It’s being reported by retailers (and CBR’s Robot 6 blog) that the upcoming Batwoman ongoing title, by writer-artist J.H. Williams III will be delayed until April, after apparently being set to debut this month. This news surprises me for only one reason.
How did it just now get delayed? I foresaw this happening months ago! I mean, I love Williams art, but anyone who thought he was going to have something out on time is drinking the crazy juice.
The reason why this is really unfortunate (well, there are more reasons, but I personally wasn’t interested in this title) is that Batwoman has been a grand example of failed momentum since her creation in 2006. Her debut in 52 had a lot of outside attention, mainly due to her sexuality, but once 52 wrapped up she quietly faded into character limbo. She appeared in a Question miniseries that was easily forgotten, and then another easily forgotten Final Crisis miniseries, but it was all just filler. DC had said she was going to get an ongoing and the character was treading water until she got it.
Well, then her ongoing series by Greg Rucka and Williams was moved into Detective Comics, and then when Rucka left the company Williams was given the character in an ongoing. A zero issue dropped last month, with the first promised to follow nowish, but now we get a three month delay. This is similar to what happened with Paul Dini’s Zatanna ongoing series, as after using her in and out of his Detective Comics run and promising an ongoing series, eventually the series came out and nobody really seemed to notice. It slid by under the radar.
I might not be a Batwoman fan, but I do believe in new characters and chances for those new characters, so I would like nothing more than for this book to be a success. I just hope that people still care by the time it comes out.
