Batgirl: 10 issues from 2011
Writer: Gail Simone
The Mirror arc… I’m having a hard time parsing what point it’s trying to make. It seems to be trying to yell at people who are upset about losing Oracle via a strawman who has a grudge against “miracles,” I guess. But that… doesn’t really address the actual problems. So maybe it’s not trying to make a meta point and is just a thing? But in any case, it’s a weird thing.
Aw, hell. And the next arc, after making like maybe an issue’s worth of an attempt at being passable, then dumps all over the hospital scene from Oracle: Year One (which is a brilliant scene where Ostrander and Yale tear The Killing Joke apart in one page). In a way that Bruce Wayne: The Road Home already did, granted, but that was just Marc Andreyko’s… unique relationship with continuity. This has got to be a deliberate retcon.
I could write an essay on everything that’s wrong with the new hospital scene. In fact, I did, because my rant here was getting away from me.
Argh.
And we follow this up with Bruce saying “You were always meant to be Batgirl, Barbara,” so that’s a nice little “■■■■ you” to Oracle, Cass, and I guess Steph.
OH MY GOD, BABS ATE CASS
In all seriousness, I really don’t want to hear from this thing about “the real Batgirl.” That’s just a deliberate insult.
The thing about people calling her “Batwoman” and her correcting them “Batgirl” is just… kind of weird? I’m not sure what that’s supposed to be accomplishing. Is she proud of being junior to a much less experienced hero?
Rando henchman being one of the guys from The Killing Joke is pretty incredible too. “Incredible” in a “this is a really stupid coincidence” way. The revelation at the end that he felt guilty and wound up being the one to call the cops isn’t horrible, though, even if it makes his still working for a crazy killer villain kind of questionable. Plus, I’d have had Babs do it herself. But this whole book is kind of allergic to her having any agency, so that’s pretty par for the course.
I’m trying to figure out what actual point it’s trying to make about gentrification. Alysia, who I think we’re supposed to like, seems to hate Bruce’s reconstruction plan from over in Snyder’s Batman, but then holds up this Carnes person who’s a not-so-secret serial killer as doing it “the right way.” Are we… supposed to agree and consider this moral ambiguity on Bruce’s part? Be impressed by Carnes’ (subtle naming, by the way) PR skills, even though she got accused of murdering her own parents on national television? Or think Alysia has no clue what she’s talking about? Preachy is one thing, but I’d like to have some clue what you’re preaching.
“Knightfall” (Why that name? It’s confusing.) is about the thousandth generic homicidal rival vigilante. Not even remotely the first with a religious motif – how about that glowy guy from Tomasi’s arc of Batman and Robin right before Flashpoint? How about Michael Lane when he went postal in that terrible Judgment on Gotham arc? You’ll note two other things those arcs have in common: Being very recent when this came out and sucking.
“Show some I.D., I’ll get you a beer.” No way is Babs young enough to even pass for under twenty-one. Not a chance. I mean, I guess it’s just supposed to be a snarky way of pressing for her identity, but it’s still out-of-place.
I love how James Jr. has become a magical font of evil that complete randos know is bad news just looking at him. Again, even as a kid. On top of scaring Barbara Sr. away for years by killing a cat when he was ten, this is just getting ridiculous.
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Batman #12 from 2012
Writers: Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV
Fine issue, I guess. Just the only one I hadn’t read from this year, sandwiched between a couple events (because Snyder’s run is ALL BIG ACTION-PACKED EVENTS ALL THE TIME). I don’t think I find Harper Row quite as compelling as Snyder and Tynion do, but she doesn’t, like, bother me or anything. She’s just sort of there.
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Batman: The Dark Knight: 11 issues from 2012
Writers: Paul Jenkins (5 issues) David Finch (co-plotter on 4 issues), Joe Harris (1 issue), Gregg Hurwitz (5 issues)
Weird to have the Flash butting into this, especially given how he’s completely useless.
This is one of those books where it feels like barely anything happens in an issue. I guess we’re kinda spotlighting one villain at a time as this, uh, anti-fear toxin affects them, but not in a way that really says anything about them. And it’s not like this concept is all that new. Take the premise of “Never Fear” from The New Batman Adventures, restructure it to be a clone of the original Hush arc (masked villain who is obviously secretly one of Bruce Wayne’s friends, with the assistance of Scarecrow, sics several members of Batman’s rogues gallery on him in turn, but it turns out that the real mastermind is a third party who is also an established villain), and then don’t replicate anything that was interesting about either of those, and you have this.
After his very earliest appearances, Bane never or almost never (I can’t guarantee it didn’t happen in something I haven’t read, but I don’t recall it happening anytime after Knightfall in the Post-Crisis stuff I’ve read) used Venom again, so it annoys me when adaptations just make ‘roid rage his whole schtick. And now canon is doing it.
You’ll notice I’m barely mentioning White Rabbit. That’s because she’s really not interesting. Her power doesn’t have anything to do with her gimmick, and personality-wise, all she’s got going is talking in innuendo. And her costume is absurd.
So, you have one arc about a toxin that makes people irrationally violent. Then the next arc begins with a crime scene where a bunch of civilians killed each other for no apparent reason. Cue a bunch of melodramatics about “How could this possibly have happened?! It wasn’t a supervillain this time!” Uh, guys, it was probably a supervillain.
Oh, hey, yet another Forgettable Civilian Love Interest™! Bruce didn’t even properly break up with the last one yet.
Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a TV show called The New Batman Adventures. And it said “What if we made the Scarecrow edgy?” And it sorta worked. Like ten years later, there was a video game called Arkham Asylum. And it said “What if we made the Scarecrow even edgier?” And it really worked. Afterwards, there was everyone under the freaking sun. And they all said “What if we keep making the Scarecrow edgier until everyone gets sick of him?” And that… happened, anyway. And then Arkham Knight was like “Hold my beer,” but that was later.”
That said, I actually am enjoying Hurwitz’s stuff a bit more than Jenkins and Finch (well, Finch is still doing the art but not the writing). Some of it gets pretentious in that way that most Scarecrow stories are, but other parts are really compelling, like the scenes with Batman and the little girl or, well, the scenes with Scarecrow and the other little girl. Even Scarecrow’s new backstory, while pretty over-the-top (and basically suggesting that he is the way he is because his father had the exact same obsessions, thus begging the question of why Dad Crane was like that), is sort of fitting.
It is odd that after we just got done with an arc which heavily involved the Scarecrow, we get another Scarecrow story with no apparent connection to the previous one.
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