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

[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?

[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...

[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.

[big_daddy_d]

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

[icon_uk]

Based on this, I'd say he was basically blaming her for making him the monster he was along the lines of "I hurt things and I enjoy it, so you must have been a bad mommy; a good mommy's son wouldn't do the things I've done to the cat, and plan to do to Barbara".

Essentially he's a malevolently cruel little shit who enjoyed playing headgames.

[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.

[aeka]

Somehow that makes better sense than the way it's being presented here. Maybe it was the execution that just didn't do it for me. :/

[leia_solo]

Lol yes that is what I was thinking.

[shadowpsykie]

actually that is how i read it when i saw these pages... it seemed clear to me that was what was trying to be conveyed...

[shadowpsykie]

i wish we had a like button....

[thespis]

Facepalm.

[jlbarnett]

okay, but why was she in a fragile state at that point. Seriously if she's that mentally fragile...

[jlbarnett]

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

[junipepper]

Me too.

[maxisanacorn]

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

[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.

[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.

[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!

[velshtein]

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

[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.

[sistermagpie]

And she was...weirdly gullible? I get that any mother would feel guilt and fear she did something wrong but come on! If you're not even abusive would you really accept that diagnosis from the child you just discovered was deranged?

That is what I see the pages conveying, but if I feel bad that Barbara has a brother who's violent and a mother who's incredibly annoying.

[crabby_lioness]

Good summation of the problems with that story.

[sistermagpie]

Abandoning her child to live with James is a bigger risk for her. It doesn't seem like the story's setting up the mother's position being impossible. It's saying she was having a breakdown so the kid could easily control her.