Batgirl #19, in which Steph gets a hologram machine

[ebailey140]

Hate having to pick just four pages from the new issue, because Steph interacting with her supporting cast provides so many great moments, including Steph explaining the concepts of Chaos and Order using, of course, waffles.

But, given the earlier discussion of the latest Birds of Prey issue, I figured I'd go with a little of the fallout, and what Bruce has done with Steph's HQ, Firewall.



Steph still has concerns about Barbara's recent course of action. So, Babs explains a little more, while Steph reminds her she has reponsibilities to people other than just being Oracle.





Steph's investigating Slipstream, the super speedster from a few issues back. She learns some things from their confrontation, little things like about his suit and his reaction times, as well as there being someone pulling Slipstream's strings. She wound up with a bruised rib in the process, though, so she heads to the newly remodelled Firewall...

Comments

[minyandu]

Wow, this room looks really cool and a lot like the one in TDK.

[mrstatham]

I think it really suits Steph. Given she's one of the lighter members of the Batclan, a cave doesn't suit her at all, although it raises the question, much like TDK, of how someone could get all of this stuff in place for Steph and not have anyone ask who it's for.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, now that he's openly funding the Bat-clan, why should people asking be a problem? He can simply say 'it's for Batgirl'.

[mrstatham]

Hilarious that Bruce is actually being supportive here - Albeit distant, and Babs is pretty much setting herself up to have whatever 'post-Oracle' is to fall flat on it's face.

I mean, that seriously shows some sort of disdain toward the girl you took under your wing not too long back, Barbara.

On a lighter note, Miller continues to provide one of the better batbooks. I'm really enjoying how he's able to toe the line between serious and funny, and he's also giving Steph her own original villains, which is pretty fantastic.

[heckfire]

Of course the mentor is being supportive of his blond-haired leggy teenage protege'...it's Didio's DC, after all, and it's not like she's Cass or a *shudder* MINORITY or anything.

[mrstatham]

What does race have to do with anything here? Bruce supported the attractive, leggy and dark-haired asian girl for a good number of years, but I suppose all that goes out the window just because they aren't using her at the moment.

*getting really bored of Steph threads being hijacked over Cass, now*

[lencannon]

I'm all for internet anger about Cass, but I am pretty certain Bruce gave Cass her very own Batcave.

[mrstatham]

Also, this raises questions exactly about how Barbara went and left 'Oracle' behind and left bunches of heroes in the lurch - If she hasn't talked about this and arranged it with people like Proxy and the like, then how do they know that they're meant to take over for her? This, coupled with those pages from BOP, makes it seem like an increasingly dickish move on Barbara's behalf.

[ebailey140]

Presumably, those arrangements were made off page, since Wendy seems to know she's in charge of this stuff when Babs goes to talk with her.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Whoa - sweet. Does Steph have a new car now?
Incidentally, has the whole 'you're going to transfer to a British school' thing just been dropped, or what? I haven't so much as seen it mentioned since Bruce first brought it up, and she's definitely still in Gotham at this point.

[mrstatham]

Given Morrison seems to have something of a 'world tour' plot in mind for Batman Inc, I wouldn't be surprised if it was something Morrison had in mind for a two-part Batman Inc story. That was the way it seemed to be put across to me, given that one of the things Morrison had Bruce getting his group to do was Internet 3.0, which Barbara is working on and will be dealt with in an all-CGI issue of Batman Inc.

So maybe we'll have a Knight and Squire crossover with Bruce and Steph.

[omgwtflolbbqbye]

Is that a Mini-Cooper tank? Nifty!

[psychopathicus_rex]

It's an eggplant-colored road-tank! It's an eggplant-tank! It's the Eggtank!

[nezchan]

There appears to be no way to drive it out of there, so it's probably just for decoration.

While I'm at it, that closer ramp is awfully steep for a wheelchair, isn't it?

[lieut_kettch]

OMG, even Steph's Batmobile is eggplant!

[nezchan]

This artist doesn't seem especially good at showing Steph looking at people, does he? She spends the conversation looking about two feet above Babs, or the ground in front of her, etc.

Kinda understandable on that last page, but it's really weird in the pages with Babs.

[retro_nouveau]

I didn't expect to ever see Babs again, this is awesome. And Babs even wore the sweater that Steph gave her for Christmas. XD

"Unsinkable", definitely. "Pollyanna", no.

Whoa, interesting detail - Babs' chair: no handles. Wendy's chair: yes handles. Is that like a canon in-continuity thing? Would Wendy want handles for some reason?

I like the Bat-submarine-with-mag-wheels ok, it's kind of weird, reminds me of Nolan too much, but better than nothing ... so where did that go? I do not like that little econobox hatchback at all. It's not even big enough so that the cannon is retractable...? At least make it from a Pontiac Fiero instead of a Volkswagen Rabbit. Still partial to having an upgraded Harley Davidson, like Dinah's but more tricked-out.

[ebailey140]

I like the Bat-submarine-with-mag-wheels ok, it's kind of weird, reminds me of Nolan too much, but better than nothing ... so where did that go? I do not like that little econobox hatchback at all. It's not even big enough so that the cannon is retractable...? At least make it from a Pontiac Fiero instead of a Volkswagen Rabbit. Still partial to having an upgraded Harley Davidson, like Dinah's but more tricked-out.

She's still using the Batpod, or Ricochet as it's called, here.

As others have pointed out, the entire room is full on Nolantech. I don't mnd the Nolan influences, since the comics have been using bits from other media since the first 1940s Batman serial, which gave us the Batcave, the grandfather clock that accesses it, and Alfred's look (He was originally shorter and fatter). In the '90s, Gotham in the comics was redesigned to look like Gotham in the Burton films. The animated series from the '90s led to more redesigns in the comics (which is where those blimps the Gotham PD uses came from).

So, Steph's stuff comes from the Nolanverse.

[junipepper]

Whoa, interesting detail - Babs' chair: no handles. Wendy's chair: yes handles. Is that like a canon in-continuity thing? Would Wendy want handles for some reason?

Well, she needs the handles in case she ever wants to go up that one ramp in the foreground. She'd need about four people pushing her...

:)

[calvision]

The look and feel of the room is cool, but when you look closer at the details it's a bit... weird. I'm not the only one who noticed it, but that one ramp is REALLY STEEP. And I don't know what that pit thing on the lower right-hand corner of the last scan is.

[deepspaceartist]

The pit is sewer/underground river access. All Batcaves have to have sewer or underground river access. Preferrably both. It's in the Batman Inc. rulebook.

[jarodrussell]

Why would you want Oracle building your Internet? Shouldn't you get someone who knows about computers and technology for that?

[01d55]

If there was anyone who knows about computers or technology in the DCU, you should get them.

In a fictive world authored entirely by people who don't know about computers and technology, Oracle is the closest approximation.

[01d55]

So here we have, on panel, someone asking Barbara about how adopted and then abandoned someone with abandonment issues and maybe that's a rough thing to do to someone. And Barbara's like "eh, maybe so."

[ebailey140]

And, reminded that she'd not considered Wendy's emotional needs, Barbara went to talk with Wendy. She sometimes needs to be reminded that not all her proteges deal with things the way Steph, Cass, and Babs herself does. That doesn't make her a bad person, just human. She tries to correct the situation once she's reminded.

Keep in mind that Steph's also the one who recognized Damian had issues resulting from his upbringing that neither Dick nor Bruce paid attention to.

Also, it's important to remember that Babs didn't adopt Wendy, or Cass or Steph, for that matter. That's Bruce's thing. Mentors and parental figures aren't the same things. She's only been a real parental figure to Charlie. She was trying to be that for Cass, for a while, but Bruce nipped that in the bud.

She sees her grown-up proteges as, well, grown-ups.