My editors tell me I need to write more than “Marguerite Bennet makes the best Hannibal Lecter pun ever, this is the comic of the year” over and over. So let’s dig into the third part of ‘The Fall of the House of Kane.’ Warning: slight spoilers.
Written by Marguerite Bennett
Illustrated by Fernando Blanco
Colored by John Rauch
Lettered by Deron Bennett
“THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF KANE” part three! A lethal plague fills the skies of Gotham City as the Many Arms of Death throttle Batwoman’s hold on the city! As their leader Alice begins her deadly endgame, Batwoman realizes that if she cannot stop her sister-Batman will.
“Batwoman” #15 has both a lot and not that much going on. The plot is simple: how will Kate and Julia stop Alice’s colony of plague bats? The emotional revelations, renewal, and cost of putting that plan into motion is slightly more complicated. Despite the appearance of these contradictory ideas, Marguerite Bennet and Fernando Blanco craft a book that synergizes these largely through the use of internal monologue.
Having four double-page spreads in an issue can be a bit indulgent. It renders just under half of this issue as some kind of spread. However, Bennett and Blanco use these spreads for a very specific purpose: to as quickly, efficiently, and artistically work through plot machinations in this issue. They use the spread like you would a montage. That idea shines especially when Kate flies through Gotham, corralling the bats. Blanco fuses three separate cityscapes, each with separate perspectives, together by tracking the plane and bats across the pages. The jet ends at the top left corner of one page and ends at the bottom right of another. Meanwhile, little panels spotlighting Julia’s work on a cure are spread horizontally across. This spread throws a lot of stuff at the reader but it is surprisingly readable as you follow the plane zig-zagging across the page, cutting it into rough thirds. It’s a bigger version of how Blanco structured a single page earlier in the issue of Batwoman attacking Alice’s ship with her red phantasmic vision at the center.
The plot and the straight-forward manner the issue works through it doesn’t mean the characters’ emotions are any less complicated. A good plot is something that allows for the externalization of what the character chases emotionally. It turns out corralling a colony of plague ridden bats is just what Kate Kane needed. It forces her to finally choose continuing to chase the ghosts of her past (represented in the disappeared Knife) or own up to them and protect what she has in the present (Alice and Gotham City). The link between plotting and emotional need helps Bennett and Blanco navigate the line between showing and telling. There is an argument to be made the use of internal monologue is literal telling; however, Bennett’s script, in conjunction with Blanco’s imagery, delivers the moment where Kate Kane owns the “damage” she has caused instead of wallowing in it.
There are a few minor hiccups in this issue. Managing a strict chronology in this kind of publishing is generally a futile effort. Alice taunting Kate with her murder of Clayface feels like one of those moments. The general assumption has been ‘The Fall of the House of Kane’ and “Batwoman” in general has taken place prior too ‘The Fall of the Batmen’ in “Detective Comics.” The taunt puts a wrinkle in that assumption but I don’t really mind it. For the emotional renewal that Kate goes through, Alice’s taunt is a sharp emotional dagger for both her and readers. With this kind of publishing emotional continuity and storytelling are of higher importance than keeping tangible plot stuff all in a row: it’s pretty much what the MCU is anchored around.
A slightly harder hiccup to intellectualize away involves the lettering on the page 11 where Kate jumps off the Kane Industries building. As with the art this issue, the page design is excellent and affecting. Blanco turns the page into two vertical columns, a smaller one showing Kate’s leap and a larger one flashing to all sorts of moments in her life as she falls. As Kate is falling her mind races to figure out an answer to problem of Alice’s plague. Her memories are accented with narration boxes quoting various sayings from the series as a whole and the lettering makes things a bit more confusing than they had to be. At the top of the page, Julia answers Kate’s question from the previous page and is represented by a brown green box another quote from her is in the same type of box. The shade of brown green is very similar to light brown boxes that represent Safiya’s monologue, which is interspersed through the page. The similarity in color makes unnecessary friction on a page that is all about free fall and lucid thinking.
Final Verdict: 7.5 – While there are some moments of friction, “Batwoman” #15 is one of the more functionally artistic and successful books Marguerite Bennett, Fernando Blanco, John Rauch, and Deron Bennett, have done on this run. The big and bold imagery has clear energy and purpose as it articulates the actions and revelations Kate Kane goes through as she accepts responsibility for all her actions.
