Image courtesy DC Comics
Since making her comic-book debut in 2013, Marguerite Bennett has written about characters from Batman to Josie and the Pussycats, while also finding time for creator-owned work like “InSEXts,” her Victorian horror series with artist Ariela Kristantina for AfterShock Comics. This month, she begins her most high-profile project yet, penning the adventures of “Batwoman,” the first openly gay member of the Batman family, for DC Comics. We talked with the 2006 Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School grad, now living in Los Angeles, about why Batwoman is a dream assignment.
Richmond magazine: I’ve read that Batwoman is your favorite character. Why?
Marguerite Bennett (Photo courtesy DC Comics)
Marguerite Bennett: Growing up queer, there were not many queer heroines, so that was certainly something that made me take notice of Batwoman. But moreover, it was the fact that Batwoman was a hero, but was a character who was depicted as very flawed. … She felt like a real person as opposed to a collection of virtues.
RM: You’re starting your work on the character this month with a two-part story in Detective Comics issues 948 and 949, co-written by James Tynion IV, who’ll also be with you for your first few issues of Batwoman’s regular series, which starts next month with artist Steve Epting. What does the process of co-writing look like?
Bennett: We go to a Mediterranean restaurant and order some drinks — it’s a lovely place in L.A. — and chat over who the characters are and break them down. What is this character about? What are they afraid of? What is the best thing that could happen to them, what is the worst thing that could happen to them? And then we construct a story outward from their identities and from the morality of those characters, how they play off each other.
RM: What did it feel like when Ben Oliver sent in his artwork for Detective Comics, and you got to see a Batwoman comic that you had helped script?
Bennett: It was just sort of goosebump-inducing. There was such a sense of “this [is] real and it [is] finally happening.” It sounds like such a cliché, but this was a dream come true.
RM: When this version of Batwoman debuted in 2006, her sexual orientation made national news. A decade later, the world of superheroes seems even more LBGT-friendly. Why do you think this kind of representation is still so important?
Bennett: We have this massive publishing history, not just in comics but really in all of Western literature, that has offered a rather singular or rather exclusive perspective. So having it become more inclusive is better for everyone. … You get stories you’d never hear before and perspectives you never would have considered. I honestly think that there is nothing but good in that.
