Rating: ***

The final part of the opening story arc of Batwoman in Detective Comics is here.  The creative team of Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III continue to do a fine job with Batwoman, but I’m starting to think that the end is near for me on this series until Batman becomes the main focus of the book again.  I like Kate Kane aka Batwoman and I think Greg Rucka has done a good job so far with the character, but for me it’s not enough to keep me interested.  I may stick around to see the next story arc which will be an origin story, but we’ll see.

Anyway, the last time we saw Batwoman, her father had been kidnapped by the Religion of Crime and their leader Alice.  Kate’s hooked up with some former members of the ROC who are capable of turning into various creatures.  Their leader is a man named Abbot.  Kate leaves the party she was attending with Abbot to suit up and go after Alice.

Alice and the ROC are on a plane with Kate’s father the colonel.  Alice and the ROC plan on dumping a chemical WMD on Gotham City.  While on the plane, the colonel recognizes Alice and asks her if she is some one named Beth.

With the help of Abbot and his people, Batwoman is able to get on the plane and she goes to battle it out with Alice.  Alice is about to fall out of the plane but Kate catches her.  She stabs Kate in the wrist and says to her that, “You have our father’s eyes,” before letting go and free-falling to the water below.  So it looks like Alice is Kate’s sister.  Nice twist; didn’t see that one coming.  I like it, but the character of Alice is not all that compelling for me to really get excited.  It’s important for Kate to have her own rogues gallery, but I still wouldn’t mind seeing her go after some of the regular Batman villains.

Speaking of Batman, the colonel tells Kate that the Batman rule is in effect and that she’s not allowed to kill Alice.  Maybe the colonel only said this because he knows Alice is Kate’s sister.  If Kate will in the the end always follow the Batman rule, I would have preferred to have had her be a killer as a way of having her be an outsider to the Bat-family - alone and separate from them as they would be willing to take her down along with the criminals of Gotham City for her actions.  A little drama and spice and to liven things up a bit.  But it’s not my character and maybe DC plans to have her be a part of the “family”.

The backup story featuring Renee Montoya as the Question heats up nicely as clues to who is behind the kidnapping of the young Mexican girl are revealed.  It seems girls are being sold into prostitution and the company GHC exports is a front for a bigger operation.

With the help of her online associate, Renee gets an address that doesn’t produce any leads, but does produce some trouble.  Again the people behind this organization are willing to kill anyone, even their own people to keep their “business” afloat.  Renee escapes, but the bad guys are hot on her tail.

I liked this little story more than the Batwoman feature.  I would go with a different artist than the one they have.  Not that impressed.

Again I may stick around after this issue.  I try to only get stuff that really blows me away.  Don’t have the money or the space in my house to keep buying comics that don’t knock my socks off.  Still I would recommend this story.  It’s decent enough and maybe other readers may take to it more than I did.

Later!