scans_daily | Batgirl #19: Batgirl Wanted Outlaw

From:

Ok.....better art than it's had. So we're going to get 500 flashbacks to this moment now every other issue like TKJ was?

I really do not like this book. I try and try. But I just....can't. Is it the narration? Her internal monologue? Suspend my disbelief that Babs Sr wouldn't immediately put James Jr. in a psych ward the way he acted as a child and threatened her instead of running away?

I dunno, Gail's writing has just been...I dunno. I want to support Batgirl but the writing is just, not very good....I'm glad it's doing so well though, but geeze it's just not doing it for me. Am I the only one?

From:

mrstatham

Although the replacement of Steph made my blood boil, to be frank - especially because it was Barbara, who hadn't had the role in over twenty years - I was at least vaguely willing to give the book a shot. I dropped it after about the third issue, but kept up with developments and read the hardcovers when they were released and available, and.. I don't know. Simone is usually so much better than this - especially first-run BOP and early Secret Six, but.. I don't know. For me, the narration and characterisation and just... The overall direction of the book just feels very, very melodramatic; I can understand Simone wanting to try to deal with the aftermath of TKJ in her own way, to want to tell that story, but it's a very ham-fisted and clumsy and often laughable way of dealing with PTSD, one that isn't helped by Barbara having moments of extreme competence and then suddenly having her undermined - like the manner in which she successfully put away her first three villains, only to have Knightfall release them and... Barbara doesn't even know. It feels like there's no real idea of 'success' in this book, no sense of accomplishment, and the moment above just takes the cake. Do we really need a Batgirl who is at odds with her father, who is, it's fair to say, usually pretty heroic himself? Was it not enough that, you know, she had to hide that secret from him and whatever?

From:

drexer

It's not just you certainly. Both me and a couple more of people I've seen around s_d have been suffering the same with this book.

It's a book I think which particuraly puts Simone's flaws under a huge spotlight so there is much less of the dynamics which were always the strength of her writing. That and I think she might perhaps be far too close to the character of Barbara emotionally to improve on those flaws, so the book keeps chugging along in this weird limbo of mediocrity.

From:

jaybee3

My problem with the book remains the same and Gail (or Editorial) hasn't changed it. It's a JOYLESS book. It's not fun to read. It's not entertaining. At least Secret Six, which was a book about VILLIANS, was both. It relies too much on our previous love/liking on Barbara as a character rather than telling us why we should like this particular version of her. It also relies too much on pre-reboot stories in a DCnU that continually is making more and more things non-canon. Do I really want to read a series with Barbara obsessing over The Killing Joke and the Joker? James Gordon Jr. a character that came under Scott Snyder's pen as creepy and dangerous (though I was never on board with making him a mass killer) but was made into basically a one-note villain instead of an honestly sick individual who needed mental health help (which is what I thought Snyder's James was). Barbara's mother was also not sympathetic. Am I supposed to feel sorry for a woman who left her husband and children because her young son made a threat to her? Maybe she should have gotten him help instead of running away? I'm looking at these pages and there's not a moment that I truly believe that Barbara REALLY tried to save her brother or even wanted to even if the text says I should. Which considering how much I loved Oracle makes me feel all the more sad.

From:

junipepper

" It's a JOYLESS book. It's not fun to read. It's not entertaining."

This. Exactly. It just grinds on.

From:

onceaskrull

Extremely well put.

From:

mrstatham

Thirded. I'm really rather squicked by Barbara blaming her mother for 'laying the trap', the more I think about it. She's not the one who threw a fucking batarang in someone's eye, Barbara. Barbara's mother does need to take some of the blame for James Jr, it would seem, but.. Still. Neither of them come across as sympathetic. Her mother's a terrible mother for leaving her daughter and father and others in harm's way. Barbara's looking like a terrible person because either she's delusional or she's lying to herself.

But.. Yeah. Couldn't agree more. I keep saying that Steph's book wasn't all happy moments and fun and games, but even with it's moments of darkness, it still had a tonal consistency that made it more fun to read than this misery train.

From:

jaybee3

Yes, Steph's book wasn't all hearts and light and I wasn't enraptured by some by Miller's writing but you always came away from Steph's book thinking "this girl is a HERO". Maybe not always a successful one but still an idealistic full-on cape. The same with Cass - her whole title is one large hero's journey and all her writers even with some middling issues wrote her that way. Didio wanted to bring Babs back due to some Silver Age nostalgia and the fact she was in a cartoon (basically although that same fact didn't help Shayera Thal in the DCU) but he seemingly doesn't understand what made her likeable (they had the same issues with Kara Zor-El when they brought her back as an obnoxious super-hero version of Lindsay Lohan). One would have thought Gail would "get" Babs as Batgirl based on her portrayal of the character in BoP but no...this version of Barbara is seemingly more unheroic and more dark than anyone in the DCnU Bat-crew (and I include Bruce and Jason in that) and I have no idea why.

From:

mrstatham

Miller's writing wasn't amazing, but I think that was part of what made it endearing, to me; Batgirl could be considered his learning curve, with the writing getting better as he went on, and it mirrored Steph's getting better and better, to me. So it wasn't stunning writing - I wouldn't call Miller one of my favourite writers, even though Steph's Batgirl is one of my favourite superhero series ever - but it did a good job.

But.. Yeah. This just makes me think about how Steph handled her father coming back and his attack on her, and by comparison to this, it makes Barbara look awful. More awful. So.. I totally agree. They might have brought Barbara back out of some sense of 'iconography' or whatever, but the character as she is bears so little resemblance to the reasons they had for bringing her back that it just exposes that reasoning as the nonsense it is. Batgirl from the West show was heroic. Girly and kind-of silly, but heroic. Barbara as the old Batgirl was heroic. BTAS? Heroic. The Batman? Heroic. Here? She's lying to herself about saving people, making everything about her, and heaping blame on her mother. This is meant to be sympathetic?

From:

jeyl

Oh, Gail. Always portraying these characters as super duper confident and awesome, but the moment they have to make a tough decision, their reaction is equivalent to accidentally dropping a nuke on a school full of kindergartners.

"We just killed the bad guys who were going to kill us. DAMN US TO HELL!!!!"

From:

chrisdv

Does Barbara really believe she's being honest when she starts insisting "I tried to save him."?

Because it looks to me like she just watches as her brother falls to his not-really-death.

From:

jaybee3

I don't buy it even if the text says I should. Simone's Barbara has pretty much hated James from the get-go. Even the art doesn't come off in any way as her trying to "save him" or even feeling bad about it. If we take the text thoughts at face value, Barbara comes off as self-serving.

From:

mrstatham

Which makes Simone's butchery of Black Mirror even worse, really - I don't think Gordon, looking at his portrayal in that story, could even bring himself to call James Jr his son, frankly, nor would he hold someone at gunpoint when it would be blatantly obvious that they just saved his ex-wife from a son who Gordon knows is capable of terrible, terrible things.

From:

rainspirit

Okay, this is good.

I'm okay with Barbara angsting about this. Please let it replace all Killing Joke angst, forever, if she needs to be mopey.

This is a good character moment for me.

From:

icon_uk

Just how strong IS Barbara, she throws a batarang, it his him, he staggers back and audibly damages his spine as he hits the guardrail which snaps under his wait? Really?

(Actually I would have assumed the "KRAK!" was the WOOD giving way, not the spine)

From:

mrstatham

Personally, I'm assuming more melodrama and/or relating it to her own injury, given that the scene's set in driving rain (which would surely drown out other noise), and that guard rail hardly looks that sturdy.

From:

junipepper

That was his spine? Oy vey,

Isn't it odd that the wood doesn't seem to be rotten, and just breaks cleanly so James can fall through?

From:

mrstatham

Barbara at least seems to believe it was his spine, because hey, can't cram enough of that TKJ bullshit into this book.

From:

espanolbot

Wait... isn't this how the Black Mirror ended as well? 'Cept with Jim saving James so he could have him committed to Arkham? James even got stabbed in the eye (well... inbetween the eye and the eyesocket) there too.

From:

kurenai_tenka

Yeah, mte. This has been such a poor rehash.

From:

mrstatham

Oh.. No. Sorry. Just.. This is so fucking stupid. I'm so sick and tired of seeing this obnoxious, ridiculous level of melodrama, the narration is hokey, and it still butchers the character of pretty much everyone who was involved in Black Mirror, which did the 'James Jr plays mind games and dicks around with his family' on a much superior level. This has just been preposterous from day one, because I refuse to believe that the entirety of the Bat-Family wouldn't have been out looking for James Jr the second he escaped, given what he proved capable of last time.

From:

q99

I guess melodrama is what some people want! I mean, I'm not into it, but the book is selling, and it is very melodramatic.

From:

viridian5

The way that no one stays dead in comics anymore just makes this even more ridiculous to me.

From:

captainbellman

I can't wait to see Jim jr. return as "Prophet", or "Seer" or some other crappy "Evil Oracle" character because (as was shown in Flashpoint: Batman), DC thinks Oracle's most defining trait is her broken spine.

From:

mommy

I haven't been following Batgirl at all, so I have to ask -- Why is Barbara using a purple bat symbol and borders in her dialogue boxes? I thought purple was Steph, not Barbara.

Edited Date: 2013-04-11 09:57 am (UTC)

From:

mrstatham

Well, eggplant is Steph, purple is old-school 60's TV Barbara, so I guess that's what they're going for. Shame the book can't be as fun as the old 60's show at times.

From:

lieut_kettch

Okay... so they've retconned Jim knowing that Babs is Batgirl?

From:

mrstatham

He's never known in the New52 continuity, from the look of things. They've also entirely retconned how Jim feels about James Jr, from what I can see - because Jim could hardly bear to call James Jr his son, during Black Mirror.

From:

shadowpsykie

Well when I was reading it I thought there were clues that Jim suspected something.... thought that would have been something Simone would have kept

From:

kurenai_tenka

I've not really read this, maybe the odd issue (okay I think I read maybe the first and the DOTF one) and stuff on here... but everything I see seems really... not.. good? And I kinda feel like I'm supposed to like it because Gail is SUPPOSED to be good, but it all seems to ridiculous and melodramatic and... bah.

Plus, how did she try to stop him dying? She threw a batarang in his eye and then watched him fall off the edge. Is there a missing page where she does ANYTHING that would constitute trying to save him? Oh and as a final point, her and her Mum look the same age. Ridiculous.

From:

mrstatham

There can't really be any missing pages because the sequence of her hitting him, him falling, and her kneeling over the broken section of the peer is all one page. It's just terrible storytelling and melodrama to the most ridiculous degree.

From:

kurenai_tenka

Well I figured as much, worth checking though, since the line is so ridiculous as it stands. Sigh, just so bad.

From:

jaybee3

The title has been riding on Simone's name (I think that's why they were afraid to let her go after the backlash against her firing by e-mail) but it doesn't read like any Simone title I've ever read before. There's no humor. No fun. No lightness to balance the dark. It even doesn't even read like how Gail used to write Barbara in Birds of Prey literally right before the reboot. To put it into perspective, a book starring Batgirl (which under Cass and Steph featured two of the most idealistic and outright heroic heroes DC has produced in the last few decades) has been turned into the most dreary and dark book in the ENTIRE Bat-Family of titles with the lead seemingly now straight-up killing her own brother with seemingly (it seems) faux-regret. What reader was asking for that?

From:

kurenai_tenka

All of this. I've had pretty limited exposure to Simone's previous work now that I think about it, but from the excerpts I've seen and what I've heard, it just doesn't match up with the stuff that she's done before. I wasn't onboard with Babsgirl to begin with (and I doubt I ever will be), but I never thought the book (or the character) would be anything like it/she is.

From:

kenn_el

I'd assumed the title was 'riding' on the connection to the Batbooks. I'm hoping that now that the transgender publicity has kicked in that the writer will have accomplished what she intended for the book (as the roommate insertion from the start has been a disservice to the title character) and will move on to other projects, permitting other writers to maybe take a different tone with Barbara. Who knows? Maybe the next writer will give Barbara as much depth and detail as Ms. Simone lavished upon Alysia? Barbara is the title character, after all.

From:

mrstatham

Doubtful. Regardless of the story behind it all, Simone's reappointment to Batgirl after her fanbase threw the mother of all temper tantrums indicates to me that she's very much sticking around, and now can't be removed until she's good and ready.

From:

kenn_el

See, I figured she was sticking around until she could pull out the reveal (and I totally agree with her wanting to do so, as it's the only part of the series that she put any effort or thought into), and once she made TPTB aware of what a cash cow in terms of publicity it would be hey agreed. Now that that's done and on the record she can move on.

From:

starwolf_oakley

Why? Why?!

Because Dan DiDio hates you, that's... oh, wait.

It was easier to blame all this on Dan DiDio and that he hated you, me, and all of us. It was even a meta-plot point in INFINITE CRISIS, where Kal-L asks Power Girl "How can you live in such... joylessness?"

These days... I can't say "Because Bob Harras and Jim Lee hate you, that's why." But there has to be something.

From:

mrstatham

I'd partly attribute it to Simone's increasingly bad writing - IMO, of course. Granted, if some of the rumours I've seen are true, Gail refused to off Alysia, so it could be worse, but Simone hasn't been on top form - and by that I mean first-run BOP and early Secret Six - for quite some time. This feels like Secret Six's darkest, grimiest moments, only she's forgotten that even that book had some light spots.

From:

maxisanacorn

BOP volume 2 was pretty dismal. Her writing has been compromised. She's better at team books but even that was poor.

Concerning Alysa, her recent apparent complete lack of knowledge of Ystin, Shining Knight as a mainstream transgender and intersex character in Demon Knights and her " this is in a bat superhero cape book so it's different" response once pointed out is actually sort of disappointing too.

If she was truly 100% an advocate for these things she would know Ystin's revelation by Cornell was an amazing idea and thing to do since Ystin was already an established trans hero (at least Morrison's Ystin was a girl who preferred dressing as a boy) is a pretty big deal as well and she should have been bringing attention to what Cornell was doing.

I know people appreciate having a normal non-cape supporting character as transgender and it's needed but Alysa is not a hero nor is she a main lead, and Ystin is. Cornell should be getting half of the attention for his retcon to Ystin than Gail is getting for introducing Alysa. Maybe it's apples to oranges but still, I just don't know. Something about what's she's been doing lately just feels off.

From:

kurenai_tenka

All of this. Cornell was pleasantly surprised by how *little* attention his reveal got, whereas this is everywhere with absolutely zero mention of what preceded it.

From:

jaybee3

Worse part was that Kal-L and S-Prime were supposed to be the villians of that story. We were supposed to root against their attempt to turn the clock from the dark, grim DCU. Heck, Johns even made Superboy-Prime a strawman fanboy. It was only after Infinite Crisis was finished that I understand that DC really, really dislikes its most devoted fanbase.

From:

starwolf_oakley

S-Prime was a villain. Kal-L was just misguided (by Alex) and thought restoring Earth-2 would save his wife.

From:

junipepper

When it first came out, I resolved to give this Batgirl a chance. I didn't like it much from day one, but I held on for a while. Now that I've invested some time and money and thought in the series, I can honestly say -- I really hate the bloody thing.

From:

silverhammerman

I get that James' spine being injured is a supposed to be an obvious connection with Babs and TKJ, but the batarang to eye will never not remind me of Joker's fate in TDKR, it feels a bit like Simone cribbed a lot of that climax from other books.