PUNK SUPERS STRIKE AGAIN
The newest Batwoman issue of Detective Comics (855) is out, and once again I actually BOUGHT a NEW comic book.
Herewith are reactions, with a few very, very mild spoilers:
1. The Book
Once again, DC gives us a typically corporate package, making the consumer pay top dollar (3.99) for a slim volume. Out of 48 pages, five are devoted to ads and another five to a preview of an uninteresting young Superman story. This is highway robbery, the kind of thing that Hernandez, Pekar, and Sim rebelled against 25 years ago. Viva la revolucion, up against the wall Marvel/DC pigs.
2. Art
Williams is simply in a different league from 90% of comic artists. His work echoes many different artists and moods and styles. Some of the scenes between the glowering, black-clad Batwoman and the pale, mockingly perverse Alice recall Aubrey Beardsley, of all people--an odd but appropriate influence for some parts of the story.
Well, see for yourself:
Williams does three two-page spreads. They're gorgeous, but they waste a huge amount of space and slow the story down. I'd bring it down to one two-pager per story.
Oh, yeah, and later we get some fugly creatures who are drawn in a completely different style; in fact, they're so cheesy that they look like refugees from the cover of an Ace sci-fi pulp paperback, circa 1960. I guess they're meant to be scary, but I laughed when I saw them.
3. Kate Kane/Batwoman
We start to get some backstory on Kate here in a nasty dream sequence that harks back to a terrorist kidnapping. I like the idea that Kate is close to her dad, but isn't it a little early for dad to come riding to save his imperiled daughter? I'd like to see Kate taking names and shooting eyes and raping heavily before she starts getting vulnerable and emo and all. I also want to see her using her sly, punky impishness some more. If Rucka develops that, then we could have a Harley Quinn or a Joker on the right side of the law. Why do heroines and heroes have to be so solemn and tightass? Why can't THEY have some fun?
4. Cliches
And one more thing, Mr. Rucka: Kate HAS to stop talking in action movie cliches like "didn't you get the memo?" and "wrong answer!"
5. Colonel Kane
I like the fact that dad is a colonel. One of my favorite American WWII heroes was Colonel John Riley Kane, CO of the 98th Bombardment Group. He won a CMH for flying a four-engine bomber through exploding oil tanks on the Ploesti raid. He was from Texas, and they called him "Killer;" he used to get onto the radio, open a channel to a German frequency, and say unprintable things about the entire Third Reich.
Also, dad looks a little like R. Lee Ermey, which makes things even better. I enjoy Ermey immensely; he's about the only witty Marine in history. He had a great quote the other night: "Basically, I just like to cruise around and blow stuff up."
6. Kinky Subtext?
There was much fear (hope?) that Rucka & Williams would just use Kate's sexuality (she's into broads) as an excuse for lezyay of various kinds. That didn't happen in the first chapter, but take a close look at this Beardsley-esque scene in which Kate disarms Alice:
So, am I imagining things, or is there a kinky, knife-play element in that scene? It's slow and silent there for a minute, and I got an echo of lez S&M--the dark, masterful, leather-clad butch, and the pale, submissive femme in schoolgirl costume.
This can make a sort of sense in terms of both the mood of the piece and Kate's own character. She's an attractive woman, and she exudes sexuality; that was also apparent in the way she dealt with a male suspect in the first chapter, so it's not surprising that it appears when she deals with a female. Also, Alice is more than a little weird herself, so she may be playing into it for her own tactical and/or psychosexual reasons. Finally, kinkiness is part both of punk and of the whole Gotham atmosphere. Can you name a kinkier, sicker couple in comics than Harley and the Joker?
But you know what? I sure hope it doesn't go any further than this. I don't want this vague, faint butch/femme vibe between Kate and Alice to turn this story into the last reel of "Johnny Guitar." Lezyay, stay away.
7. Alice
Boy, is THIS girl a crispy critter. Her appearance is bizarre, of course, but how many normal-looking baddies are there in Gotham? No, what really sets Alice apart is her utter, gibbering insanity. She speaks entirely in Lewis Carroll quotations, and she actually seems to be getting some kicks when Kate threatens to throw her over a parapet. (Remember Bill Murray in "Little Shop of Horrors?" You get the idea.)But Alice is a great deal deadlier, cleverer, and more dangerous than she seems. She's a mad goddess, too, and like all mad goddesses she has no regard at all for the lives of her worshipers. She dresses in white, she has no eyebrows, she wears pancake makeup, she likes the taste of blood, she hides razors in strange places on her body, she plays with knives...well, hell, she's a punk supervillainness, just as Kate is a punk superheroine. She might be Nancy Spungen. I can see Alice on stage with David Bowie, back in the days when Bowie was working with people like Klaus Nomi. Alice is just as fascinating as Kate, and they're very evenly matched. For sheer deadly looniness, Alice rivals Mistah J himself.
8. The Second Feature
The Renee Montoya story is slowly growing on me, but I have some questions (pun intended):
1. Renee is, I think Puerto Rican, and she was originally in Gotham (= New York). Now she appears to be in LA, and I may therefore be excused for supposing that the Hispanics she's now dealing with are Mexican. Is it that easy for a Puerto Rican to fit herself into a Mexican environment? They're two very different countries and ethnic groups. I ask, because I don't know.
2. Renee can use her sexuality in her work; she's just as pretty as Kate, and cops will use anything that works in order to get the job done. But I wish she'd quit flashing her navel, all the same. It just suggests a certain trashiness to me. If I want to watch a Jennifer Lopez video, I'll turn on MTV.
3. I am trying to write a female detective myself, and a book I have on mystery writing cautions authors not to write too many scenes where small women beat up hordes of big men. This, the book points out, does not often happen in real life.
9. Onward and Upward?
I love Kate Kane, I think she has great potential. Rucka has laid some very solid foundations, but he has to build on them in the right way. Kate can't just be a female Bruce Wayne, a grim avenger with a childhood trauma. That's been done. She has to show more of her punk side, more of the wit and playfulness we saw in the first chapter--and more gleeful violence, too. I'd love to see Kate take on the Gotham sirens, especially Harley Quinn. Boy, THERE would be a cage match.
Herewith are reactions, with a few very, very mild spoilers:
1. The Book
Once again, DC gives us a typically corporate package, making the consumer pay top dollar (3.99) for a slim volume. Out of 48 pages, five are devoted to ads and another five to a preview of an uninteresting young Superman story. This is highway robbery, the kind of thing that Hernandez, Pekar, and Sim rebelled against 25 years ago. Viva la revolucion, up against the wall Marvel/DC pigs.
2. Art
Williams is simply in a different league from 90% of comic artists. His work echoes many different artists and moods and styles. Some of the scenes between the glowering, black-clad Batwoman and the pale, mockingly perverse Alice recall Aubrey Beardsley, of all people--an odd but appropriate influence for some parts of the story.
Well, see for yourself:
Williams does three two-page spreads. They're gorgeous, but they waste a huge amount of space and slow the story down. I'd bring it down to one two-pager per story.
Oh, yeah, and later we get some fugly creatures who are drawn in a completely different style; in fact, they're so cheesy that they look like refugees from the cover of an Ace sci-fi pulp paperback, circa 1960. I guess they're meant to be scary, but I laughed when I saw them.
3. Kate Kane/Batwoman
We start to get some backstory on Kate here in a nasty dream sequence that harks back to a terrorist kidnapping. I like the idea that Kate is close to her dad, but isn't it a little early for dad to come riding to save his imperiled daughter? I'd like to see Kate taking names and shooting eyes and raping heavily before she starts getting vulnerable and emo and all. I also want to see her using her sly, punky impishness some more. If Rucka develops that, then we could have a Harley Quinn or a Joker on the right side of the law. Why do heroines and heroes have to be so solemn and tightass? Why can't THEY have some fun?
4. Cliches
And one more thing, Mr. Rucka: Kate HAS to stop talking in action movie cliches like "didn't you get the memo?" and "wrong answer!"
5. Colonel Kane
I like the fact that dad is a colonel. One of my favorite American WWII heroes was Colonel John Riley Kane, CO of the 98th Bombardment Group. He won a CMH for flying a four-engine bomber through exploding oil tanks on the Ploesti raid. He was from Texas, and they called him "Killer;" he used to get onto the radio, open a channel to a German frequency, and say unprintable things about the entire Third Reich.
Also, dad looks a little like R. Lee Ermey, which makes things even better. I enjoy Ermey immensely; he's about the only witty Marine in history. He had a great quote the other night: "Basically, I just like to cruise around and blow stuff up."
6. Kinky Subtext?
There was much fear (hope?) that Rucka & Williams would just use Kate's sexuality (she's into broads) as an excuse for lezyay of various kinds. That didn't happen in the first chapter, but take a close look at this Beardsley-esque scene in which Kate disarms Alice:
So, am I imagining things, or is there a kinky, knife-play element in that scene? It's slow and silent there for a minute, and I got an echo of lez S&M--the dark, masterful, leather-clad butch, and the pale, submissive femme in schoolgirl costume.
This can make a sort of sense in terms of both the mood of the piece and Kate's own character. She's an attractive woman, and she exudes sexuality; that was also apparent in the way she dealt with a male suspect in the first chapter, so it's not surprising that it appears when she deals with a female. Also, Alice is more than a little weird herself, so she may be playing into it for her own tactical and/or psychosexual reasons. Finally, kinkiness is part both of punk and of the whole Gotham atmosphere. Can you name a kinkier, sicker couple in comics than Harley and the Joker?
But you know what? I sure hope it doesn't go any further than this. I don't want this vague, faint butch/femme vibe between Kate and Alice to turn this story into the last reel of "Johnny Guitar." Lezyay, stay away.
7. Alice
Boy, is THIS girl a crispy critter. Her appearance is bizarre, of course, but how many normal-looking baddies are there in Gotham? No, what really sets Alice apart is her utter, gibbering insanity. She speaks entirely in Lewis Carroll quotations, and she actually seems to be getting some kicks when Kate threatens to throw her over a parapet. (Remember Bill Murray in "Little Shop of Horrors?" You get the idea.)But Alice is a great deal deadlier, cleverer, and more dangerous than she seems. She's a mad goddess, too, and like all mad goddesses she has no regard at all for the lives of her worshipers. She dresses in white, she has no eyebrows, she wears pancake makeup, she likes the taste of blood, she hides razors in strange places on her body, she plays with knives...well, hell, she's a punk supervillainness, just as Kate is a punk superheroine. She might be Nancy Spungen. I can see Alice on stage with David Bowie, back in the days when Bowie was working with people like Klaus Nomi. Alice is just as fascinating as Kate, and they're very evenly matched. For sheer deadly looniness, Alice rivals Mistah J himself.
8. The Second Feature
The Renee Montoya story is slowly growing on me, but I have some questions (pun intended):
1. Renee is, I think Puerto Rican, and she was originally in Gotham (= New York). Now she appears to be in LA, and I may therefore be excused for supposing that the Hispanics she's now dealing with are Mexican. Is it that easy for a Puerto Rican to fit herself into a Mexican environment? They're two very different countries and ethnic groups. I ask, because I don't know.
2. Renee can use her sexuality in her work; she's just as pretty as Kate, and cops will use anything that works in order to get the job done. But I wish she'd quit flashing her navel, all the same. It just suggests a certain trashiness to me. If I want to watch a Jennifer Lopez video, I'll turn on MTV.
3. I am trying to write a female detective myself, and a book I have on mystery writing cautions authors not to write too many scenes where small women beat up hordes of big men. This, the book points out, does not often happen in real life.
9. Onward and Upward?
I love Kate Kane, I think she has great potential. Rucka has laid some very solid foundations, but he has to build on them in the right way. Kate can't just be a female Bruce Wayne, a grim avenger with a childhood trauma. That's been done. She has to show more of her punk side, more of the wit and playfulness we saw in the first chapter--and more gleeful violence, too. I'd love to see Kate take on the Gotham sirens, especially Harley Quinn. Boy, THERE would be a cage match.