With Batwoman: Rebirth #1 hitting stores tomorrow and setting up the solo adventures of Kate Kane in a brand new series, we talked to writer Marguerite Bennett about what to expect.
When DC Rebirth launched last year, Detective Comics saw Batman bring on Batwoman to be the co-leader of a black-ops team featuring Gotham’s next generation of heroes. The first story arc “Rise of the Batmen” wound up being incredibly personal to Batwoman as she found out her father was behind the latest evil plot to take down Gotham.
There was also the “Night of the Monster Men” crossover that, at its conclusion, left giant monster bodies piled up on the streets of Gotham, bodies containing the dangerous “Monster Venom” chemical that can be used to make even more monsters. Batwoman’s new series picks up on this thread as Batwoman must find out who is behind the new monster drug trade. The series will also flash back to the “lost years” in her life between when she was kicked out of the military for being a lesbian and when she first became Batwoman.
Batwoman: Rebirth #1 is essentially a recap and setup issue that tells you everything you need to know from the character’s past in order to dive head-first into her new book. Take a look at our exclusive preview inside the issue and then hear what Bennett had to say about it in an email interview with IGN.
IGN Comics: I know you’re a big Batwoman fan, and as a queer woman writing a queer character like Batwoman, does this give you a chance to use your own personal experiences to shape the character?
Marguerite Bennett: ONE HUNDRED GODDAMN PERCENT. The good stuff, the bad stuff, the elegant stuff, the brutal stuff, the stuff that went right, the love that went wrong, the sexy delirious delightful stuff, the stuff that cuts right through you and drives all the way down until it hits bone. In some cases, these experiences now seem validated and went from “Why did I have to live this horrible experience again?” to “Buckle up, son, it’s going in the book.”
IGN: This Rebirth issue compresses all of Batwoman’s history into one issue while also setting up elements for the future. What would you say are the pillars of Batwoman’s world that were important to include in this story?
Bennett: The issue was a joy of answering exactly that, and I hope you’ll enjoy our REBIRTH issue, which could be described as BATWOMAN: GREATEST HITS as well as some never-before-seen B-sides. The issue will be a tremendous jumping-on point for new readers keen to learn about the character and the massive crossroads of her life, BUT there is also striking new information in each scene that will be intriguing to even the most dedicated Batwoman fans. Past, present, and future—we can show you Kate as you’ve never seen her before.
IGN: Being a part of a military family and having a supportive father was always something good for Kate Kane, yet that changed dramatically in Detective Comics when it was revealed her father Colonel Jacob Kane was in charge of the Batmen. How has that affected Kate’s mentality and what role will her father be playing in your series?
Bennett: Jacob is an inescapable force in Kate’s life, but his continuing role will loom mostly in DETECTIVE COMICS, while BATWOMAN will set out to bring a new, unique, and intriguing cast to Kate’s life.
Kate has been keeping secrets. To me, she is a struggle. She’s fallible. She isn’t Wonder Woman; she isn’t that kind of icon. She fights, and she fails, and she splits her lip and bruises all the way to the bone and she claws up through the mud and keeps going. She isn’t aspirational; she isn’t clean. She isn’t a role model, as we traditionally perceive them. She screws up and she faces her own consequences, but she can be selfish, stubborn, ferocious, blind. But she means, in all things, to serve something greater than herself—to take the strength, courage, resources, and passion she was given and forge a world better than the one into which she was born. She’s an eternal struggle—a powerful, physical struggle—for peace in the world and in her own heart.
IGN: The main mission that takes Batwoman away on her own journey is to stop the spread of Monster Venom on the black market, but we’re also getting a glimpse at the lost years. Can you talk about how these two stories will relate to and inform one another?
Bennett: Kate Kane is leaving Gotham.
Batwoman is using all of her training, military and misadventures, and heading out of Gotham on a global hunt for the purveyors of Monster Venom on the international black market. Her hunt is going to lead her very, very close to a mistake she made years before, a time in her life she has never shared with anyone, during the lost years after her expulsion from West Point. Batwoman will have to face her failings as a human being as well as a heroine, and fall into the clutches of an enemy that has never stopped hating her.
We are going to an island called Coryana, a gorgeous hive of scum and villainy, located in the Mediterranean, about 80 miles off the coast of Malta. Anything can be bought there; anything can be sold. The island is a paradise of white beaches, black markets, stolen goods, wild roses, smugglers’ coves, beautiful assassins, brawling warlords, and one of the great, hidden passions of Kate’s life—as well as the site of her darkest regret.
IGN: What’s it like working with Steve Epting? Are there any particular comics of his that you are a fan of? What makes Steve’s art a good fit for Batwoman?
Bennett: I mean, VELVET ruins me, even on a day that I got up in the morning and said, “Marguerite, you must be ruined by no comics featuring exquisitely nuanced art and a capable, cunning, ruthless heroines out in a brutal world.” Also, anyone who does not mention WINTER SOLDIER is fibbing in church.
I would not trade our team for anything. Working with James Tynion IV, who has been my brother in comics before I was even IN comics, is a pleasure and an honor, and we hope to make something beautiful, brutal, and defiantly queer. I hope we show you elements of Batwoman and her world you’ve never seen before, had never even imagined, and push her to heights and drive her to depths that make you delight and despair for her. I hope we do justice to her legacy, and create the book I wish had existed when I was young and growing up.
Joshua is IGN’s Comics Editor. If Pokemon, Green Lantern, or Game of Thrones are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter @JoshuaYehl and IGN.
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