Batgirl #14

[superfangirl1]

Comments

[mullon]

"Will Batgirl say, 'I do?'"

Hmmmm.....

[shadowpsykie]

Gail Simone is a sick... sick woman...

I missed it :D

also, yeah not sleeping tonite... clowns will eat me...

[rainspirit]

Blehhh.

[darkknightjrk]

Man, between all this and Babs beat-down of the thugs, her roommate possibly knowing and Babs deciding her days as Barbara Gordon may be over, this was a MASSIVE, engaging issue. I'm dying to know what happens next. :D

[zabilac]

*eye twitch* Can't sleep...images of Joker proposing to Batgirl haunting brain...

[icon_uk]

So, if you'll forgive an obvious question, the Joker is down on one knee in front of her... why isn't she instantly giving him a roundhouse kick to the face? She talks about how she could kill him, she could at least TRY to stop him first.

[espanolbot]

Babs: Haha! I kick you!
*Babs seniors disappears in an expanding cloud of red mist and nails*

[mrstatham]

I was too busy laughing (guiltily, I'll admit) at the fact that Barbara almost looks like someone overjoyed and crying in that sense that the Joker's proposing to her, like Joker's her boyfriend and she can't believe he's finally proposing, rather than someone who's horrified that he's offering up her mother's severed finger.

[damar148]

"Do not use that word Joker, you know nothing about love."

Seriously?

[drexer]

And of course here the threat is not so much of the woman dying but that she might lose the use of her legs like Barbara did... even going so far as to copy Barbara's hair colour and general clothing style.

Am I the only one who finds this a very sickening thing to do as a writer? We get it, Barbara lost the use of her legs once, why do we need to keep portraying it as if it was the worse thing possible and that she had no value when she was like that?

[mrstatham]

It's her mother. That why she pretty much looks the same. That's why the Joker's doing it, I imagine. And.. Well, the Joker's sick, but then I haven't particularly been impressed by numerous elements in this book that really have little/nothing to do with Barbara herself.

Also, of COURSE we have to have The Killing Joke rammed down our throats! It's a story that not even it's writer likes, but it's so awesome and cool even though Barbara had an awful peripheral role in it! *sighs* Honestly, though, I can just imagine Dan Didio jumping on Gail Simone's shoulders until she's worked a Killing Joke reference into each month's script as Batgirl.

[thespis]

We get it, Barbara lost the use of her legs once, why do we need to keep portraying it as if it was the worse thing possible and that she had no value when she was like that?

I agree. It's one of the major problems I have with the way Babs has been handled in the reboot. There's an implied value judgment, both in the decision to give Barbara back the use of her legs and in some of the writing (particularly the way Tom DeFalco has Babs talk about her disability in Nightwing, ugh), which makes me extremely uncomfortable. We're positioned to see the able-bodied Batgirl as preferable, as a hero, while the paraplegic Barbara Gordon (who may or may not have ever been Oracle) is a victim. And I hate that.

[mrstatham]

Okay, so all I'm taking away from this other than the fact Simone is an increasingly bad writer (IMO) is that Capullo is the only one who really seems to get that Joker's face wouldn't look like a typical face; Most, if not all of these panels just look like Jokers attached some string to his face and applied some bad, horror-movie makeup.

Just.. Ugh. This dialogue. Joker's the only one who sounds about right, but it still just reads like Simone read the cliff notes for what Snyder was writing and then just drowned it in the usual Babsgirl melodrama.

[espanolbot]

Generally I've heard from even people who disliked this run that this issue is an improvement... I don't know, I'll probably pick it up in trade, but only because not having an entire storyline bugs me.

[kurenai_tenka]

Absolutely agreed regarding the face, particularly with regards to the shape of the nose.

[jeyl]

Why is not killing him a good thing again?

[mrstatham]

Because it's a slippery slope!! Because killing him means that Batman, Batgirl or whoever would always succumb to the temptation of killing other people!

Really, it's a ridiculous concept, that killing Joker would somehow make Batman as bad as him. Removing pretty much the most evil person in the DCU wouldn't lead to Batman automatically thinking that killing everyone who commits a crime is the right answer, and yet that's the willingly naive position DC has foisted on us for years, now.

[captainbellman]

Well, anyone who says the above pages contain anything CLOSE to the character known and loved as "The Joker" is a liar and/or an idiot...

[captainbellman]

I mean, seriously, folks. When your 'bold new look' is just a slightly uglier and unconvincing riff on an old Jim Balent design, you just know you're an incompetent, working with incompetents, idolising older incompetence.

Mod Note

[salinea]

Criticise their work all you want, but don't throw insults at comics creators, please.

[jlbarnett]

Still think this is some guy acting like he thinks the Joker should.

[captainbellman]

Right? What exactly is the logic behind making the most theatrical, performance-based villain of the entire friggin Rogues' gallery purposefully rob himself of the ability TO EXPRESS HIMSELF WITH HIS FACE?!?

[kurenai_tenka]

NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE (x infinity)

[thanekos]

Everytime I see his exposed underneath, I just wish he'd left his whole face off after having it taken.

You know, get some of that handwavy " avoiding the complications of being a man with no face " stuff done (he does mention to Harley something about having to keep his eyes from drying out), so that he could have a " death's head with eyes " look going- it'd be a bit gruesome, perhaps, but it'd definitely be more than this " Whoops, my face fell off, better tack it back on! " thing.. unless that's what he's going for.

[sadoeuphemist]

Yeah, what was the point in having his face cut off if he was just going to strap it back on again?

[protogarrett]

*turns off the lights and leaves*

[captainbellman]

Oh...oh god. I just realised.

Is Gail Simone seriously writing a story in which one of the protagonist's loved ones is held hostage and bodily harmed in order to motivate the protagonist? Hell, has she been roped into an entire Bat-book "Event" in which the entire purpose behind the villain's action is the cheap, cliche'd old non-plot that brought about many of the original examples of "Women In Refrigerators"?

Damn. Sad times indeed. I feel bad for Gail and resentfully angry at Snyder and the various editors who brought about this grisly train wreck, which I can't readily dignify with the term 'story'.

[mrstatham]

Given Simone willingly brought Barbara's mother back in, has been incorporating elements in such as James Jr, and has clearly been building to some manner of confrontation with the Joker, I hardly think she's been roped into this. I'm not sure who forced the concept of the crossover, but I don't think Snyder ever dictated the story to her.

Besides, Simone broke her own rules long ago; The death of Tarantula, for instance, seems like a fridging to me because Simone was self-indulgent enough to make her death a waste with a later story. She dug her own hole here in terms of her own trope being used against her.

[an_idol_mind]

I think I might be okay with this event long-term if it ends with the Joker dying.

[rainspirit]

I can't imagine them ever letting Barbara do it, though. DC is way too precious about their "iconic female characters".

[sun_man]

This surprisingly wasn't as bad as I thought it would be

[blackruzsa]

I think Gail Simone saved us from the worst of it.

But the entire idea is sickening to me as it is so I'm not keeping track.