Vertigo Quarterly: Cyan #1 – Review

By: Too many to list—or even to review. Just check out the issue.

The Story: It’s impossible not to feel blue after reading this.

The Review: Of all the showcase titles out in recent years, the ones from Vertigo have been the best by far, with a good mix of known and unknown writers confidently spinning self-contained yarns from the chosen motif. Until now, I haven’t had a proper appreciation for the choice of motif, which provides some degree of unity to what would otherwise be jumbles of disparate, unconnected stories. But revolving stories around a color doesn’t quite do the same trick.

The big difference is that a color is an abstract concept in comparison to, say, witches or ghosts, which are somewhat more defined, even if a writer takes the notion in some radical direction. In theory, you can write any story and shoehorn a bit of cyan in there, which is what a lot of the features in this issue do, whether it’s Shaun Simon’s unconvincing “Serial Artist” or a metaphysical numbers extravaganza in Mony Nero’s “Much Ado About Nothing.” It’s easy enough for the colorists to dab a bit of sharp light blue in any given feature, but difficult to grasp the color’s effect on the story.

Batgirl #10 – Review

By: Gail Simone (story), Alitha Martinez (pencils), Vicente Cifuentes (inks), Ulises Arreola (colors)

The Story: Is it a requirement that every Gotham crime-fighter also be an independently wealthy scion?

The Review: Coincidentally, just as Batman and Robin has been pointing out the Bat-family’s excessive violence, Batgirl does the same thing here—or, at least, it’s questioning how effective their methods actually are in addressing Gotham’s problems.  With a crime rate that persistent, even with all the vigilante intervention, you have to start wondering if they’ve been going about this the wrong way all along.

I mean, does cracking down on petty car thieves really make a difference, especially when all you’re doing is bruising up sixteen-year-olds before sending them to prison?  And is it worth it when the only victims here are, as Batgirl puts it, “some rich couple’s status ride?”  Speaking as a person with a background in urbanism, let me assure you that it does not; locking up these kids keeps them off the streets for a while, but they come back savvier, colder, angrier than ever.

Batgirl #8 – Review

By: Gail Simone (writer), Ardian Syaf, Alitha Martinez, Vicente Cifuentes (artists), Ulises Arreola (colorist)

The Story: It just goes to show, you can sometimes trust a man named “Weasel.”

The Review: Last month, I complained about how tired I was getting of Batgirl constantly questioning herself, of asking whether she deserved everything she had.  While this kind of reverse-guilt was understandable in her case, after a certain point impatience has to kick in.  In a world where good people suffer horrors every day—certainly something Babs knows firsthand living in Gotham—how long can you really tolerate someone worrying over their good fortune?

Thankfully, Black Canary beat some sense into her in that issue, and here, I am happy to report, Babs steers clear from the self-doubt issues she’s been plagued with since day one.  At one point, she does experience a physical reaction from seeing someone who dates back from the most traumatic incident of her life, but she keeps it brief and under admirable restraint.  Certainly it doesn’t stop her from knocking out an attacker from behind and then cradling his head before it hits a stone ledge.  That speaks volumes about the kind of self-control she possesses now.

The next step Simone should take to make this the title we all want it to be is to improve the quality of villain Batgirl encounters.  Black Mirror came quite short of being truly compelling, and Gretel barely had a backstory worth reading.  Grotesque, as I believe our current psychopath is called, doesn’t even have a backstory.  All we really get out of him is a taste for “beautiful things,” a foppish manner of speaking, and some electrical powers.  Not much to go by.

It certainly doesn’t help that Simone still spends way more time with Babs’ stream-of-consciousness rambling than advancing the plot, even though we no longer have to sit through too much maudlin reflection.  The whole string of text we get when Babs gets back to her apartment is a good example of the repetitive, jerky, wearisome narration we must deal with: “Three years ago.  The Joker and two thugs stepped into my house.  I opened the door.  That’s what kills me.  Cop’s daughter.  Superhero.  And I opened the door.”

Batgirl #7 – Review

By: Gail Simone (writer), Ardian Syaf & Alitha Martinez (pencillers), Vicente Cifuentes (inker), Ulises Arreola (colorist)

The Story: Somebody call an ambulance and get some popcorn—girl fight!

The Review: The more I read this series, the more I sense that Simone treats her writing here as much of a therapeutic outlet as Batgirl does herself.  We all know Simone loves the character, but we also know (from her own frank admissions) her ambivalence about the direction DC wanted to take the character during the relaunch.  This conflict between joy and anxiety has been channeled through our heroine since the title debuted, and it’s made for an inconsistent read.

Going meta in comics—or any medium, for that matter—is a fool’s errand nowadays.  Meta is nearly without exception used in two different ways: a) the characters become aware of their own fictional nature, begging some abstract questions about existence and creation, a tactic most famously used by Grant Morrison; or b) the writer uses the story to comment on perceptions about the story itself—using the story to talk back to the readers, in other words, which Geoff Johns does quite frequently.

It’s pretty clear Simone has been working the latter strategy.  All the anxieties and fears Batgirl has expressed to date have some metatextual dimensions, responding not only to her personal conflicts within the story, but also to the questions and uncertainty readers have had about her since her return to the cowl.  All this inner torture about why she regained her mobility, whether she deserves it, does she deserve the bat—it’s no coincidence these are the same issues of hot debate her fans and detractors are still tossing back and forth now.

I’ve accepted these monthly beats of doubt quite readily, recognizing this is a very natural thing Barbara (and Simone) have to work through.  But each time, I can’t help hoping it will finally, finally be the last one needed for Barbara to move on.  I had those same hopes when Black Canary sternly confronts Batgirl about all this uncharacteristic melancholy.  Unlike her redheaded friend, Canary has retained enough of her pre-relaunch substance for Simone to use almost like a voicebox from the past, telling Batgirl (and perhaps Simone herself as well) to get over herself and get her act together: “My friend Barbara Gordon was in a wheelchair, and I never once heard her talk like that.  Never once heard her lapse into maudlin self-hatred.  Don’t you dare do it now that you’re out.”