Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist: DaNi
DC Comics, August 2026
American writer Greg Rucka’s return to Batwoman is, as touted by DC Comics’ cover, “Next Level”. DC Comics’ website describes the “Next Level” imprint as follows:
“...a series of bold, creator-forward #1s, starring fan-favorite characters, and helmed by some of the best talent in comics. These new Next Level titles will launch alongside bold new storylines in DC’s ongoing and limited series as DC All In begins its second act.”
(See https://www.dc.com/blog/2025-12-15/dc-all-in-starts-its-second-act-in-march-2026-with-dc-next-level ).
Mr Rucka’s work on Batwoman in 2009-2010 was exceptional. The lead character is Kate Kane, a US Marine-turned-masked crimefighter. While they were young, Kate, her twin sister Beth, and their mother were kidnapped by vicious terrorists. Kate’s father was a senior Marine officer, and he led a failed rescue attempt: only Kate survived. Beth’s murder is the reason why Kate joins the Marines, and then when that career choice becomes untenable, why she ends up becoming Batwoman.
In Mr Rucka’s 2009 introduction to the character, called Elegy, Batwoman’s main villain is Alice. Alice is a psychopath who exclusively speaks lines from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, captured within the panels as menacing and strange black word balloons with ornate lettering. In the climax of the story, Alice fights Batwoman atop an aircraft’s fuselage. As she is about to fall to her death, Alice notes to Kate, in an ordinary word balloon with standard type, “You have our father’s eyes.” For your reviewer, back in the first decade of this century, it was one of the most startling moments in comics.
In 1871, Lewis Carroll wrote in his Alice in Wonderland sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass, “I knew who I was this morning, but I’ve changed a few times since then.” Mr Rucka knows the feeling, we suspect. The sixteen years in-between has seen Mr Rucka pursue other endeavours, mostly for DC Comics, but also for Image Comics (notably Black Magick and The Old Guard) and Marvel Comics, plus screenplays. With this new series, Mr Rucka resumes what he had started: the interaction between these two lost twins.
But before we delve into the plot, first, the art. Greek artist DaNi’s output does not have the same verisimilitude as J.H. Williams III’s remarkable work. (One of the double pages spread in this issue is an express homage to J.H. William III.) But there is something a little Jim Steranko about her art, especially the renditions of people.
And this page below is a remarkable expression of artistic skill: a negative-space modern office tower against a white sky under a grey crescent moon should be enough. But in addition we have, first, a reflection, in a pool of blood, of a terrified face looking up at us; second, an upshot to two figures one of which appears to look down at us with casual power, the background curling to a vanishing point; and finally, a set of inscrutable blue eyes staring at us. At almost all points we are invited into the scene by these faces as they look at us: we are a participant in the action rather than a mere audience.
Mr Rucka has a solid reputation for writing strong female figures (see our review of his early work on White Out – https://worldcomicbookreview.com/2024/12/24/whiteout-volumes-1-and-2-revisited/ ). True to form, in this issue we have both Kate and her formidable fellow-crimefighter, The Question, who also happens to be Kate’s former lover.
But the focus of the issue is upon Beth’s torment. Mr Rucka depicts Beth as someone trying to be normal, to overcome the monstrosity carved out in her brain. Beth sees her path to normality as becoming her sister, mimicking even Kate’s tattoos, in an effort to not be Alice. It is sad and horrible. And taking a lead from Mr Carroll, Mr Rucka and DaNi place the image of Alice in a looking glass, haughtily staring down at the collapsing Beth through broken shards of the mirror, representing Beth’s schizoid mental state. And, as with the other characters, Alice also stares down at the reader.
Batwoman #4 is gripping stuff. It qualifies as next level.
For our friends at Comic Book Roundup, this issue deserves five from five stars.