Batgirl #8

[aeka]

After a nice chat with Dinah in the last issue, Barbara decides to confront one of her major issues....and it's not the *story that shall not be named*










I'm not sure I understand what the message here is. Did Barbara's mum think she was already a bad parent prior to James Jr killing the cat? Or did she think it was her fault that James Jr was a sociopath? Also how exactly is leaving your daughter with a son you know is a killing sociopath supposed to "save" her?

Sure, I could buy into Barbara's mum not being in her right mind, but if she was worried about her daughter's safety, surely she would have taken her daughter with her? Also, why exactly did she feel like she herself was a danger to her own daughter? For that matter why did she think she was a bad parent?

I'm back to square one.

Comments

[sun_man]

really glad I dropped this book

[junipepper]

Me too.

[shadowpsykie]

hmmm glad JJ's sociopathy stayed....

as far as why? she left? there might be something more like Barbara said... can't help but feel there is something she is leaving out... it could be partially that James was the reason...

eitehr way, still love the book.... interesting to see where this goes.

[perletwo]

Confused here. Was she saying JJ convinced her she had killed the cat herself? Or that she made him kill it himself?

[aeka]

I'm not sure I understand what's going on here either. I'm leaning towards he convinced her through the cat's death that she was a bad mum, but it still doesn't make any sense to me. I don't think it helps that he appears at the end of the issue looking all Jeffery Dahmer-like both in appearance and charm.

[auggie18]

Barbara's Mother: I thought your brother was going to kill you, so I left you in the same house with him and ran away.

Logic Police: Excuse me, ma'am, you'll have to come with us now...

[icon_uk]

He appears to have convinced her that she was the reason he was a monster, which in her fragile state could lead to the logical conclusion that if she WASN'T there, he'd be better. Hence, she left.

She says she was was having a breakdown, so at a guess logic wasn't really high on her list of priorities, it was a reason that made sense TO HER.

[leia_solo]

Lol yes that is what I was thinking.

[big_daddy_d]

Yep, James definitely needs to be Barb's archnemesis.

[thespis]

Facepalm.

[jlbarnett]

In a city as crime ridden and opressive as Gotham it only makes sense that every major conflict needs to be personal

[golden_orange]

So... Barbara's not allowed to have personal issues because she lives in Gotham?

Sorry, don't really get your point here.

[maxisanacorn]

I HATE the colorist on this. Good god their faces are puddy!

[velshtein]

The shading is so blobby looking lmao. I guess they might have been going for a more organic look for the skin?

[turtlefu]

The thing that made James Jr. so creepy with Snyder is that he wrote him almost ambiguously. He wasn't portrayed as so straightforward a sociopathic youth.
It seems this writer just loves to throw subtlety and nuance out of the window.

[starwolf_oakley]

James Jr.'s "master plan" was to dose a supply of baby formula with reverse-anti-sociopath drugs. That way, a whole generation of Gotham children would grow up as sociopath's "free" from emotion like him. Not much ambiguous about that.

And we're left wondering if James Jr's plan worked or not, or was even feasible to "reverse" an anti-sociopath drug to create a sociopath, because... comics!

[katya]

James told her that he killed the cat for/because of her, because she was a bad mother. He told her directly to leave, or he would do something worse, and apparently implied the "something worse" would be to kill Babs.

It's a little fucked up that the lady basically took marching orders from a kid instead of, like Barbara suggested, getting him psychiatric help, but whatever. I thought it was pretty clear.

[gamerguy]

It's a big risk for her. It's terribly difficult to actually diagnose someone as a sociopath because so many of them are adept at faking emotional responses for long periods of time. Basically, you have to catch them red-handed or have them convicted on a preponderance of evidence and make the 'diagnosis' later. And, really, there is no 'help' for them: there is just monitoring, or incarceration.

Mom takes in James for evaluation, James acts perfectly normal for the duration, her fears get attributed to the stress of being a cop's wife and hearing about the terrible, terrible people he deals with every day... then she's tipped her hand to James and he does something else, even worse.

[crabby_lioness]

Good summation of the problems with that story.

[silverzeo]

James jr reminds me of Allen Gregory in alot of ways.... WHY DO I KEEP THINKING ABOUT THAT SHOW!?!? IT'S OVER! DEAD! BUT IT WILL NEVER LEAVE!

[espanolbot]

Wait, in the Black Mirror they stated that James left to live with Barbara Senior or something until he was old enough to go off on his own, but here it seems to imply that he was just left with Jim and Barbara Jr.

You can't just lift things from a story while essentially completely rewriting it when the story is only a year or two old, it'll be confusing! :(

Especially as it was one of the better Batman stories in recent years...

[turtlefu]

Welcome to the DCnU!

[mrstatham]

*does the bullshit dance*

This is just, like, a needless attempt to ladle yet more issues onto Barbara. As if it's actually fucking necessary. Does she really need a runaway mother when she already has a father who is the chief commissioner of the city's police force and a target for numerous villains, a brother who is a psychopath that ranks alongside said villains, and an incident that nearly left her crippled for life, in this universe, and at the very least left her massively traumatised?

I know Simone's trying to set it up so Barbara looks amazing because she's able to overcome problems X, Y, and Z, but this is just a step too far, and it's complete nonsense. The mother wouldn't immediately do what Barbara suggests and get the kid some help? Way to fucking go!

[aeka]

Not only that, but this whole scene feels like it's trying to be dramatic and it's simply not working. It comes off as needlessly melodramatic and silly at best.

I think the drama potential could've panned itself a lot better if she didn't devote just four pages to addressing the issue with Mum and James Jr. I would've also believed the "mental breakdown" a lot better if the first few panels of the flashback sequence didn't depict her functioning like a normal parent, showing genuine concern for her son's odd behaviour, then suddenly "break down, I must be a bad parent." To me that felt forced rather than an organic development for that scene.

I don't know...just...something about the way that whole scene plays out is just not working for me.

[eyz]

Mmmh...this isn't Babs for me!
Neither Pre- nor Post-Killing joke Babs..just some random redhair...

[kazeno]

I guess it was too much to ask for a Barbara's mom to be a happy, supportive parent and just happens to be divorced from Jim? Oh well...

Speaking of which, is there ever any elaboration on how her mother left, or is it just "she left with no explanation"? To me it sounds like her mother just left one day without telling anyone where she was going, and I can't believe that Jim wouldn't look (and succeed - he's a fairly good detective, as far I've seen) for his mysteriously disappeared wife. Or call Batman.

Confusing dialogue aside, I can't stand James Jr. It's a shame, because I consider him a genuinely spooky and effective villain. Does he really need to Jim Gordon's son, though? What is it about Jim that writers can't help but pile on more crap for him to angst over? I cheered when the Joker failed to break him, but this is just getting ridiculous.

Also, is OYL still in continuity?

[md84]

Jim Gordon has been through a lot:

1) His son has serious issues

2) His first wife left him

3) His daughter gets shot and paralyzed by a lunatic who then strips him naked and forces him in a demented carnival ride operated by S+M dwarves featuring nude pictures of his bleeding out daughter.

4) His second wife gets shot and KILLED by the same lunatic

and that's on top of being one of the only honest cops in the sea of corruption that is the Gotham police department. And one of the closest things he has to a friend also has issues, what with the whole "dressing up like a bat and going out at night to punch criminals in the face" thing.

It's a good thing Gordon doesn't have a dog too, otherwise some writer would have the Joker (or maybe Two-Face if they want to be original) kill it and cook it for him ala Fatal Attraction style.

[jaybee3]

What's weird is that the version of Babs/Batgirl that Didio & Co. keep bringing up as the reason for her return to the costume, the "iconic" Batgirl they keep talking about was partly that way because she didn't have all the drama/tramautic backstory of the other Bats, and was more lighthearted. When they gave Steph the Batgirl costume and took it away from Cass, one editor (I forget if it was Didio himself) even outright said they wanted to return to the more "bright" and "fun" roots of the character.

There is nothing fun in this new version of Babs/Batgirl. I sometimes can't believe its Gail Simone who's writing it.

[feyandstrange]

Man, this is nuts. This is what we destroyed Oracle for?

Dear colorist factory: OH MY GOD MY EYES PLEASE TURN DOWN THE CONTRAST seriously if I just yanked this into PHotoshop and took the contrast down a chunk it might be okay...

I'm awfully disappointed in Simone here. There's only so much I can blame on editorial, and she's usually better at a) writing creepy stuff so it's actually creepy and b) her crazy is usually a little more believable. Maybe there's more detail yet to come, but this is so off-kilter right now that it's hard to figure out what could possibly fix it.

[jeyl]

No. This is what we destroyed Stephanie's Batgirl for.

[halloweenjack]

Well, not everything in this issue is Gail's fault; it's really hard to tell Babs apart from her mom in most panels without dialogue cues. But Jim Jr. as a pre-teen Hannibal Lecter who made his mommy run away sans explanation? Not buying it.

[jeyl]

Huh. And I thought the secret was going to be that Barbara and James were clones. I mean, look at that picture. I have a sister and neither of us look like an exact younger copy of our parents.