"Everything doesn't have to be about fear. There's room in our line of work for hope, too"- Stephanie Brown, Batgirl Vol 3 #5
"Quit? Like hell I will"- Bette Kane, Beast Boy #3
Was there a "mystery" where he was walking without the cane? That's the least of the problems. And I agree with just about everyone, the Bard plot was the worst of it. I hated Barbara's inner monologues about him - the whole thing made me cringe. All the musings about "He hates the real me." I don't know about their history, but I knew enough here that I just wanted to scream "STOP THIS! He hates you; you hate him. He's involved with political dirty tricks and bomb threats!" So this is the guy she is a-flutter about? This never felt like to me like it was about forgiveness - I felt like I was seeing a woman with the low self-esteem that would lead her to pursue a guy who hated her true self.
Pelletier drew an especially mature-looking Barbara. Perhaps an overcompensation after Burnside. But by the time of Rodriguez (who drew the most interesting recent work on the book), Barbara looked just the right age to me. Not a kid, not a teenager, not 38. Late twenties perhaps. But in general I didn't like Pelletier's depiction of Barbara. I know he's a good artist and it seemed most people did like his run on Batgirl, so I'm in the minority.
I never got over the peculiar cover of Batgirl #27 - the debut of Barbara's new costume, where Murphy drew Barbara's head floating over her left shoulder, certainly (as I see it) detached from her neck. Anatomically bizarre.
I really liked what may be the very first story she wrote for her run - in the Batgirl #25 expanded issue, the story of Batgirl visiting the church. It had a depth to it.
But the Art of the Crime started in that same issue, and the plot seemed to get hijacked - so probably that was editorial interference. All of a sudden that story was about - Wyrm? The wireless something-or-other that started off in Nightwing.
Getting back to the topic of Stephanie Brown, I believe she was pulled in to the last Batgirl and the Birds of Prey near the end, as part of a larger team.
I'd rather see Barbara on a team with Steph and Cass than acting solely as Oracle. Is it necessary to go full circle? I don't want Barbara's Batgirl to retire.
"Everything doesn't have to be about fear. There's room in our line of work for hope, too"- Stephanie Brown, Batgirl Vol 3 #5
"Quit? Like hell I will"- Bette Kane, Beast Boy #3
She was explicitly stated to be 21 in the Burnside era. She aged up when she changed her costume to her current one. Dick, who's meant to be the exact same age give or take a few months, was aged up at around the same time, when he was shot - he mentioned losing almost two decades of memories, which would mean he'd have to be in his late 20s, which means so is Barbara.
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Sure, but that doesn't actually pin down an age like Burnside did.
Simone - really, really wretched, reactive, incompetent Babs misery plots, with art I really disliked.
Burnside - first half of the run was so shallow, second half still shallow, but had Steph, and Babs grew up a bit, so I liked it better (plus it actually did a nice job tying into the JimBats status quo and wrapping up Valentine's Catwoman threads).
Larson - started strong, ended so weak with so many "bad boyfriend" plotlines.
Scott - editorial incompetence
Castellucci - one of the worst, down there with Simone for me.
Only Burnside featured Steph, so it's the only one I actually have a chunk of issues from.
I like Pelletier reasonably well, but I think the favorite thing I've seen him on is his digital first Superman stuff with Venditti recently. His Batgirl stuff was...fine. He drew Steph in Batman and Robin Eternal saying "Kiss me, sexy Batman", so I have some affection for his art
Steph did show up as part of the big Manslaughter arc in Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, but she sadly wasn't a regular part of the run. As I mentioned above, Burnside is the only Babsgirl run to feature her significantly.
I wouldn't mind Babs going fulltime Oracle, but I think it would be too divisive for most of the fanbase, and I want to heal the fanbase, not further divide it. So I think a team of Batgirls with Babs mentoring Steph and Cass is the way to go. I don't realistically see them bringing Bette out of West Point right now - I think they SHOULD do something with her, but they've dropped that ball so hard I don't know how they can pick it up.
I think the implication that she's aged up is only an implication. They're going to ignore it if and when they have someone confirm her age explicitly again.
Rodriguez's Joker issue was actually pretty good, but it wasn't particularly spectacular. Lupacchino, Sauvage, and Aneke's art for the final issue was nice enough, but none of it was lifted by the writing. I hope against hope Ayala and Fitzmartin can bring the Batgirl IP back up for whatever they have planned in March, and hopefully Tynion does something interesting with the trio in Batgirl.
"We're the same thing, you and I. We're both lies that eventually became the truth." Lara Notsil, Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"There's room in our line of work for hope, too." Stephanie Brown
Stephanie Brown Wiki, My Batman Universe Reviews, Stephanie Brown Discord
I like Simone's Babs but it's got nothing on Batgirl 2000 and Batgirl 2009,
Only issues of Burnside I'll actually reread
Yuck! I didn't like that line at all, his arts good though
she should be a regular
I want her rescued so bad! And i fully blame Tynion for that one, he's the one who did it. Nobody seems to want to use Bette, and I thought maybe Bennett would because Bombshells but nope!
make her late twenties
"Everything doesn't have to be about fear. There's room in our line of work for hope, too"- Stephanie Brown, Batgirl Vol 3 #5
"Quit? Like hell I will"- Bette Kane, Beast Boy #3
"Everything doesn't have to be about fear. There's room in our line of work for hope, too"- Stephanie Brown, Batgirl Vol 3 #5
"Quit? Like hell I will"- Bette Kane, Beast Boy #3
Final poll results!
https://twitter.com/ibmmiller/status...71361375457282
44 total votes:
11 for Full Face Mask
24 for Ninja Filtration Half Mask
2 for Domino Mask
7 for Cowl
A lot of comments about how Steph's mask is like a face mask for disease prevention this year, which I think is a bit...irrelevant to her long term design, so I'm not sure how much that swung the vote.
But still, well over double the number of people voting for her Ninja mask, which makes me think that the dominance of promotion with the half mask at key times - Batman Eternal and Rebirth Tec - have been pretty important in the fandom.
"We're the same thing, you and I. We're both lies that eventually became the truth." Lara Notsil, Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"There's room in our line of work for hope, too." Stephanie Brown
Stephanie Brown Wiki, My Batman Universe Reviews, Stephanie Brown Discord
My attempts at multi-quoting have failed, but some have responded to my preference for Rodriguez's work, so I'd like to mention a few things I really enjoyed.
He had a couple of tough scripts to work with - the fight with Joker indoors; and the death of James Jr. That can affect how one looks at his work. And he only had 3 issues to make an impression.
I'm just impressed by style, when someone does something different.
I found Pelletier conventional and dull, and Carmine Di Giandomenico unbearable to look at - his work looks, to me, like barely developed scratchy thumbnails. But that's how he draws everything, and I guess he has his fans. It's almost impossible to pick out some of the action he drew - some of the Liquid Metal action scenes were incomprehensible.
In #49, Rodriguez throws in a sponge effect for shadows in many, many panels. Half the issue takes place in the rain, which he realizes beautifully, with interesting water splatter effects. Mixed in throughout are very interesting-looking buildings, and a sponge effect in the shadows. Look at the swirling puddles, spongey smudges and blue droplets on her umbrella, in a small panel looking down from above on Gordon and Babs. It's just gorgeous. (The panel where he asks "Was that Jason Bard?" and she answers "He's my coworker.") Or the final 4 panels on the same page, with white spherical globs, ending in Barbara fully silhouetted with droplets of black spray all around them, white mists at their feet.
Then, the very cool simulations in the clocktower.
The awful montage at the end when Jason jumps. Ignoring the content, which he is not responsible for, it's just got all of these effects - rain, buildings, sponge-work...
OK, that is just #49.
Skipping back to #47, he makes you really see and feel the shabby, dilapidated quality of the apartment Barbara had been forced to move to when she lost her company and her money. The peeling paint, the unmade bed, the cold leftovers. No art on the walls. (He is drawing Barbara, actually, as a very depressed person. Still - you feel it.)
He employs many of the same effects in this issue, but the subject matter is distressing and he's forced to draw the battle with the Joker....
I don't love the way he draws highly stylized noses, but they really aren't different from Murphyverse noses, so if you like one, you have to like the other.
Anyway - one thing Rodriguez's art is NOT is dull or conventional. To me, it's exciting - there's a lot to marvel at in every panel.
I'm looking at this independently of the vile stories he was asked to draw. I'd say after 3 months straight of working on this book, he might have needed a vacation or a psychologist to right himself emotionally.
It might have been easier to feel what Barbara is going through in #50 if it was drawn with this intensity. So much of the script for the main story made no sense whatsoever, at least at face value (that is, ignoring the meta story Castellucci was telling about how DC treats the Batgirl book) - Babs forgives Bard but is ice cold to Dick? Isn't that backwards? - but might have made more sense if it was drawn more in Rodriguez's style, rather than Lupacchino's.
Bellaire contributes a lot, of course. I think they worked very, very well together.
He was just getting going when his fill-in run was over.
I wonder if there is some recency bias because the ninja mask has practically been her modern mask since the New 52, even when she's gone back to the full mask at different times. I sometimes feel that way about the popularity of the Burnside costume.
Rodriguez's art just looks messy and weirdly proportioned to me. Nobody ever looks quite right, and the art feels rough and unpolished, even compared to some of his work on Spider-Gwen.
I feel like Pelletier and definitely Luppachino are more stronger artists even if they look more "conventional."