At first glance, with the soaring gothic skyscrapers of the Gotham skyline and the now iconic "bat" signal aimed at a perpetually cloudy night sky, you could be forgiven for thinking you'd seen it all before. But Batwoman, neither Batman nor Batgirl, manages to strike a fresh sound in a genre, generally, and a masthead, specifically, which has been creatively squeezed to the limit.

As we take our first hesitant steps in this iteration of Gotham we learn that Batman, alias billionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne, has abandoned the city to its fate. And well he might. He probably got as tired of Batman movies and TV shows being recast and recycled as much as we did.

Ruby Rose as Batwoman. Credit:Warner Bros

In its wake is a city struggling under the weight of its crime, a corporate security company more or less doing the work of the local police force and the suggestion that this is a city on the verge of something, taking perilous steps back to normal society while teetering on the brink of a city-crippling crime wave.

Dougray Scott's Jacob Kane is the show's patriarchal figure, a sort of Bruce Wayne-lite, whose company's technical and security expertise has filled the city with cameras in an attempt to demonstrate to the people of Gotham that all they need is a bit of privatisation and not a leather-costume clad, winged avenger soaring across their night sky. Little does he know.