A little quiet before the storm..
Creative Staff:
Story: Marguerite Bennett
Art: Marguerite Sauvage
What They Say:
Batwoman departs Gotham with Amanda Waller and meets a new ally in the Bombshells project—Barda Free.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As we get to the second to last part of the enlistment phase of Bombshells, we thankfully return to what kicked off the series with Batwoman. And we also get the return of Marguerite Sauvage on the artwork, which is an utter delight. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the art across the series so far and each artist is bringing something different to the table while still staying true to the overall thematic style of it. With Sauvage though, she set the tone for the book for many so getting even a bit more time with her is welcome. Particularly since it gives us more Batwoman time as well, which is still pretty much my favorite of the series so far.
With this installment, it’s all about Kate’s last day before shipping off to the bigger war at hand as part of Waller’s new team that she’s put together. Kate’s at least intent on not spending her last night dealing with crime in Gotham, but she does get to deal with a little bit of it at the start. What’s fun about it is that it comes in largely after the fact and has her meeting a fourteen year old girl there that’s better known as Bluebird in the main continuity. Here, she’s just a huge fan of Batwoman and sees her chance to help out by getting her two friends to costume up after Kate leaves and help defend the city. I suspect we’ll see some of it down the line since there’s a decent bit of setup for it here, but it works because it shows the kind of inspiring tone that Kate has as Batwoman and the positive that she does. It’s a good Batman/Robin kind of angle playing out in a different tone.
While this is fun and adds to the world, the best material here involves Kate and Maggie as they spend their last evening and night together. This is a familiar scene in many stories involving the time period and they enjoy themselves thoroughly. So much so that it really does bleed off the page and you feel it through the combination of words and art. It’s said and shown in great ways. This relationship is one that I could see having its own series as a slice of life book in the time period without the superhero element and I suspect it would find a really decent sized audience. Of course, it does provide for the sexuality here as well, in a rather tasteful and appropriate way that in its own way is even more exciting, but it balances it with the heartache that comes from the separation, the anxiety, and the uncertainty.
In Summary:
For those that want to get into the war itself, well, that’s certainly coming now that we’re almost done with the enlistment phase. We got a taste of it with Zatanna previously and Kate gets her first taste of it here as she meets up with Waller and discovers a bigger world. One that’s drawing us into more unusual resources, such as Barda and a Doctor Light, though here she’s just going for the scientist angle so far. The inclusion of more like this is very welcome in expanding it and sets the stage for a really wide range of characters to be used as the war gets underway. Each installment of this series has me wishing that it was getting its own family of titles with Bennett overseeing it so that we could explore so many facets of this interpretation and the characters available. Even though it’s familiar in a sense because of how associated so many characters are with World War II it ends up feeling fresh and exciting with the spin put on it and the quality of the work from top to bottom. I want more. So much more. And it’s a rare book that makes me feel that these days.
Grade: A+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: September 12th, 2015
MSRP: $0.99
