Batwoman #4
"Eschatology" part 4
Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist: DaNi
Colorist: Matt Hollingsworth
Sometimes the obvious twist or turn in a story works exactly because it’s so obvious.
Batwoman #4 leans hard into that same idea: that the "obvious answer" might actually be the correct one—even if the story has spent issues trying to convince you otherwise.
The Face in the Mirror
My younger brothers are twins.
When they were kids, they could switch places and fool almost anyone who wasn’t our parents. Now that they’re adults, they could never pull something like that off unless it was with a total stranger.
Which brings us to this issue.
Because sometimes, when there are identical twins involved, the obvious explanation really is the right one.
The Darkseid cultists are trying to figure out what’s going on with Batwoman. Was she really there to kill Mr. Gores? Whose blood is that on the ground? (It’s the Question’s.) Can they still corrupt Batwoman so that she can take her deceased sister Beth’s place in their doomsday prophecies?
Well… about that.
We quickly learn that Beth's story isn't over after all. The issue also reveals what's really been happening with Batwoman over the last few issues, and while I won't spoil the specifics here, it does answer several lingering questions about Kate's recent behavior. Even though Kate's the twin locked away in the sanatorium right now, it's becoming increasingly clear that Beth is the one who is capital-N Nuts.
By the end of the issue, Kate is finally back on her feet, reunited with the Question, and headed toward what promises to be one very uncomfortable family reunion.
Smoke and Mirrors
This issue's big reveal helps with some of my problems with this book, but not all of them.
On the one hand, I'm glad that Kate Kane hasn't been written out of character for the last several issues. On the other hand, she hasn't exactly been written in character either. I just don't buy her being so broken by Beth "dying" since there was no body. Rule One: always look for a body. Plus it wasn't even the first time she'd supposedly died.
So although it's good to know there's a reason Kate seemed so wildly out of character, it also means we haven't really been getting the Batwoman story I thought we were. And that just isn't cool.
Although I don't love the direction the series is heading, it's still in a better place than it was. I just hope things will start to progress and make some kind of sense now. And I really hope we're going to get some new villains soon. I hate that I keep just calling them the "Darkseid Cult," but if they have names or personalities, they just aren't registering with me.
I feel like there are a ton of unanswered questions when it comes to the Cult, but I'm not sure that I even know what those questions are. They're all just ciphers that occasionally speak Greek, as far as I'm concerned.
Which reminds me: the Greek setting. I get that Beth is there because the Cult is there, but it's awful convenient that the sanatorium that Bruce Wayne arranged for Kate to go to is in Greece too, isn't it? I still wonder if Batman manipulated events to get his cousin to where she needed to be in order to deal with her sister (also his cousin). It's just way too big of a coincidence to fit in any of the pouches on Batman's utility belt.
Behind the Curtain
I've been pretty hard on this series' creative team of Greg Rucka and DaNi to date. I'm going to try to be a little gentler this month; even though I'm not totally on board with where they're taking the series, at least I actually have an idea of where it is now.
Rucka is a great writer. I've been a huge fan of much of his past work. This series just doesn't have the same feel of his other books. The pacing is a bit scattershot, and the characterization has been rough. The injection of Renee Montoya, aka the Question, into the proceedings has helped greatly. Here she directly interacts with Kate and calls her out on much of her BS. That's where things really get moving again, and Renee is a character that Rucka knows well so it all makes sense.
The art by DaNi is still something that I love at times, and at other times don't quite get. Some of her work is absolutely gorgeous—the double-page spread playing through Kate's history has a creative and dynamic layout, plus great detail. But then most of the scenes with the Darkseid Cult are too soft and unfinished, so not only can I not tell you most of their names, I can barely tell you their defining features either. The big "suiting" up moment at the end that culminates in a splash page of Batwoman and the Question standing together is a great image to end the book on, the detail there is excellent.
The colors by Matt Hollingsworth remain on the dark side, which fits the tone of the story being told. It's a little depressing to have this exotic Greek setting and then drape it all in shadows, though. I'm hoping if the setting remains after the end of this arc, that we can inject a little light into the proceedings.
Sister's Keeper
Batwoman #4 is a step forward for the series, leaning into some easy or predictable reveals that nevertheless give the plot some much-needed forward momentum. The conclusion of this story arc has a lot of heavy lifting to do, so we'll have to see if Rucka and DaNi are able to stick the landing. This series launched with a lot of hype, between the character and the creators, so it would be nice to see that pay off a little better in the end.