Batwoman prepares for a showdown with the Dark Knight

Brian Truitt | USA TODAY

A face-off between Batman and Batwoman is coming, but first the Gotham City heroine has to face her own darkness before the Dark Knight.

Batwoman — and Kate Kane, the Gotham City redhead beneath the cowl — has become one of DC Comics' more emotionally complex characters, and her internal struggle overshadows the external conflict in Batwoman issue 23, available Wednesday digitally and in comic shops.

In the current story line, she's caught in a Catch-22 situation. Director Bones of the Department of Extranormal Operations (DEO) has made her a deal: find out Batman's secret identity, and he'll make sure her father, Jacob, stays out of jail and her cousin Bette (who's training to be the crimefighter Flamebird) and fiancée Maggie Sawyer remain safe, as well as safeguard Kate's captured twin sister Beth, the former head of the Religion of Crime who's been thought dead for a good while.

"She kinda feels like she doesn't have much of a choice in the matter and she has to tell herself that as much as she idolizes Batman, there are things she's vocalized in the past about differences between them," series co-writer J.H. Williams III explains.

"She has to use that as her emotional justification to follow through with what she's doing, otherwise it feels a bit pointless for her. That in combination with safeguarding her family has to take priority over anything else at this point."

In the last issue, Batwoman queried Bat-villains such as Bane, Black Mask and Fright to find out Batman's vulnerabilities, yet the new issue is a quiet one as all the emotional components are put in place, according to Williams.

Batwoman takes a similar dose of Scarecrow's fear toxin as she had to give Maggie, and faces the demons within as she pursues her unfortunate course of action.

Kate and those around her don't feel like they have much of a choice, Williams says, "but we also solidify that there's definitely some other plan in motion on what they can do to get themselves out of it.

"In a lot of ways, it's very much a character-building issue between all the players."

The Batwoman series has often flirted with the supernatural since it launched two years ago, with many story arcs illustrated by Williams with co-writer W. Haden Blackman.

Trevor McCarthy is the artist currently, and he brings "a certain kind of energy that's quite different from mine," Williams says. "In some ways even though we're dealing with fantastical characters, we're getting away from supernatural stuff for a little while, and Trevor is a really good artist to carry that through and make it feel a little bit less surreal and more grounded."

Fans will have to wait for the inevitable guest-star stint from Batman "but it'll be worth it," Williams says.

He promises that it won't be a typical situation comic readers have been in the past where good guys duke it out because they don't understand each other or there's a case of mistaken motives — "that old-school comics trope where, oh, these two heroes meet and of course they have to fight to see who's better," Williams says.

"It's a lot different than that because these two characters know exactly who each other are and yet still are forced into a confrontation that is pretty powerful."

While Batman has spent his entire life honing his body and mind to be a perfect specimen to take on evildoers, Williams feels Batwoman does have a few advantages. (And it stands to reason that Batwoman may figure out they're related sooner than later — Bruce Wayne's mother, Martha, was from the Kane clan, which along with the Waynes is one of the families deeply tied to Gotham City lore.)

"In some ways, what she has over him is she thinks radically differently than he does," he says. "The way she problem-solves is different than what he does. And on an emotional component, in some ways Batman is a bit of a machine, and she's certainly not that. But whether she's better matched than he is, that's the question we're going to be answering."

The story arc wraps with Batwoman No. 26 in December, and the finale will have huge long-term ramifications for Batwoman and also make significant comments about the differences between her and Batman, Williams says.

"Everything will be radically moving into a very interesting direction. Some stuff will happen that you can't come back from."

The new issue in particular features really strong affirmations between Kate and Maggie, especially looking forward.

"The way Maggie discovered who Kate Kane is as Batwoman was a bit of a jarring incident, and even though they're engaged, they've had some trust issues to explore and figure out can they make this work," Williams says. "They love each other and they want to try and make it work."

The reintroduction of Beth Kane, who debuted in Williams and writer Greg Rucka's 2009-10 "Elegy" story line in Detective Comics as the homicidal Alice, also adds drama to the near future of Batwoman. Williams has a long game in place for her relationship with her superheroine sister.

He knew it was wise to keep her off the table after she seemingly plummeted to her doom, and he planned on bringing back the psycho sibling just at the right moment.

"Certainly a lot of people make the comparison that Alice is Kate Kane's Joker in a way," Williams says. "We want to keep that same idea in mind as far as her being Kate's ultimate nemesis, but at the same time we don't want her to be overplayed."

One of Williams' goals for the series has been to give Batwoman an impressive rogues' gallery — she even has a whole organization of antagonists with the DEO, arguably — but even that is the start of something much bigger as villains are interwoven with the family-centered plot.

"All that is getting really, really blended now and that's going to continue to progress," he says. "It'll be interesting to see how all that works in with elements that we want to introduce in the new story line."