Why Do People Say There’s Nothing Interesting About Batwoman?

I’ve been embroiled in a discussion on another blog regarding DC’s attitudes towards lesbians and the continuing vaporware of the Batwoman book, which is rapidly becoming the comics industry’s Duke Nukem Forever. The one thing I keep hearing, all the time, is that Batwoman is boring, that she’s a cipher, that she has no personality, that there’s no good reason anyone would want to read a comic about her.

I also hear, fairly regularly, the cynical observation that she only exists as a Bat-character to push a lesbian agenda; or that her sexuality is the sum total of her character.

Now, I don’t know what conspiracy of forces have left us going until May 2008 without a Batwoman comic. I don’t know what happened to Devin Grayson and Dustin Nguyen’s pitch; I don’t know why it was rejected; it’s a shame that the badly-kept-secret new iteration of the book is still on the production table. But from what we saw of her in 52 and now in Crime Bible, it’s pretty damn clear that DC knows her background and what they’re doing with her. First of all, we already saw the source of the guilt and fortune that led her to become Batwoman: guns. The Kane fortune is from the firearms industry over a long period of time. I don’t know what the catalyst was, but a detail like that is clearly related to her mission.

Secondly, though, and most interestingly, are the possibilities that the character’s social status and sexuality provide to the writer regarding the extension of the classic secret identity trope, because Kate Kane has two separate secret identities. Her public face, that of billionaire heiress Kate Kane, is, as far as I can tell, basically a better-behaved Paris Hilton – similar to Bruce Wayne’s public face. Then, there are the people in her private life who know of her sexual orientation, which is kept secret from the public. Then there are the people who think she’s straight, but know she rolls around in a fetish suit and dropkicks gangstas in the wee hours of the morning. Then, only past those two secrets, do you have any idea who Kate Kane actually is.

This could lead to all kinds of interesting drama attacking the secret identity theme from new angles, as well as a fascinating if complex web of supporting characters. To say there’s no reason for this book to be published, or that if it was it would have nothing to offer other than ass shots and fetish references, is just sad and cynical and unfortunately symptomatic of the comics fanbase today.

Just a thought.