Monday, December 21, 2009

The All-Too-Real Legend of the Bat


The Riff blog at Mother Jones directed me to this post by Eric Grignol about the intersection of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy and Batwoman's origin story, currently being serialized in Detective Comics 858-860 (issue 860 goes on sale on Wednesday). I've been reading comics for more than 30 years, and I'd say that this element of Kate Kane's past is probably the most realistic and human superhero origin story I've ever read. Which is especially impressive, given the character's clumsy rollout in 52 a few years ago; it makes me gladder than ever that Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams were able to take their time on this series. Not to be missed.

Rob

4 comments:

Figserello said...

That's a great post.

I'd just accepted the whole "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" thing as a plot point in Batwoman's story without giving it too much thought (except that it makes the US look a bit daft), but I guess it is an interaction with current real life events too.

Yay, comics!!

13,000 soldiers? That's a third of a surge!

Jeff said...

This was indeed a great story (and continues to be). It's interesting to see the Queen and Country Greg Rucka peeking through here a bit with the military angle, and I like his take on the whole gay/lesbian angle.

Rob S. said...

Yeah -- it's funny, once we learned about her military background, I had been wondering how she'd made the transition out of the military and to crimefighting. And the answer we got in 859 was so obvious in retrospect. *)f course* that's how it happened! I guess I'm so attuned to expecting big explosions that the more human-sized conflicts sometimes don't occur to me.

Greg! said...

I eagerly await the story's collection; that's one I'll be buying.