The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: Batgirl
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Well, isn’t Batgirl and the Birds of Prey a bit of a surprise? It’s a Rebirth tie-in so there’s a lot of exposition setting up post-Crisis, post-New 52 Batgirl and Black Canary (and Huntress), but writers Julie Benson and Shawna Benson pace it pretty well. The Barbara Gordon narration is strong. There’s some awkward points–mostly…
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This issue of Batgirl is a little weird. Stewart and Fletcher sort of do an adaptation of… Captain America 2. Satellite going to shoot people from space because they’re bad or might someday be bad. Big plot point in that movie. In the previews, I believe. Just a few years ago. Yet, here it is…
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There’s a shocking amount of this comic book I don’t care about in the least. I’ve been tiring of Stewart and Fletcher’s somewhat incompetent Barbara, but at least they acknowledge her here. Sure, they make too many leaps of logic to get there, but they finally get to something. The problem with Batgirl has been…
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Something happens this issue of Batgirl. The gimmick starts to get a little old. Barbara using Batgirl to be popular on social media, Barbara going after a reality TV bad boy, Barbara dating a cop who thinks Batgirl is a menace. All of a sudden–and having Dinah point out all Barbara’s inconsistent behaviors doesn’t help–all…
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There’s a somewhat pointless plot twist at the end of this issue. It’s sensational, when the writers haven’t actually set up a point for it. They aren’t asking profound questions or making profound statements, they’re actually just making fun of their villain. Which is, to some degree, a Batgirl thing to do. Until that point,…
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It’s another solid issue, with Babs stumbling onto a crime on campus. Stewart and Fletcher also introduce a few more supporting cast members–the issue ends with a sitcom-like tag with all of them, sans Dinah, who’s clearly a guest star. It gives Batgirl a nice feel, though the more impressive stuff comes just before. Babs’s…
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It's the all-new Batgirl, which is mostly just a “Veronica Mars” in college where Babs solves hip crimes–the supervillain this issue is hacking phones and putting the embarrassing private information online. Why? Because he's a bad guy. And he's got a cybernetic brain and can hold his own with Batgirl in a fight. Writers Cameron…
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This issue has a neat thread running through its three feature-length stories. The Huntress (from Earth-Two) comes to Earth-One for a visit. In the Batman story, she meets him and Robin. Then she teams up with Batgirl and Batwoman. For the finale, her going home sets off the events for Man-Bat and the Demon’s story.…
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Even after a terrible opening–Simone finishes her cliffhanger without a proper recap, I still don’t know what happened or why–Batgirl starts to recover. And it does so against some substantial odds. Besides the weak open, Syaf can’t draw regular people. He’s a fine superhero artist, but when he’s got to do two people talking, it…
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The point, to me, of a Barbara Gordon Batgirl comic is Barbara Gordon. And on some level, Gail Simone is with me. The comic comes (albeit slowly) to life when Barbara shows up in her civilian life. It also perks up when Batgirl, the cheeriest (traditionally) of the Batman Family, is out in the daylight.…
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I like Ardian Syaf. I’d never heard of him before Batgirl but he does a good job. The big question of a Barbara Gordon Batgirl comic is how Gail Simone is going to handle The Killing Joke. She handles it like it’s 1991 and Barbara’s getting over it. That approach is at once the issue’s…
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They’re really dragging out the Batman turns into a vampire thing. I think this issue is the fourth or fifth of the story. I guess it’s fine, since it’s Colan and DeZuniga again and I am curious how everything is going to tie together. Conway and Levitz are finally bringing Vicki Vale into Batman’s story,…
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Ugh. “Matches” Malone is so goofy. Why hasn’t anyone modernized him…. Otherwise, it’s a decent issue. The Chiaramonte inks are the best so far. It’s not the best Newton, but it’s good. Conway gets a lot of story going–Bruce is in LA investigating a school for criminals, Dick is stalking his ex-girlfriend (who seems to…
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What a weak issue. I mean… it’s really weak. It’s competent in a way someone spending sixty cents might not complain, but it’s not good at all. The feature is a Maxie Zeus story. Batman’s hunting him through a snow storm. There’s a scene where Dick and Alfred talk about worrying about him. It’s like…
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How did DC let this one get to the printers? Chiaramonte’s inks are a complete disaster. Maybe Newton was in a rush and Chiaramonte had to cover a lot but… it doesn’t even look like Newton here. The story’s got some interesting parts, not the “Batman is missing” parts (Two-Face has kidnapped him and is…
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Colan and Janson are back in sync, which is good because Conway’s overwriting the dialogue again. It’s like he can’t decide if Batman is supposed to think or talk his plans for athletic feats. This time I was actually wondering if Batman was talking to the villain, since his expository dialogue to himself comes in…
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There are two Mad Hatters? I’m now incredibly confused. According to this issue, there was an original Mad Hatter and then a replacement and then the original came back. At least in the eighties. The Mad Hatter story–which gets the cover–is sort of a fake A plot, since the issue mostly concentrates on the Gotham…
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Conway really lays on the melodrama for his resolution to Bruce and Selina’s romance–Catwoman’s still too much in the picture for her to be able to stick it out–but it still works somehow. The major part of the story is Catman coming back for revenge on Batman and Catwoman. This issue might be the first…
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I’ve been trudging through Conway’s Batman comics the last few days–maybe the Irv Novick art on Batman is getting me down–so it’s nice this issue of Detective Comics is fantastic. It’s a completely absurd story about one of Bruce Wayne’s egyptologist friends going nuts and kidnapping Selina Kyle because he thinks they’re reincarnated Ancient Egyptians…
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I know kids actually read comic books back in the eighties so Conway had to keep them in mind, but he’s got a story about a golden mannequin lady killing people… he didn’t need to open with a really obvious prologue setting up the character. He could have just revealed it all when he will…
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Dan Adkins’s inks are a mess here. Because of them, there’s barely one good panel of Don Newton drawing Batman versus a werewolf. The story’s something of a surprise–with Conway concentrating solely on Batman; I assumed the issue, since Conway did Werewolf by Night, would be Batman meets Jack Russell, but it’s anything but. Since…
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Now there’s a done-in-one. Wow. Conway fits a ton into the issue, which boils down to another poisoned Batman goes after the Scarecrow story, but with all sorts of decoration. It opens with Batman–Bruce mooning over Selina no less–going about his routine. He gets a mysterious dart shot at him and strange things start happening.…
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So… Alfred’s somebody’s baby daddy. That little detail is sort of overlooked in this issue. Not only is he a baby daddy, he’s an emotionally disconnected one (he financially supports her, but won’t tell her his identity–I think they almost used a similar thing in Batman and Robin to explain Alicia Silverstone’s Batgirl’s history). It’s…
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I love the scene with the Paris police giving Batman the okay because of his “unofficial” Interpol status. I wonder if Conway realized how silly the scene reads, given he’s sitting there in the office in his costume. Maybe Batman needs a different costume for such official meetings. Otherwise, the issue’s decent. Bruce heads to…
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Well, Batman fights the crooked miners union again this issue… but this time… he wins! Actually, it’s a really nice story about Batman and Blockbuster saving a bunch of miners in a collapsed shaft. Conway takes his time, reintroducing everything from last issue (I love the recaps comics used to integrate into the stories), then…
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It’s Batman versus the crooked coal miners and guess who wins? Not Batman. Okay, maybe I’m abridging a little, but not by much. Conway makes Batman a little too human here, way too fallible (he gets hit in the head with a shovel–isn’t he supposed to know when people are sneaking up on him?). It’s…
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The main story is dedicated to Will Eisner, but besides some rather obvious Spirit references, I don’t get it. I mean, it’s not like Batman spends the issue getting beat up. That one thing aside–it’s not even a problem, it’s just a strange dedication–the issue’s pretty good. It’s Batman the adventurer, with some nice moments…
The Stop Button 