weisz.
» Superheroes are coming the the world of Fables.
» So…Carnage looks awful in the Spider-Man musical. Did anybody not see this coming?
» Somebody, somewhere, is making an Incredible Hulk porn. Let that thought sink in for a second.
» The Age of X has a lot of new-ish mutants. Where do they keep coming from?
» War of the Green Lanterns is coming next year. I’m just getting a little bored of it all.
» Cowboy Ninja Viking is going on a hiatus for the creators to work on other projects. I hope it comes back.
» The much-hyped “Death of Spider-Man” is actually the Ultimates incarnation of him.
» If you didn’t know. Top Cow’s Pilot Season comics are free online at http://graphic.ly/.

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK:

DC:
Batman Incorporated #1
Batman: The Return #1
Brightest Day #14
Flash #6
Green Lantern #59
Green Lantern Corphs #54
Northlanders #34
Zatanna #7

Marvel:
Avengers #7
Daken: Dark Wolverine #2
Osborn #1
Spider-Girl
Superior #2 (of 6)
X-23 #3
X-Factor #211
X-Men #5

Other:
Astounding Wolf-Man #25
R.P.M. #1 (of 4)
Stan Lee’s Soldier Zero #2

– Mike

The failure of most zombie stories seems to lie in the medium: brevity required by the movies, imagination required by novels to convey the horrific images that the author has in mind, and, in general, a lack of new ideas or a poor execution of the zombie story. In recent years, zombies as a monster have become increasingly popular, but in order to increase the terror, writers often give them extra abilities which, in my opinion, are a sometimes lazy divergence from George Romero’s modern conception of the zombie.

Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate the rage-fueled madmen from 28 Days Later, the super powered killing machines in the Left 4 Dead games, or any of the other zombie stories where dying doesn’t seem to be much of a hindrance to the physical acumen of the dead (i.e. Zombieland, Dawn of the Dead (2004), Slither). [REC•] was a terrifying movie, but one that I never felt could truly be called a zombie flick. I’ve always been of the opinion that once you’re dead, you shouldn’t be able to run faster than or even as fast as someone who is very pointedly not dead. Zombies should not be a human that is simply physically deformed in some awful way; they should be, as Miracle Max would say “mostly dead.”

In The Walking Dead, a comic started in late 2003, Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard have overcome the greatest obstacles of creating a great zombie story. Through the medium of comics, Adlard (initially Tony Moore) can display the raw visuals of horror, isolation and desperation while Kirkman masterfully scripts a story about the limitations of an individual, how much someone can sacrifice, and what it means to be human. The story is sometimes sensational (understandably…it is about zombies) but it is also frighteningly believable. Also, because of the episodic format and the relative ease with which comics are made, they are not bound to a story of any certain length, just as long as they can continue creating. To quote Kirkman himself,

“But one of the things that always bugged me about those movies is that they always end. You get to know the characters, you’re kind of invested in them, and then they run out of time, and there’s some kind of moment that happens, whether it’s a biker gang showing up or some other bad thing happening that kind of wraps the story up. And I got to thinking, “What if the story doesn’t wrap up abruptly? What if we get to follow these people, and see them try and live long-term in this zombie world?”

It does not stretch the imagination quite as much as I’d like to believe that humans are capable of some of the evils and desperate efforts taken in the comic to survive in a world where your neighbor can easily be your next enemy. Kirkman has crafted the story not as a story of monsters, but one of humans pushed to the edge of belief and how those humans push back.

The story revolves around a small group of survivors of the initial zombie outbreak. The main character, Rick Grimes, was a cop who was shot and put into a minor coma before everything went to hell. He wakes up from his coma to find himself alone and confused and begins his quest to find out the why and how to survive. (NOTE: This is a point of contention for Robert Kirkman as he addressed in the Q&A in the back of issue number #4 and in an interview with GQ as the idea for him waking up from the coma was written for the comic before 28 Day Later came out in theatres.) He eventually meets with a motley group of people outside of Atlanta and they begin their trek to find some form of stable life. The zombies in The Walking Dead are nothing short of a force of nature, indiscriminate in their destructive path. They act just as a virus: unpredictable, virulent, and damn hard to kill.

I loved reading pretty much everything of Robert Kirkman’s that I’ve come across. Invincible is one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve found in the last few years and books like Haunt and The Astounding Wolf-Man, while not his best work, are solid titles. I have much less exposure to Charlie Adlard’s work because I’m generally not a fan of the less detailed, more exaggerated style of art that he used over at 2000 A.D. but I’ve recently picked up some issues of Savage and was surprisingly pleased. The man knows how to draw some brutal action. The tv series seems to be fairly close to the books from what I can tell. There are going to be some moments that they just can’t do on television, understandably enough, but for the most part AMC is very forgiving when it comes to violence in their shows and there won’t be much cut. The hard adjustment is going to be watching all of these characters interact in color.

Make no mistake about this series, though, when you start reading it. No character is safe and you’re going to need quite a lot of comforting after some of the more gruesome points. You have been warned.

The Walking Dead premieres on AMC on Halloween at 10/9C You can read the rest of the exorbitantly long GQ Walking Dead Article here.

– Mike