The latest issue of
BATGIRL starts off as a patrol to clear Barbara Gordon’s head, that unfortunately goes horribly wrong. It’s easy to see why she’d need her head cleared after the last page of issue #4, and while things start off well, they quickly go downhill. She’s confronting an apparent robbery when one of the gunmen turns on his cohorts, revealed to be close members of his family, and then inexplicably dashes into danger to himself.
Simone does a few interesting things in this opening scene alone, coolest of which I thought was the opposing “spirits” of Gotham being at play within minutes: the crazy folks doing what they do best, and the virtuous citizens doing what they can to help. You get the quick impression from that scene alone that Gotham is one hell of a town.
We then dial back to the last page of issue #4, and further explore what the arrival of Barbara’s mother in Gotham means for her. This is a great character moment because of all the emotions at play, chief of which appears to be very justifiable bitterness. This issue then goes on to create a new foe for Batgirl that has a plot that’s somehow tied to Gotham’s urban renewal project established by Bruce Wayne in the pages of Scott Snyder’s BATMAN, further tying together a unified voice and series of events for the main location in all of the titles. This is a very good thing in my eyes, because when different writers show very different types of happenings in Gotham, then you might wonder if it’s the same city in one book and a different city in another. Seeing different angles of Gotham in the different Bat-books is fun for me, and I hope fun for you too.
Simone also brings Bruce Wayne into the fold in this issue and the last page looks like it’ll set up a very interesting opening for the next issue. From what I understand, Barbara has yet to speak directly to Batman since becoming Batgirl again, and I’m very curious to see how the Dark Knight will view Barbara coming back into the fold after such a devastating injury. Speaking of which, we have a very clear idea of what brought Barbara back to walking-status from a single line of dialogue in this issue, so it’ll be interesting to see those events explored in more detail, hopefully in the coming months.
Ardian Syaf’s artwork is of quality that we’ve come to expect from him over the last few months, which is reliable and clear. Sometimes his expressions tend to look similar from page to page, but his style seems refined when compared to some of the work in his first issue. His rendering of Batgirl’s suit seems sleeker, and his action scenes always seem to be pretty strong. I like his versions of the characters, and I’m happy that he has regular monthly work.
This series seems to be getting stronger with each passing issue, and it’ll be interesting to see what implications the forthcoming issues have on Barbara, her family, and the rest of team Batman (or Batman Incorporated). I’ll be interested to see Simone’s writing in the inevitable conversation between Barbara and Bruce, because I don’t think that Batman will be as happy as we might normally think to have Batgirl back out on the streets. Hopefully, we’ll see next month.
