Batgirl #34 is available now where all good comics are sold!
Synopsis
When Barbara Gordon confronts her father about James Jr.’s return to Gotham City, the stress between them causes the two to finally break apart. As a result, Babs has to move into her own apartment…but her celebration is cut short when her check bounces! Batgirl returns to Burnside to find out if you really can go home again—spoiler alert: you can’t when the Terrible Trio has taken over!
Review
Batgirl – the character not the book – has been a little lost as part of this Rebirth era. The character has gone through a change of scenery and a change in costume over recent months and is finally beginning to emerge more herself again.
Given that she’s a younger character within the DCU it’s understandable that, to a degree, she needs to fight to find her place in the world but in this incarnation of the Batgirl comic she’s spent a little more time doing that than fighting baddies.
Mairghread Scott has finally begun to strike a chord with this latest arc. Over the past few issues the series has cemented the supporting cast around Barbara, given her a more permanent role in her alter-ego life and made sure to keep ties to the Gordon Clean Energy arc from the New 52.
With all of that in place its time to start crafting a stronger story around the character and that is what we’re seeing with this first part of the “Terrible” arc.
Scott has added some politics to the story with Barbara working for Congresswoman Alejo but at times it feels restrained to allow other parts of the story to breathe. In the future I’d like to see this come to the fore and allow the book to stand apart from other members of the Bat-family with its own voice for change.
In the meantime we’ll continue to deal with plenty of conflict between Barbara and her father, her boss, her colleagues and a trio of very odd villains with animals for heads.
I can’t deny that I got a kick out of seeing Barbara in the clocktower however. Something about Paul Pelletier’s artwork in this issue really reminded me of classic Birds of Prey from the early 2000s around the time of the TV series.
If I had one major complaint about this issue it would be the continued inclusion of Jason Bard. He’s gone from cop to small time crook to political pundit and now he seems to be hell bent on showing his affections for Babs. Whilst its nice to think she could have a life I much prefer the character when there isn’t yet another romantic interest on the horizon.
But for now my overriding question is: are those really animal heads? Or are they masks?
Verdict
Following a hugely successful run towards the end of the New 52 era, Batgirl is finally on the up-and-up. With this issue we have a supporting cast well in place and some emotional growth that the character has been craving for some time, but there is still plenty of room for more.
6/10
Batigrl #34 is written by Mairghread Scott with pencils by Paul Pelletier, inks by Norm Rapmund and colours by Jordie Bellaire. The cover is by Francis Manapul.
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