Batwoman #29

I had no idea "spell" was a euphemism for "vagina."

Now I have the song "I Put A Spell On You" stuck in my head and its far more sexy than creepy! I think Marilyn Manson's version of "I Put A Spell On You" from the Lost Highway soundtrack is the definitive version of that song. I suppose Manson doing a version of a love song that's already inherently creepy is a bit like the person that has to point out a subtle penis joke by yelling, "It's about a penis!" That's kind of the way Captain Hammer and I roll.

I just realized that Kate is going to have to start wearing pants around her apartment more often now that Maggie's kid has moved in. I figure that's probably the main thing that would change if I had children. I'd wear pants around the apartment more often. Not at first, of course! Just when they got old enough to have friends come over. Although then it might be worth the teenage embarrassment factor to walk through the room in my underwear in front of my kid's friends with a stack of Superman comic books under my arm and asking, "Anybody got to use the bathroom? Judging by my stomach's reaction to breakfast, I'm probably going to be in there for awhile!" Also, the Superman comic books would not be for reading but for wiping my ass because they'd be the ones written by Scott Lobdell.

This issue begins with that Eisenstadt guy (unless his name is spelled differently) discovering a secret about a rich bastard named Mr. Grantham! But the reader doesn't get to know the secret yet or else we'd set the book down and stop reading because too much was revealed too quickly. Unless the revelation was mysterious enough to keep us interested! I know I'd be more interested finding out exactly what Eisenstadt found out rather than being left with this to keep me hooked:

"Blessed Virgin! A Grinch doll!"

Eisenstadt means iron city. I just point that out because it might be important to the character later. Like he might have an iron will or he bustles frequently.

To continue living with Maggie and her child, Kate had to make a few concessions. One of those was to see a therapist for her possible Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Not that anybody but Maggie thinks she might have PTSD. But Maggie is the only one that matters to Kate, so she's going to spend a few pages telling a stranger all the fucked up bits of her life so that she can feel less anxious and more connected to the world. Ha ha! Who does that? What a pathetic loser!

Ow. I think I just hurt my feelings.

Oh wait! I'm not the pathetic loser! I'm the therapist helping people understand that they aren't alone in their problems by exposing my own! My readers are the pathetic losers!

Hey! Wait! Where are you going?! I didn't mean anything by that last caption! Please stay! I LOVE YOU!

Obviously what I meant to say is that we're all pathetic losers together because our problems aren't anywhere as unique as we'd like to think they are. They differ only in slight degrees. There's a quote that I'm probably misremembering somehow but it goes something like this: "When you see somebody else get stabbed in the face, it's comedy. But when it happens to you, it's tragedy." And it's easy to look at the victim of comedy as being a pathetic loser when they whine about not getting how funny the stabbed in the face joke was. So what I meant to say is that by all of us being pathetic losers, we aren't actually pathetic losers at all! We're just animals trapped inside the human condition. We're observers observing the observes as we're observed by the observing observers who are also observed. You know what I mean! Probably!

Oh! Oh! I know what happens when you assume! When you assume, you just make stuff up in your head that lacks evidence and then you believe it so strongly (because why would you, the genius, be wrong?) that it takes two to three times more evidence to convince you that you were wrong than if you had just let the evidence come in before making your stupid assumption.

When the therapist assumes she's heterosexual, it's the final straw for Kate who doesn't actually want to be here anyway. She lists off all the "issues" the therapist would probably enjoy asking her to elucidate before walking out of the office. One of those "issues" is that Kate "scared the hell out of [her] fiance's daughter, possibly destroying [their] relationship." That's still a problem? The kid walking in on Kate half-naked in the bathroom cleaning blood off of her face? Bullshit. If the relationship is so fragile that Maggie can't get past her kid getting what amounted to a slightly perturbing experience then maybe Maggie isn't as into the relationship as she thought. Maybe Maggie isn't the one that really has much of a problem with what happened. Obviously she wants her child to be safe around the problems that could crop up when married to a vigilante. So it's understandable if Maggie wants to make sure Kate is okay. Perhaps it's Kate that is blowing this whole thing out of proportion because she's afraid she can't be a good mother to this little girl. Seems like Kate wants this entire thing to blow up because she's afraid she isn't worthy of a normal, happy family. It's easier to get pissed at your therapist and walk out like he's the asshole than to have to face the fact that your fucked up early family life doesn't make you essentially a fucked up person. I think Kate wants to think of herself as permanently broken because it makes it easier to put her life in danger every night. She doesn't deserve to be happy so she risks her life saving people that do deserve to be happy. But remember that thing about us all being pathetic losers? Right. So Kate Kane also deserves to be saved. But who will save her?

Meanwhile Wolf Spider is planning an art heist on Arkham Asylum! That should be entertaining.

That also just made me realize what I really want in the next DC Comics video game! I mean, after the Suicide Squad game, of course! I fucking can't wait for that shit. Anyway, I want a Catwoman game that's a lot like the Thief games but with super heroes and super villains! So your basic game play is a lot like Thief where you steal lots of shiny shit but with more parkour and whipping. And instead of normal guards, Catwoman has to sneak around super villains and their powers. And of course, she'd occasionally have to fuckfight Batman.

Kate really is on the defensive. Although Maggie is pressing pretty hard with the "you obviously have a mental illness" flanking maneuver. I think couples counseling is the real answer!

Kate and Maggie decide to stop discussing their relationship because it's more difficult than figuring out who Wolf Spider really is. Although that's actually pretty easy but they're just dumb. And by dumb, I don't mean the old timey meaning of cannot speak. I don't even mean the new timey meaning of being stupid. I just mean they're ignorant of comic book conventions. I don't mean conventions as in a place where people gather to meet due to a shared interest, usually for the sake of buying and selling! I mean convention as in a trope or a usual means of doing things. Also, they're ignorant of the fact that they're in a comic book or else they'd know right off that Wolf Spider was Kate's old beard from high school. I forget what his name was. So I'm awful at detektif work too!

One thing Kate has figured out is that Wolf Spider has been stealing Eisenstadt paintings. And she knows the location of one of the last two in the series being stolen: Arkham Asylum! So Kate heads over there in the hopes that Wolf Spider will be there that night. While she's waiting around, maybe she'll remember seeing a painting in her family estate with lots of people with no faces.

The next panel should be Wolf Spider saying, "Kate?" Then Batwoman says, "Evan?" And then they have a good laugh and go out for some pizza.

The fight quickly turns into a chase which winds up in the Metahuman Security Wing. Which is probably where Batwoman is going to fall under the vagina of Nocturna! Once Wolf Spider sets all the inmates free so he can get away under cover of craziness.

I don't recognize most of the inmates released because Batwoman must be in the Batwoman's Villains Wing as opposed to the Batman's Villains Wing.

Wolf Spider sneaks off while Batwoman is left to fight these guys. Clockwise from Bottom Left: La Cucaracha, The Lamprey, Frat Disaster, The Blue Fairy, The Janitore, and Nocturna.

Batwoman #29 Rating: +1 Ranking. The tone of the book has shifted somewhat from Williams and Blackman's run but the quality has been retained. Okay, so the art and the layouts aren't nearly as interesting as before. And the story is quite a bit lighter. But I have to admit I like how much time Andreyko is spending on Kate and Maggie's relationship within the framework of the greater story. This is one book that I wouldn't think twice if people had just dropped when Blackman and Williams walked off the book. But if they did, I think they're missing out on a DC comic that's still well worth reading. Unless it makes you angry just thinking about what could have been! Then you probably shouldn't touch it for your own sanity. Especially since you can't hate it the way you'd truly be able to if Ann Nocenti and Rob Liefeld had taken over.