Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

DC Comics

DC New 52 Review: Batwoman #1

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DC has grown the Batman family considerable in the past few years, culminating with Batman actually franchising his bewingèd concept to bring all of his many imitators into the fold.

Once such Bat-hanger-on was Kate Kane, who debuted in 2006 as Batwoman. I’ve never heard or read a single thing about her, but the gorgeous cover of her DC relaunch comic caught my eye. A quick search revealed that artist J.H. Williams III notched not one but two prestigious Eisner awards for his Batwoman illustration thus far. The character also earned the 2010 GLAAD media award for Outstanding Comic Book, as penned by prior writer Greg Rucka.

Now accoladed artist Williams would be taking the writing reigns of this GBLT-friendly character in her first ongoing series.

Color me intrigued…

Batwoman #1

Written by J.H. Williams III & W. Haden Blackman, art by J. H. Williams III

Rating: 4 of 5 – Excellent

In a Line: “That was creepier than expected.”

140char Review: Batwoman #1, ooky new villain isn’t even the creepiest beat in great ish dense w/hints @ backstory. A must-see for sumptuous imaginative art

CK Says: Buy it.

Batwoman is one of the DC New 52 heroes with the shortest history, and I was sure that meant her book would be easy to pick up from scratch.

I was the best kind of wrong. Though Batwoman #1 introduces a new mystery, it trades heavily on a densely woven narrative that hints at a slew of backstory packed into just a few dozen prior appearances in the past five years. As a new reader I was left grasping at on panel cues. She’s a lesbian? Her house is a skyscraper built around a tree? She’s a colonel’s daughter? She wears a wig?

A dizzying one-page recap of Batwoman’s last adventure.

If it sounds confusing, it was, but only enough to warrant a close read – never are we left dangling without an explanation. It was also electrifying and terrific. I’m hard-pressed to name another recent comic that left me so hungry to read more about a character’s past and future. If I could spend $100 on Batwoman right now I would.

The artwork in this issue is unmatched. I’ve never seen anything like it. J.H. Williams III bucks both Jim Lee influences and the photorealism trend to present a style seemingly adjacent to art nouveau advertisements more than anything from a comic book. Think Mucha. His seemingly transgressive page layouts are incredibly intuitive. My eye went to the right place every time on page after page of spreads packed with images. Characters seem completely realized, ready and willing to leap from the page.

Batwoman’s every appearance on the page is arresting. Her bright red hair spilling over her mask to suggest a deep widow’s peak stands out on the page just as much as the gash of red lipstick does on her pale face. Her gray blue skin makes her look more like the drowned undead than her creepy foe in this story. Even in her civilian identity she looks like some fashionable zombie, perhaps fished from the wreck of the Titanic.

A mystery, a budding romance, a grumbling young partner, a government agency investigation, a proposition from Batman, and art that would look perfect next to the Absinthe Robette hanging in my kitchen? Sign me up for issue #2!

DC New 52 Review: Red Lanterns #1

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As I’ve been writing these reviews I’ve been studiously staying away from everyone else’s reactions.

I don’t want to be influenced by other readers. This process is about my read as a DC newbie and dedicated X-Fan. I catch a single tweet review on Tuesday nights from @CheapGNsdotcom, and do some debating with @Matropolis over the course of the week, but otherwise I don’t peek at other ratings until I’ve set mine into writing.

On a few occasions (Batgirl being one), when I feet in my gut that a book was so incredibly amazing or awful, I can’t help myself but to check to see if everyone agrees with me.

Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t.

Red Lanterns #1

Written by Peter Milligan, art by Ed Benes & Rob Hunter

Rating: .5 of 5 – Terrible

In a Line: “The universe’s rage… is my rage.”

#140char Review: Red Lanterns #1 is a nadir of #DCNew52 reboot, a bad 90s flashback to XTREME bad guys like Carnage headlining pointless blood-bathed books.

CK Says: Skip it!

I feel the need to caveat that I have never read a Rainbow Lantern book before and may have entirely missed the point of this entire endeavor.

Red Lanterns #1 is a comic full of interesting elements that work against each other as a whole. Peter Milligan can be terrific at manipulating oddball teams. The Ed Benes art was consistently awesome. Even the concept of a revenge-powered Lantern corps isn’t a turnoff for me.

The execution was simply off. Milligan’s been there before on his stultifying X-Men run. No amount of awesome art can save a badly conceived comic.

The opening torture scene can’t decide if it wants to be dire or comedic, and introducing a violent space-faring attack kitten with rippling muscles who is bleeding from his mouth would seem to peg this as a offbeat humor title, a la Lobo. The kitten continues to cough up blood all over its captors in what seemed like a mildly funny scene until it is saved in a display of over-the-top violence by a good (bad? (good?)) guy named “Atrocitus,” who proclaims, “What are you doing to my cat?”

Clearly a humor title, right?

Nay. Not when the unbearably lugubrious Atrocitus then launches into a totally emo inner monologue that takes up half the issue. It becomes obvious that this is not meant to be a laughing matter. Also, apparently all of the Red Lanterns exhale blood all the time, or blood-like red energy? That’s the impression I got when we saw a slew of them on panel, each more silly-looking than the last and all breathing blood. This includes a sexy blue-skinned babe with bone wings and a dental floss bikini bottom who can only speak in single word growls.

So, it’s a serious, violent, ultra-bloody, emo humor title with an unintelligible hot babe who craves only range and showing showing off her ass like it’s a trend? Well, they’ve got the pubescent boy demo locked down.

(The irony is that right now Marvel’s hands-down best book is the similarly-themed Uncanny X-Force, except there blend of brainy humor and continuity references alongside the blood, guts, and skin-tight outfits is done to dizzying perfection by Rick Remender. But, maybe a DC fan would hate it.)

Milligan’s scripting failures aside, Benes art is hard to deny – he’s really enjoyable throughout, especially on a tease of Hal Jordan in a flashback. However, the red on red on red color palette really begins to wear after a few pages with the RL gang. An Earthbound b-plot is a snooze, though I suppose it’s setting up an Earthling to be a Red Lantern.

DC returnees and longtime readers might really delight in the side-story behind Atrocitus, but without existing affection for the concept I think it really falls flat.