Batgirl #4 – Review

By: Gail Simone (writer), Ardian Syaf (penciller), Vicente Cifuentes (inker), Ulises Arreola (colorist)

The Story: Babs’ taking a look at herself and making a change.  And she’s starting with the man in the mirror.

The Review: As Oracle, Barbara Gordon enjoyed a faithful following of fans who admired her not only for her special role in the world of professional crime-fighting, but also for the strength of her personality.  Yet somehow, in the wake of her miraculous recovery from the wheelchair, it seems like she has to re-earn all that respect, both as a character and as an active superhero, not only from us readers, but also from herself.

A lot of her internal conflict comes from the unworthiness she feels of being cured when others have not.  This ties in perfectly with Black Mirror’s rage of surviving when others have died, “like being mocked by God,” as Batgirl puts it.  Both have dealt with their respective issues in opposite ways; one lets it gnaw at her from within, and the other unleashes it upon others.

Speaking of Mirror, he hasn’t been a very impressive villain for Batgirl’s first major outing, and his motivations remain as impossible to sympathize with as ever, but when he finally goes down, he succeeds in appealing to your sense of compassion.  Unable to overpower him, our hero dispatches him in a very poetic and rather sad tactic: by forcing him to reflect upon the burden of his own “miracle.”  As a man of mirrors, it’s a reflection he can’t escape.

Ultimately, it’s Barbara who realizes the futility of both their coping strategies, each for the same reason: these things just happen, not because anyone deserves them more or less.  She sums up the message pretty well, attributing it to Gotham City, but applicable to the world at large: “Sometimes extraordinary things happen to the very worst people, and the best people suffer.  And sometimes, people get their miracles whether they deserve them or not.”

Batgirl #3 – Review

By: Gail Simone (writer), Ardian Syaf (penciller), Vicente Cifuentes (inker), Ulises Arreola (colorist)

The Story: Just because they headbutt each other doesn’t mean they’re not in love.

The Review: Of all the major continuity changes the new DCU brought with it, possibly none of them has incited more outcry and upset than the restoration of Barbara Gordon’s legs.  Which, I must say, strikes me as particularly funny, since in almost any real-word circumstance, we’d all consider this a miracle to write home about.

In fact, Simone spends most of this issue trying to convince you of exactly that.  She has Batgirl state flatly, “…he doesn’t think anyone should believe in miracles.  He says miracles are a lie—just a cruel prank.  He’s wrong.  I know he’s wrong.  How do I know?  Because I’m living one.”  Her repetition comes across a little defensive, perhaps because she’s not just reassuring herself, but she’s trying to assure us as well.

It seems Simone even crafted Black Mirror for the sheer purpose of challenging Babs’ hopeful outlook on life, resulting in a weirdly simple-minded villain.  Maybe if it had taken longer to figure out his M.O., the plot would have had more time to stew and we’d take him more seriously.  But discovering his game so early on pretty much lays his whole deal bare, sapping the suspense, and making it simply a matter of waiting for Batgirl to outwit him, sooner or later.

Probably the lease convincing point of the issue is where Babs thinks she’s got the leg up (so to speak) on Mirror by taking hold of who she’s deduced as the villain’s latest target, a man who had narrowly missed death by falling on the subway tracks.  She yells, “I nearly fell that night.  It was a miracle that I didn’t, yeah? …You think I’m supposed to die by falling! …If I’m holding this guy, then you can’t kill him without breaking your vow to your family.  Checkmate, pal.”  The bravado just seems forced and the deductions stretched, so the scene feels rather flat.