TITLE: Batwoman: Elegy
AUTHOR: Greg Rucka
ARTIST: J.H. Williams III
COLLECTS: Detective Comics #854-860
FORMAT: Hardcover
PUBLISHER: DC Comics
RELEASE DATE: June 30

By Rob Siebert
Editor, Fanboy Wonder

Now this is good stuff, ladies and gentlemen.

Batwoman, Kate Kane, Greg Rucka, J.H. Williams III, and pretty much everybody associated with the seven issues of content in this book come out shining like they just took a bath with Mr. Clean.

This incarnation of Batwoman made mainstream media headlines shortly before her debut in 2005, as Greg Rucka had created her as a lesbian. She appeared within the pages of 52, and later in stories headlined by The Question (her former lover). But this book represents the first time Batwoman has had some page time solely for herself. In a lot of ways, this is the first true Batwoman story.

When we open Elegy (a word that means “a mournful, melancholy, or plaintive poem”), Batwoman is hunting down members of a satanic, crime-based religion, and comes into conflict with their leader Alice. Interestingly, Alice speaks only in quotes from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (“Didn’t anyone give you the memo? Gotham already has one Carroll-inspired freak.”) Little does our hero know that Alice is connected to her past in a way that she never could have imagined…

From there, we go into Kate Kane’s origin story, which touches on her father (a former army lieutenant), the terrorist kidnapping which led to the death of her mother, her own time in the military, and how she became Batwoman.

The art is what really pushes this book into the realm of spectacular. J.H. Williams handles the pencilling and the inking, with Dave Stewart as the colorist. When Batwoman is in costume, the reds REALLY pop, whether it’s her costume, her hair, or even her lipstick. It almost gives those portions of the book a Sin City vibe (I’m referring to the movie, of course).

Detective Comics #854, page 8. Image from Crave Online.

Some of the page layouts are also really cool. It almost looks like Williams turned the pages into cracked glass, and placed his art between the cracks. This works especially well during fight sequences.

As for the writing, there’s no one who’ll ever be better at writing this character than Greg Rucka. He created her, he knows her inside and out, and obviously no one is more qualified to put together her backstory, and her first run as a solo.

Rucka has always been good with gritty, noir type stories. His work on Gotham Central was phenomenal, and ironically, he was the one who turned Renee Montoya (now The Question) into a lesbian. So he’s created a nice little niche for himself amongst homosexuals and noir fans.

This story is all more or less self contained. At the end, you get the sense that certain plot threads might be revisited in the future, but this book definitely stands well on its own.

Rumor has it that Batwoman’s run on Detective Comics will lead to her own monthly series. So long as Rucka stays with her, I’ll be doing the same. And if J.H. Williams III is along for the ride, then we could have another masterpiece in the making.

RATING: 9.5/10

Front page image from Detective Comics #854, page 3.