Broken Frontier

The tides of Gotham begin to pull Kate Kane under.

For all of Kate Kane’s training and preparation, Gotham City is beginning to drown Batwoman.  Not only is the Department of Extranomal Operations actively inching closer to Batwoman’s identity, but La Llorna, or The Weeping Woman, continues on her murderous drowning rampage.  Though the focus is primarily on Batwoman, much of Batwoman #2 is in fact carried by supporting characters like DEO Agent Cameron Chase and Gotham PD Detective Sawyer, with Batwoman observing the two dissecting a horrific and bloody crime scene.  While Kate’s page count may lack in numbers, her character work at the hands of cowriters J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman is spectacular; Kate’s personality as a self-reliant and powerful woman and hero has never been clearer, demonstrated by her recalcitrance to joining the Dark Knight’s Batman, Inc.  Her tenacity and daring choices may, however, prove to be her undoing.

As to be expected, Batwoman is not only known for respectful and admiring character work, but by J.H. Williams’ convention-destroying art.  Among the numerous, gorgeous, and most of all purposeful double-page spreads, two sequences easily stand out among the rest.  The first is a top-down look onto the gory and bloody result of a human-on-monster battle.  The sequence is an amazing look into the masterful knowledge Williams has over perspective and staging; countless angles, points of view, and perspectives are all interconnected, and that is merely the staging of the scene.  The spread also features Detective Sawyer and Agent Chase as they vie for control of the scene through intermittent and creatively structured panels.   The following spread, littered with remnants of human and monstrous limbs, follows Sawyer as she recreates the battle from beginning to end, which perfectly captures her logical and deductive thought process.

 W. Haden Blackman and J.H. Williams are carefully building up Batwoman and possibly sending her on a collision course with a human or paranormal enemy, either of which has the ability to destroy her.  Batwoman #2 is another fantastic entry into the saga of Kate Kane, with both solid character work and amazing art again setting the standard for the genre.