THIS WEEK: Batwoman #5 concludes the Next Level series’s first arc in compelling-yet-cryptic fashion. Also, Catwoman #89 brings Selina face-to-face (or mask-to-mask?) with Black Mask, and Absolute Flash #17 delivers a heartbreaking ending.
Note: The reviews below may contain spoilers.
Batwoman #5
Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist/Cover Artist: DaNi
Colorist/Cover Colorist: Matt Hollingsworth
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Five issues in, I’m still not sure how I feel about Batwoman 2026. So let’s figure it out together, shall we?
As I noted when reviewing writer Greg Rucka, artist DaNi, colorist Matt Hollingsworth, and letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou’s opening issue, Batwoman is a good comic book. I am a seasoned reviewer, so I will of course go into more detail about Batwoman’s strengths than that. But it’s important to lay that foundation, before talking about why I’m not just singing Batwoman’s praises.
This creative team’s style and sensibilities mesh well, and together, they are crafting a story whose dark, pulpy mood and atmosphere I’m quite enjoying. Hollingsworth’s colors neatly accentuate DaNi’s ink-heavy illustrations, and Otsmane-Elhaou contributes to the series’s vibe and storytelling in several clever ways – including some shaky linework and white, in-panel lettering within panels with all-black backgrounds. Every month, this book is a delight to look at and page through.
But up to now, each month’s issue of Batwoman has left me wanting something more narratively, and not in a good way. The series’s opening arc, which concludes in this issue, has unfolded quite slowly. The story is a mystery thriller, but in both regards, the story’s stakes have often felt flat.
Much of my complaint boils down to this: Batwoman’s opening mystery never especially felt like a mystery, and that mystery’s resolution placed the story in a spot it could have started in. At the same time, outside possibly the state of Kate Kane’s psyche and soul, the thriller side of Batwoman didn’t establish any stakes. Except in flashback, the story’s villains present no explicit danger to anyone outside Kate Kane and her sister. Instead, those villains stand around talking a lot. Much of the reason that both of this story’s Batwomen feel compelled to confront Despina, Slay, and Gores is only hinted at or talked about. It is not shown, and so we as readers have to fill in those narrative gaps ourselves, using what Rucka and co. have seen fit to include. During the story’s early chapters, especially, this sparse doling out of information was more frustrating than compelling. (And I think would have been even more frustrating for readers who had never read a Batwoman comic before.)
That said, while preparing for this review, I read all five issues of Batwoman back to back. And the story reads much better as a whole than it did as monthly chapters. The story’s slower pace does not matter as much when you are able to read the whole thing at once, and more quickly turn the corner from what the story is attempting to convince you it is at first to what it actually is. Issues four and five are where Batwoman 2026 starts to really click, as the story finally sheds some light on its characters’ backgrounds and what its stakes (yes, there are some!) are.
So unlike the majority of DC’s current output, Batwoman seems like it will read better when collected than as single issues. I’d certainly advise anyone who, like me, was on the fence about this series to give the first five issues or the eventual trade a read, now that Rucka and co.’s opening arc is complete. The story’s finale is emotionally compelling (if still a bit quiet and cryptic), and again, its artwork is superb. But I’m hesitant to recommend that anyone jump on board Batwoman’s single issues until we see what kind of stories, pacing, and stakes the series delivers from here.
The Round-Up
- I continue to enjoy Torunn Grønbekk and co.’s Catwoman every time I check in on it, and this month’s Catwoman #89 is no exception. Everything I’ve said before about the tight, tense thrillers Grønbekk and her artistic collaborators are delivering in this series remains true. But this month’s issue was my first encounter with Grønbekk, artist Davide Gianfelice, and colorist Patricio Delpeche’s Black Mask, who is an unhinged and chaotic piece of $#!%. He steals the scene every time he appears, and is a truly awful nemesis driven by nothing but malice and hatred toward Selina Kyle. In short, I can’t wait to see Black Mask get his comeuppance, which seems likely to come in next month’s issue.
- Absolute Flash #17 is a heartbreaker of an issue, concluding writer Jeff Lemire, artist Haining, colorist Adriano Lucas, and letterer Tom Napolitano’s two-part trip to “Gorilla City.” I have not been keeping current on Absolute Flash, so I had yet to read an issue illustrated by Haining. Her clean linework and page layouts fit this title perfectly and, importantly for a book featuring a Flash, keep the story moving at speed. Right up until the issue’s ending, that is – a moment that is telegraphed but no less effective for being easy to see coming, due to the art team’s rendering of the moment and the cast’s reactions.
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