BATWOMAN #7

Review by: kennyg

What did the
iFanboy
community think?

874
Pulls
Avg Rating: 3.5
 
Users who pulled this comic:
Users who reviewed this comic:
Story by J.H. Williams III & W. Haden Blackman
Art by Amy Reeder & Rob Hunter
Letters by Todd Klein
Cover by Amy Reeder

Size: 32 pages
Price: 2.99

Anyone here ever see the Chevy Chase film “Funny Farm”? In it, he and his wife, played by the lovely Madolyn Smith, move to the country so he can write a screenplay. At one point, he gives it to her as a present and asks her opinion, and her opinion is not good. When explaining why, she says:

“It’s all those flashbacks. You never know when anything’s taking place. In the first 20 pages alone, I counted three flashbacks, one flash-forward, and I think a page in, you have a flash-sideways.”

I was reminded of that scene when reading Batwoman #7. The non-linear story telling is completely unnecessary in this book. It’s doesn’t flow as a narrative. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with writing it in a simple flow, especially if you’re not a seasoned writer. If you want to have all these subplots, that is fine, but do it in a linear fashion. If you want to do flashbacks, don’t have so many subplots. Having both makes it a mess. It feels forced, like the writer said “I’m going to write this in a non-linear format just to see if I can, whether it works or not.”

The art would be fine if it weren’t coming on the heels of Williams’ work, which you just can’t compare it to. This book NEEDS Williams back on art. The “writing” isn’t good enough not to have stellar art. Maybe Irving or someone in that vein. We’ve been spoiled, and we now expect greatness. Reeder is OK, but nowhere near the same level as Williams.

3 overall – a generous 3.

Story: 2 - Average
Art: 3 - Good

Comments

  1. Oh man, Frazer Irving would be awesome doing a Batwoman arc!

    I agree with what you said regarding the unnecessary flashbacks. It’s kind of interesting that the Batwoman run in Detective Comics also had an arc with non-Williams art that used (imo) unnecessary flashbacks. I mean the “Cutter” arc. The parallel storytelling got tedious; after a while it just didn’t seem clever anymore than the same sorts of things were happening in the two different timelines. Because of all of the flashing around you don’t get enough character development; I felt that way about “Cutter” and I feel that way about the current arc. It’s true that “things are happening” but I keep wanting the story to slow down and stop skipping around so much because we’re seeing things that SHOULD have a personal, emotional impact. But there’s never enough breathing room to have that moment, because the scene changes and as a reader you have to reorient yourself again and again.

    All that said, I think the overall saga of Kate and her supporting cast is still pretty good. I still care about these characters and wish the writers would give me am excuse to care about them more.

    It’s kind of weird to say, but I think the sort of “mandated innovation” that JH’s art established on this character/series has kind of done it a disservice sometimes. I don’t always need elaborate layouts or a funky, weaving narrative progression. Sometimes it’d be better if we could just slow down and get a regular, linear storyline.

  2. I agree completely, issue 7 loses all of that ability to excite on when everyone is begging for William’s to return. On the other hand it’s good to see the whole Maggie/Kate relationship going another step further.

Leave a Comment