Writers: Cameron Stewart, Brenden Fletcher
Artist: Babs Tarr
Overview:
All
New All Dif….oh wait….urrr. So now that Jim Gordon is the new
Batman, how will things play out when Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl,
bumps into RoboBat? Not only must she face her father, she will also
take on a familiar Superman villain. The creative team for this issue
really puts Barbara on an emotional ride. It will be interesting on
how the character interactions will be like between Jim Gordon's
Batman and Batgirl also with Jim and Barbara. We will also get to see
Frankie, Barbara's room mate, begin to step up as Batgirl's
partner/side-kick.
Synopsis:
The
story starts off at an abandon old house. Inside the house, Batgirl
sneaks along a hallway as she is investigating what has been causing
outages of the city's powers grid. She makes her way into a room with
an opening through the floor, where she sees a bright light glowing
from it. Batgirl peeks through to see a cult/computer hackers
worshiping a bright glowing container. The leader of the group
describes that their god or idol was taken out by the Batgirl and her
associates, plans on resurrecting her back, and take out Gotham City
for good (oh and they have their own missile launcher for some
reason).
After
hearing their typical evil diabolical plan, Batgirl drops through the
opening and attacks the cultists. Suddenly, RoboBat plows through a
wall and orders everyone to surrender. Batgirl, not truly aware of
what completely happened in the Batman Endgame storyline, is confused
and tries to figure out who RoboBat is, to which RoboBat replies “I'm
Batman”. RoboBat tries to arrest Batgirl, but he is attacked by a
cultist. RoboBat gets into a scuffle with him, which gives Batgirl
time to escape.
The
next day, Barbara and Frankie are talking about the appearance of
RoboBat and Frankie's adjustment to a sidekicks life. Jim Gordon
makes a visit to Barbara's place, where we get to see Barbara's
reaction to her father's new makeover. Barbara begs her dad to grow
the mustache back (because who knew shaving could take off 20 years
from your look).
They
head over to a park and eat some ice cream. Jim then breaks it to
Barbara about his new job and tells her that he is the new Batman.
Barbara, feeling guilty and uneasy over the sudden fact that her
father was honest with her, tries to tell her father about her secret
life, but is cut off by Jim saying that he wanted to tell her the
truth in case anything happened to him. He also informs her that as
Batman he must arrest any masked vigilantes on sight because he feels
that they're “unpredictable”. Jim goes off on saying he doesn't
want to live a double life without Barbara's knowledge of it.
Switch
back to the house with the experimental container, a glowing female
figure emerges from the container and travels out to the city (Hold
on….RoboBat arrests all the cultists earlier, but doesn't even
investigate what they were doing? Way to go Batman).
Later
at an arcade bar, Barbara discusses her concern about her father with
Frankie, without revealing that he's the new Batman, as Frankie is
playing a game. A power outage then occurs around the city block. The
mysterious figure is trying to comprehend what is happening to her as
cars are blowing up near her. This prompts Barbara to turn into
Batgirl. She runs towards the mysterious figure and gets her
attention.
Barbara realizes the mysterious person is a villain that
Batman and Superman defeated and imprisoned inside an energy
container over at Strykers Island. The mysterious lady remembers her
name is Leslie Willis, aka Livewire, and is about to attack Batgirl.
Frankie tries to help by shoulder tackling Livewire, but since
Livewire is made up of pure electricity (like Jamie Foxx's Electro)
Frankie receives an electrical burn. Livewire retaliates, but Batgirl
throws her foam bombs to slow her down.
RoboBat
gives them the surprise and drops down between them. He blasts
Livewire, but she disappears into the air. RoboBat switches his focus
on Batgirl and tells her that she is under arrest.
Review:
Batgirl
#41 was a fun read; the story wasn't great, but at best it was a fun
read. The creative team continues to give Barbara/Batgirl a new fresh
look and make her more “hip”. I'm interested on how things will
play out for Barbara and her father; knowing the fact that he is the
new Batman. Expanding from that, it's nice to see the writers put
Batgirl in a Batman-centric story once again after seeing her adjust
to Burnside in the past few issues. I felt the past few issues were
story fillers just to introduce new characters for Batgirl, but in
this issue, this story seems more relevant. The artwork has its ups
and downs, depending how you like it. It seems too cartoony, but the
expression between character interactions were great. Proportions of
characters seemed off, but the goal of this team is not to make it
look too practical or detailed.
There
were some plot points that had my head scratching in this issue. The
first is the missile launchers? I won't dwell on that. Why doesn't
Jim question anything about the mysterious chamber after arresting
the cultists? This issue is clearly post-Endgame, so why doesn't
Barbara have any knowledge or show any concern about what happened to
Bruce Wayne after Endgame? She didn't even bother to investigate on
what happened in Endgame after her father confessed that he's the new
Batman.
This
issue's story has its “what the?” moments and the artwork might
look good or bad to you, depending on your taste in art; in addition,
if you want to jump on a Batgirl story with good writing and
character interactions, pick it up and read it. Another plus I would
like to mention, this issue is a good place for new readers that want
to start reading Batgirl especially if you are somewhat familiar with
Batgirl.
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