Tag Archives: Religion of Crime

May 20 2013

Batwoman 20

batwoman 20

Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing Batwoman 20, originally released May 15th, 2013.

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Shelby: Trust is always an interesting concept to explore when masked superheroes are involved. The protagonist’s entire experience is based on a lack of trust: they don’t trust their loved ones to with their secret identity, they don’t trust the existing authority to take care of crime. That the distrust is well-founded doesn’t lessen the fact it’s the foundation of a successful masked superhero. But even the most independent superhero has got to have someone in the corner, some support system of people they trust and can rely on. Unfortunately, Kate seems to continuously find herself faced with people telling her, “you will trust me, whether you like it or not!”, essentially rendering the entire concept meaningless.

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May 17 2012

Batwoman 9

Today, Drew and Shelby are discussing Batwoman 9, originally released May 16th 2012.

Drew: Last month, I was pretty hard on Batwoman. The gambit of dividing the story into six discrete narratives necessarily forces the plot to only be advanced incrementally in each. That, I’m fine with, but when every story hit the emotional doldrums simultaneously, the result is an issue that strains to justify its existence. This month, writers J.H. Williams and W. Haden Blackman find the emotional through-line issue 8 was lacking, crafting a meaningful rumination on the nature of loyalty. Continue reading →

Apr 13 2012

Batwoman 8

Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Batwoman 8, originally released April 11th 2012.

Patrick: Every time I pick up an issue from this arc of Batwoman, I have to retrain my brain on how to read this thing. The defining characteristic of this story has been a fractured chronology that essentially demands to be re-read over and over again until the pieces fit. Whenever I assemble the pieces and take a step back, more connections become apparent and the complexity of the narrative grows.
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Mar 15 2012

Batwoman 7

Today, Drew and Patrick are discussing Batwoman 7, originally released March 14th 2012.

Drew: Last month, Batwoman kicked off its “To Drown the World” arc,  separating the action into six  separate times and perspectives: Batwoman’s, Jacob’s, Kate’s, Maro’s, Maggie’s, and Chase’s. It’s an interesting gambit, but one that makes assessing individual issues quite difficult. Each mini-story only has a few pages devoted to it each issue, which means they don’t have time for more than one or two story beats. I’m not entirely certain why the story is being told this way, but I have faith that writers J.H. Williams and W. Handen Blackman will more than justify breaking the story up in this way. Until that happens, though, these issues are a little frustrating in terms of how little each story moves. Continue reading →