Batgirl has family issues but punching a psycho and blowing up a dummy helps
Batgirl 21 continues to develop the rich internal world that Gail Simone has created for her heroine. It is a world that sometimes turns off the fans of grunting super heroes that live in a sea of pathos but is loved by the devoted fan base, to which I belong. Because Barbara Gordon is first and foremost a person, not just a spandex clad vigilante, fans of the book demand to be present for Batgirl’s slog through young adulthood with all the questions about the world, questions about family, and questions of purpose we all deal with. We know Barbara through her thoughts and her conversations with her friends as she negotiates her difficult life and look forward each month to getting to know her better. This issue is another great chance for us to get to know her better.
The issue concentrates a lot on family and connections with a nice battle with the Ventriloquist thrown in. We see Barbara’s web of connections being affected by the recent events at several points. Simone starts this with a call from Nightwing. The Nightwing/Batgirl relationship is one of those things that are always there in the background and never completely out of either ones’ heart. The two heroes have met up a couple of times at least with pretty poignant interaction in both books. You can’t help but feel they belong together and that each one struggles on how to deal with the strong bond they had in the past. Here, Dick reaches out to her ostensibly to make sure she is OK and doesn’t need help, but really to assure himself that she is OK. He is vulnerable and afraid for her because after losing Damian, he needs to believe that there is a chance for a safe and predictable world in the midst of the insanely dangerous path they have chosen. He wants Babs to reach out to him and Bruce so they can keep the Bat family safe and together.
Of course, Babs continues to find some security and happiness in her new home with her roomie. She discusses her thoughts on family with Alysia, trying to make sense of the murderous Ventriloquist killing her parents with the struggles she feels with her family’s situation. She obviously is torn by her own broken family and the fallout of recent events that have only made matters worse. Further, in her current mood of self-pity, Babs even blames herself for much of what has happened. It is not enough that James led to her mother leaving in the first place; she can’t get past believing she killed him.
But that brings us to the oddest familial aspect, Mrs. Gordon. Barbara Sr. has decided to go back to her home “on the coast” and return to the life she made for herself there. Huh? Didn’t she just give that up and come back to Gotham to be with her family. Didn’t James drive her there? Well, now that he is dead, suddenly the oppressive cruelty of life in Gotham is unbearable? And the life she just left now calls her back away from her daughter? I find this sequence of events to be rather artificial. It is almost as if someone decided Barbara Sr. had to show up to be a captive to her son and all his issues. Then once he gets popped, off she goes again because her purpose has been served. I will admit I found this beneath Simone’s typical writing and wonder how much of a role others had in this decision. I also wonder why she doesn’t say more to James Sr. about how Batgirl saved her life but just lets James Sr. carry on irrationally. Odd.
Our fight with the Ventriloquist was pretty wild and fun. Babs talking to herself as she cautiously makes her way through that creepy home gives us a sense of forboding we have probably felt in old homes we have been in. We get Ventriloquist and Ferdie, the dummy, in the background arguing and bickering as they decide if, how and when to kill everyone. Then the dialogue of the dead parents pimping their daughter for show biz roles is some of the darkly funniest stuff I have read in quite a while That scene alone as Batgirl fights the dead parents and they discuss her ability to do the right nude scene if necessary is hysterical and an absolute classic. The home itself is wonderfully depicted and alive in its suffocating eeriness. The dark, unlit, dusty decay of the home is palpable. The evil dummy and unhinged Shauna fighting and screaming at Barbara as they work out their own issues, Ferdie is a cad and Shauna is a jealous psycho, juxtaposes dark murder, desperate desire and jealosy, herosism in the face of the bizarre, and wonderfully absurd situational humor to amazing affect. This scene shows why SIMONE IS JUST SO FREAKING AMAZING!
In the end, Batgirl saves the day and beats the crap out of a dummy that may go as far back as Mesopotamia and a poor crazy girl that fell under his spell. Once again, Batgirl’s opponents tend to be victims but dangerous psychopaths none the less. My first time through I got caught on the small problems I found but by the third, I was in love with the issue and see it as another great step in the life of Batgirl. 4.5 stars
