By Daniel Vlasaty
I’ll admit I’m not all that familiar with Batwoman as a character. I’ve read a few things with her and I know the gist of her origin and past, and this book is basically just a recap of all of that. Page by page, little flashes of Kate Kane’s life. Leading up to her becoming Batwoman. It’s interesting and has me intrigued to keep reading but that’s all that there really was with this issue. The last page reveal has me decently excited to check out the next issue.
This issue is kind of hard to review, because it wasn’t either good or bad. It just felt like a montage of some of the things in Kate Kane’s life that lead to her becoming Batwoman. It felt like an extended prologue
There is a lot of material to work with though that makes for a good origin story. When she was a kid, she was kidnapped with her sister and her mother and they were both murdered. She enlisted in the army to follow in her dad’s footsteps but was kicked out while still a cadet for being gay.
That’s all here in this issue, these flashes of her life, but there’s not much else to see.
The writing’s decent enough, even though there’s not much of a story. But that’s how it is with these Rebirth #1s, they’re all set-up. They are used so readers can play catch-up with the characters.
They’re great jumping on points for new readers. And this issue is no different. Like I said, I didn’t know much about Kate Kane or Batwoman, and this issue just gave me a crash course. So, I guess it did its job. It got me interested in the things to come is Batwoman’s new on-going series.
The art, much like my overall feelings on the issue in general, was good but not great. It didn’t blow my away. One thing I did think was great, though, were the layouts toward the end of the issue, when she was training and becoming Batwoman. They’re montage-y and cluttered in a good way, with images blending into one another. And there’s one page, which is my favorite in the issue, where on top it’s Batwoman with her team from Detective Comics (Spoiler, Orphan, Clayface, and Red Robin), and on the bottom of the page it’s just the bottom half of her smiling face in the Batwoman symbol.
I am excited to check out the rest of Batwoman’s series (and I’ll probably even go back, now, and read some of her past stuff), but I would say that if you’re super caught up on what she’s been up to, you could probably skip this issue and be totally fine when the next one comes out.
Score: 3/5
Batwoman: Rebirth #1
Writers: Marguerite Bennett & James Tynion IV
Artist: Steve Epting
Colorist: Jeromy Cox
Publisher: DC Comics