If there were an equivalent of backdoor pilots in the comic book medium, Detective Comics #948 would undoubtedly be a prime example. Kicking off a two-issue arc that leads directly into next month’s highly anticipated Batwoman series, co-writers James Tynion IV and Marguerite Bennett aim to take Kate Kane to new places in the Rebirth era.
Speaking with Comicosity, Tynion made it known that developing a new Batwoman series had been on the agenda of many and that the stars aligned in his favor:
“No, you know, the way the series came into existence was that DC had wanted a new Batwoman series for so long, and Marguerite had been interested in doing a Batwoman series for a long time. And I was guiding the character through Detective Comics.
“There’s always a worry when someone says, ‘We’re going to take one of your characters and give them a spin-off book.’ Will that cause a power imbalance or conflict with different people trying to tell different stories about the same character? But with us, when DC asked if it was something we’d be ok with, we were both like, yes, this is going to be great. [laughs]”
But before we get to the eagerly awaited relaunch, ‘Tec will bring to light some differences between Batman and Batwoman, which Bennett elaborated on:
“Oh goodness. That’s a big question. I don’t want to do a disservice to it with a short answer, but part of it is that she can cheer up. She has fallibility, in a way that Batman doesn’t have as an icon. She has passions and prejudices that she’s just starting to deal with. And there are places she needs to go back to in order to make amends because she’s screwed up.
“It’s sort of funny, that with Batman being so huge and so iconic, his focus has mostly been small in Gotham City alone. With Kate, she has this global scale having been trained internationally with these black ops combat teams, but her scale has to date been really intimate. That’s going to be something brutal and I hope morally fascinating as the series goes on.”
Be sure to get in on the ground floor when Detective Comics #948 arrives in comic shops this Wednesday, January 11. As for Batwoman: Rebirth #1, that’s set to hit shelves on Wednesday, February 15.