Batwoman #7 Review and *SPOILERS*

Down Here, We All Float

Written By: Marguerite Bennett
Art By: Fernando Blanco, John Rauch
Letters by: Deron Bennett
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: September 20, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Another month has gone by and that means it’s time for yet another issue of the dumpster fire that is the Batwoman book. However, this time is slightly different. We have got a new art team on this book and James Tynion IV has (at least for the time being) left the book to be written solely by Marguerite Bennett. Now, I know that Bennett has a great love for this character but honestly, I can’t help but think this might have been better left in Tynion’s hands. Sure, his run on Detective Comics isn’t the best thing in the world, but I find it to be legitimately interesting every single issue. There’s always something that intrigues me and has me come back for more. Batwoman, on the other hand, has robbed me of my moral and despite my better judgement, I keep hoping for a new direction to get me excited for this book. Will this new storyline continue bring that to me? It’s unlikely but what the hell? Let’s just jump right into it.

Our issue begins with Kate in the middle of the Sahara desert with her Batwoman suit torn up as she calls out for Safiyah (goddamn it… we’re still on this?). We immediately flashback to a few hours ago when Batwoman was in an aircraft above the desert. We then get an wrap up of things that have gone this far. Batwoman has been tracking down the members of the Many Arms of Death since we saw her last and by the flashback, it would seem that all of those stories at least had awesome action scenes that probably were better than anything else we’ve seen in this book but why would we want to see those when we could just watch Kate walk through the fucking desert? We get back with Kate in her aircraft and her dialogue reveals that she is tracking another member of the MAD (Many Arms of Death. Please get used to this acronym). This one is called the Needle. However, he time in the sky is short lived as Kate is suddenly shot out of the sky by anti-aircraft fire.

After crashing in the desert, we get a flashback of Kate with Safiyah during the Lost Year. The two are waking up in bed and share a romantic moment when they are interrupted by Rafael. He informs Safiyah that one of the warlords is here to see her and that he is worried that his daughter is going to murder him to take her place. As she leaves, Kate looks out to see a fox that has many cuts on it’s body and is bleeding quite a bit. We go back to the present and Kate has finally left her aircraft which has been completely totaled. However, she isn’t alone long when two beasts seem to come out to attack her. Upon closer inspection, Kate realizes that these are Colony soldiers but that they have been changed into oil vomiting gorillas (yes, really). Kate gets into a fight with them and during that time she hears her father’s voice coming from the Colony soldiers comms. We get no information from Jacob Kane as his communications are completely cut off by a sandstorm.

Caught in the sandstorm, Kate is suddenly flung 100 feet in the air until she is thrown back to earth. This is when we get a flashback (or what is supposedly a flashback) where Kate wakes up in snowy Switzerland about 6 months ago. She is there with her sister Beth and the two are simply having a conversation. It would seem that Beth is being held there but not against her will. She feels safe there and happy. During this time, Beth mentions that she wants to start a garden and Kate tells her to watch out for foxes because the thorns on the plants can cut through their skin terribly. Kate tells her that she and her friend had to kill all the foxes because of it. Suddenly, the flashback turns sour as Beth suddenly becomes whiter than usual and a bullet hole shows up in her forehead before she slips away. We return to Kate after the sandstorm has passed (thank god it must have only been a minute or two) and she sees the two bodies of the Colony soldiers. She looks for pulse but can’t find one and she tears off her mask out of frustration. She immediately retrieves it and starts walking to the near shelter she knows of.

Kate then walks for the next eleven hours before she assumingly succumbs to radiation poisoning from the sun. She begins to hallucinate an oasis with plenty of water. Kate comes to the conclusion that she has to drink the water in order to survive and as soon as she does things get 1970’s trippy as Kate goes into a deep hallucination and finds herself in a rose garden full of dead foxes. It is during this trip that we suddenly realize who is behind what Kate is seeing. She is hallucinating her fears and nothing says fear quite like Batman’s classic foe—The Scarecrow! This is where the issue leaves us.

Okay… This is fucking stupid. I know I may change my mind later and I may regret giving this issue such a hard time but I have to speak my mind. I am sick of this goddamn MAD storyline. It’s so freaking dumb and I continue to question what is even happening. We begin the issue in the middle of a desert with Kate torn up but there isn’t enough there to make us question how we got there. It just ruins the next couple pages by making us completely aware that Kate is going to be shot down. It completely removes the tension from the beginning of the story (not that there’s much tension to begin with). Then we get more useless flashbacks that add nothing to the story with Safiyah. But we did learn that she killed a bunch of foxes for some reason. Seriously though… Animals aren’t stupid. Foxes live in the wild. They know to avoid bushes with thorns. But not only that, Safiyah was apparently like, “one isn’t enough” and went about making sure foxes went extinct on Coryana for some reason. Then Kate gets attacked by Colony which creates a mystery but the conversation with Jacob does absolutely nothing and then she gets hit by the shortest sandstorm in history and survives it somehow. Then she takes off her mask, revealing her identity for no reason in the middle of enemy territory. Kate isn’t this stupid of a character! Bennett must have made an incredible career for herself to get to this position but for all her love for this character, she cannot write her for shit.

Bits and Pieces

Batwoman continues to be a dumpster fire but now it’s set in the desert. The ending is a bit interesting and has me interested but I know exactly what kind of book this is and it’s a book devoid of fun or intrigue or anything else that would entice readers to pick it up. The book is sloppy, it doesn’t make sense most of the time. I don’t want anyone to read this book. I don’t want anyone to buy this book. I want you to save your money and spend it somewhere else. The Batwoman stock is dropping fast with this book and you need to abandon ship.

2.6/10