Review: Batgirl #17

Consider, for a moment, that there are parallel worlds, each one slightly different than the next. In one such parallel world, Batgirl #17 is the beginning of the post-Gail Simone era for the title. It’s a world where Simone was unceremoniously fired from a title she was seemingly born to write, and issue #17 is DC’s first chance to show people that Batgirl is in good hands.

Consider all of that for a moment, and then breathe a sigh of relief that you do not live in that world. Batgirl #17 is just part one of a two-part fill-in before Simone returns – it is not a new direction for the series. If it was, Batgirl would be in trouble.

The basic story is that Barbara Gordon is trying to help the police round-up The Joker’s leftover stooges. Shades of Oracle come out as she hacks the police database and compiles mug shots and records for each of the thugs, each of whom she recognizes thanks to her photographic memory. She sends the info to the police and plans to let them make the arrests as a symbolic statement. Unfortunately, James Gordon Jr. has other plans, and he sets out to sabotage the arrests. It’s actually a strong concept that, under a better writer, could work really well. Under fill-in writer Ray Fawkes, however, it falls completely flat.

Babs has little to no personality in this issue, and other characters have almost the opposite problem. The dynamic between she and her brother is entirely different here than it has been in previous issues. James Jr. acts like Dennis Hopper in Speed, gleefully taunting Barbara over the phone, and Barbara responds to him flippantly rather than carefully. In a one-page scene early on, James Jr. visits his mother in the hospital, addressing her with disdain the whole time. This is far different from the cold, methodical James Jr. we saw just one issue prior bargaining with The Joker for his mother’s life. Some of the dialogue is just painful, like Mrs. Gordon’s reaction to James’s visit and the forced back-and-forth between James and Babs. Heavy-handed narration is the icing on the badly written cake.

Daniel Sampere provides the art for this tale, and it’s serviceable, if static. At a few points in the story Batgirl leaps through the air, and the narration at one point describes it as ‘dancing’, but there’s no energy to it. It’s also hard to follow at times, especially when a large fire breaks out. Backgrounds disappear amidst the flames, and it’s hard to tell where characters are in relation to each other. The issue begins with things already on fire, and then flashes back to show how Batgirl got there. What should have been a big moment – the point where the flashback meets the beginning of the issue and the truly spectacular stunt that Babs manages to pull off – lands with a thud thanks to poor pacing and page layout. It’s hard to know if that choice was made by the writer or the artist, so it’s best just to call it a team failure.

Coming off of “Death of the Family,” Batgirl has a chance to show Barbara doing some real soul-searching. It’s probably a safe bet that Gail Simone will do just that once she returns. It’s a shame that this fill-in team so poorly squandered the momentum that Simone has built on the series. Issue #19 cannot arrive soon enough.

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