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

[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!

[darkknightjrk]

Yeah--first few issues James was ambiguously creepy, because we didn't know what exactly his deal was. By the time we actually see him kill a guy, he became a more definite villain and, oddly enough, less creepy.

[icon_uk]

Evil is "just" evil, ambiguity creates uncertainty, uncertainty is creepy.

[turtlefu]

What they said.

For the first couple of issues, during the flashbacks, they left it ambiguosly whether or not James was actually a killer. Remember that whole sub-plot with Barbara's friend? At first Gordon thought James killed her, then he arrested another guy who confessed, but then you see her key in James collection of "kills". There is a lot of doubt and uncertainty.

Once you get to actually showing James being straight-out evil, he stops being creepy and just begins to be cartoonish. That whole scene between him and Barbara was completely ridiculous.

I'll also agree that his master plan was cartoonish. But that's my point. The less outwardly evil he is, the creepier he is.