I'd forgotten how relatively long a history Batwoman had by the time she took over Detective. Introduced in the collborative series 52, she played guest roles in both 52 Aftermath: Crime Bible (an amazing series starring the other queer lady in this comic, the Question), and in Final Crisis. But Detective is her first starring role, and it really is glorious.
We get a full introduction to Alice, the new leader of the Religion of Crime, who seems to be styling herself on a mix of Alice from Wonderland and the Joker. I was at first a little put off by this - why do we have to give Batwoman her own version of the Joker? Why not give her her own iconic villains. But then I realized that this is what a comic set in Gotham does. It pits traumatized people against homicidal maniacs and hopes for a positive outcome. So of course Kate Kane has to have her version of the iconic Gotham villain, who is the Joker.
We get a brief glimpse of Kate's background in this issue, but only through the lens of Alice's hallucinogenic poison, so the images don't make too much sense. Terrorists and a kidnapping? (I know that answer of course, but I'm trying to build the suspense for you!). Along with this revelation, there's some really nice interplay between Kate and her father, the Colonel. Much like Bruce Wayne has Alfred (another of the icons of Gothamic existence, the reliable aide), Kate has her father, an army (I think) colonel. He stays on comms with her, gets her intel, and co-ordinates operations. And he's a bit of a badass himself. But in the midst of combat, he still has a moment to call Kate "baby," and tries to calm her. I'm trying to think it we've seen another version of this relationship in superhero comics, the parent that backs up the superhero's mission. I'll have to give this some thought.
The queerest thing about this issue was its absence, if you see what I mean. One of the conversations we have about representation is that queer characters have had, in the past, the propensity to become representatives, rather than representations. In that, a character comes to stand for the entire queer community, and the narratives woven around these characters tend to focus solely on their queerness, and the queer world within which they exist. Something like this is not an option in a long-form superhero narrative. You can't just tell one kind of story. So where we had an explicit acknowledgement of Kate's queerness in the previous chapter, this one says nothing of it. The character's queerness is simply not a factor in this part of the story.
More to come...
No comments:
Post a Comment