Batwoman #1: The Devil Inside

Kate Kane is a survivor, but that is not always a good thing. Having found herself in a hospital in Greece, Kate has lost all hope, but there is still work to be done. The devil is real, and he is coming for all of us. Batwoman is the only one who can stop it.

Batwoman has had an interesting trajectory over the past two decades. Debuting in the critically-acclaimed weekly series “52”, Kate Kane proved to be a breakout character (along with her ex-girlfriend Renee Montoya). She’s had a couple of colo volumes over the years and even joined a couple of teams (2024’s Outsiders being the most recent), but has always managed to stay largely disconnected from the wider Bat-Family despite being Batman’s first cousin. That trend continues here and as a start to a new volume it’s fairly bold in its execution.

Greg Rucka, one of Kate’s many co-creators, takes the narrative things for this book and immediately puts our heroine in the middle of a very dark mystery. Kate is in a hospital in Greece after what appears to be one final battle with her arch-nemesis, her deranged twin sister Alice. Dealing with the energy released at the end of DC K.O. Kate finds herself shaken which is quite a departure from her normal rigid confidence. Rucka crafts this mystery centering on religion and trauma, and it will hopefully be a thrilling experience to see how a writer of Rucka’s caliber navigates these concepts with this character.

Dani’s gritty pencils emphasized by Matt Hollingsworth’s muted colors give this book even more personality and make it appear more like a horror-thriller instead of a regular cape book. Things look slightly out of focus, adding to that feeling of uneasiness that Kate feels throughout the issue. Rucka pairs well with artists whose styles lean more towards realism (Michael Lark, J.G. Jones, and Marco Checcetto to name a few) and this book continues that winning trend.