Easily the best first issue of the New 52, in my opinion.

Even when J.H. Williams isn’t QUITE at the top of his game, he still comes through with pages that make you stop and stare at them, ignoring the words for a while and just admiring the artwork.

The writing wasn’t quite as good as it was in the Rucka/Williams Detective Comics run, but I get the impression that J.H. and his new collaborator W. Haden Blackman have really put a lot of thought into the character of Kate Kane. Heck, J.H. has basically be living with this character in his mind for a few years now.

I hope they’ll be able to juggle the increased number of supporting characters, but for now there’s still a nice balance in which Kate’s still the main focus and everyone else puts in appearances that advance the overall story forward.

The best part about this series is that everything in it seems to play to J.H. Williams’ strong points. We already know that he can draw an awesome Batwoman, and we know that he can switch up his style when drawing Kate’s life without the costume on. But you’ve also got a supernatural story about ghosts here, and then Batman himself shows up? I can’t wait to see what this story’s going to look like, and what’s going to happen to the unique characters in it.