The case may be closed closed, but questions remain in The Question's co-feature. And Renee won't stop until she has the answers! When a new lead points to the Sicilian mafia, The Question turns to an expert for assistance. But can she trust the Huntress to be professional when family rears its ugly head?
In last month's review, I forgot to even mention the ending of the first arc in
DETECTIVE's Question backup. The cause of this oversight had nothing to do with thinking the story wasn't good or memorable. I was just so floored by how staggeringly awesome the main Batwoman story was that I couldn't think about anything else. (Except for pizza and wings. I'm always thinking about pizza and wings.)
So this month, I'll begin with some words about issue #859's Question backup. Chapter Two of "Pipeline" begins here, with The Question delving deeper into the human trafficking case. The subject matter is too unpleasant for my tastes, but I do like The Question as a character, and artist Cully Hamner (with a big coloring assist from Dave McCaig) continues to bring his singular talents to bear with much success. The action is big, and rather than going for a cliffhanger, writer Rucka uses the ending to shoot the story into a new direction that's visually and narratively reminiscent of something you'd expect from a James Bond movie. I haven't really been able to get into this story so far, so I'm hoping a new direction might pull me into it a bit more.
But I'm buying this book because of Batwoman, and this issue is just one more reason why I still think this is the best comic on the market right now.
Kate Kane is entirely her own entity. I'd still be reading this book if she called herself Red Herring or Captain Girl-merica, or whatever. I love her as a character. I love her story. And this second chapter of her origin makes her all the more interesting as she faces a choice between the life she wants and being honest with not just her heritage but also herself.
And in making the right decision for herself, all she gets in return is more confusion about who and what to be.
Writer Greg Rucka weaves a mighty tapestry here, giving equal time and weight to Kate's present and past while raising more and more questions about her future. Every element of this story is firing on every cylinder, and every storyline here is a winner. (Kate's scene with her dad is one of the finest fatherly moments in any superhero's origin. Ever.) The freakish creatures continue to recall Batman's battles with monsters and macabre in the earliest pages of DETECTIVE all those decades ago, and artist J. H. Williams III deserves equal praise for making flashbacks and present-day sequences look and feel entirely different (with amazing assistance from the capable colors of Dave Stewart).
And the story's final pages are nothing short of epic, as we see the one confrontation that affected Kate's current direction more than any other. Rucka is bringing so many things into focus in ways that are clever, engaging, and exciting. I can't get enough of this book. The main story gets an A+ and THE QUESTION backup a B. - John Bierly
