Detective Comics #855

Batwoman confronts Alice, the looney-tunes new leader of the Church of Crime, gasses her in the hope of interrogating her, but gets slashed by a poisoned razor that Alice was holding in her mouth. She loses her wig and starts hallucinating about the night her mother was killed. Kate’s dad goes after her to help, but the Church of Crime has resources that could be much too strong for an injured crimefighter and her aging military dad. Meanwhile, in the second feature, the Question beats up some thugs and gets a lead on the kidnapped girl, heading to a large office building to meet up with someone named Chandless. But his security is a lot better than the thugs Renee took care of before.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good, solid superheroey whoopass from beginning to end. Alice is a nicely disturbing weirdo — and it does seem appropriate that Batwoman would get her own version of the Joker as a nemesis.

Wonder Woman #34

Wondy gets a lead from Dr. T.O. Morrow on the murderous demigoddess Genocide’s whereabouts — an illegal metahuman fighting club in Japan. She enlists Black Canary’s aid to help her infiltrate the club, and Dinah decides to give herself and Wondy a super-makeover so they can disguise themselves as supervillains and sneak into the club. Masquerading as the Orphan Sisters, WW and BC have to fight a robot and a shapeshifter, and Diana unexpectedly manifests some new superpowers. But who’s the mastermind behind the club?

Verdict: Thumbs up, particularly for Black Canary’s dialogue and the hilarious makeover scene.

Batman and Robin #2

Dick Grayson is discouraged. He hasn’t been Batman long, the cops aren’t sure they trust him yet, Gotham PD just got attacked by a bunch of circus-freak ninjas, and someone used all the chaos to kill the Toad, the one link to the ominous Mr. Pyg. The new Robin, Damian al Ghul, Batman’s son, is out of control and runs off to try to get Mr. Pyg on his own.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I loved the circus freaks who attacked the Gotham cop shop — the brawling fat lady and the hyper-agile Siamese-triplets were particularly cool. But I thought the high point of the issue was, believe it or not, the conversation between Dick and Alfred. Alfred used to be an actor, and Dick used to be a circus performer, and they talk about dressing up as Batman as a show-stopping star performance. Just seemed like a really great moment for a couple of great characters, talking about parts of their lives that we always seem to forget existed. Nice issue, good fun, great art, great writing. Looking forward to more.

Detective Comics #854

I picked this one up because it got extremely good buzz, and I’m glad I got it. It’s the re-introduction of Batwoman, who got a high-profile entrance a few years ago in the “52” weekly series, then was mostly ignored when DC suddenly panicked about publishing a lesbian superhero. Anyway, Kate Kane is on the trail of the Church of Crime’s new leader and, in the process, meets up with Batman, who tells her to cut her long hair because it would be a liability in a close-quarters fight. Turns out the hair is a wig, and we get to meet Kate’s girlfriend — whoops, make that ex-girlfriend — and her dad, who assists her in the crimefighting biz. There’s a backup story in this one, focusing on Renee Montoya, the Question, as she tries to track down a kidnapped woman in L.A.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I like this Kate Kane a lot more than I did the closeted-socialite version of the character. This one is more of a tattooed punk-goth rocker, and it makes her about a thousand times cooler than before. Batwoman may actually be the new lead character in “Detective Comics,” which is fairly cool. The backup with Renee Montoya is pretty good, too. Wish the story were longer, but I guess that’s the point of backup stories, right?