Review by Frank Plowright
DC using novelists for their young adult stories has produced mixed results, but that’s gradually improving, and over Whistle’s opening chapter E. Lockhart turns in a template of how to introduce a character, her situation and her environment. By the end of that chapter you won’t care about Whistle being the introduction of a new Gotham City hero, as you’ll be so engaged with Willow Zimmerman being a human.
She’s someone who cares, first seen collecting petition signatures outside her school, befriending a newcomer and making them feel at home, feeding a stray dog and attempting to free someone entangled in Poison Ivy’s twisted vines. That’s an especially nice touch, showing Gotham residents are used to the day to day effects of the city’s criminals. At sixteen Willow already has the world on her shoulders, and that’s very well laid out.
Of course, a sympathetic artist helps, and Manuel Preitano is more than just that. He doesn’t just draw full locations, but shows how Willow’s area is run down. That’s in the background details where he excels, presenting thriving streets with a diverse population. Most important is his showing Willow and others so sympathetically. There are places where readers can understand how she feels just by looking at the way she stands.
Whistle is one of those stories using names known to regular DC readers, but not necessarily in the identities we’ve become accustomed to. The big example here is one E. Nigma, former family friend whose addiction problems meant he let Willow’s mother down once too often. Having cleaned up and become a successful businessman he sees his way to redemption being via Willow, and she’s at an impressionable age where easy solutions are very attractive.
By the time super powers manifest, rather randomly, it’s a real jolt, as you’ll have been so captivated by Willow’s life you’ll have forgotten that was ever intended. As noted, though, Whistle is never about that. They’re just a means to an end, although weird and interesting, a bit like Willow herself, a comparison that Lockhart obviously intends. This becomes a crisis story with a little coming of age thrown in, but hooks from the beginning and never lets go.
