how do you guys feel about Bab's new love interest Jason Bard in the current batgirl arc?
how do you guys feel about Bab's new love interest Jason Bard in the current batgirl arc?
Lots of people dislike them, but I think it’s okay. Someone else said Bard is the closest thing to a ‘Starfire’ Babs has when compared to Dick Grayson, and I kinda agree.
Yeah, he did some bad things, but that’s what makes it a fun relationship to watch unfold. Maybe they’ll expand on his actions some more. Or not, and it’s poorly brushed aside.
"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"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date."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
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terrible... just ugh -_-
I've gone into how bad it is in the Batgirl #42 discussion thread in reply to Kang and miller, honestly the only two people I've come across that like Bard o.o
but might as well repeat myself in this thread since we talking about it~
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Bard didn't just do "some bad things" during Batman Eternal: his actions caused deaths of innocents, destroyed evidence, framed Jim for murder and so on. And what repercussions did he get for doing all that? nothing as he got off scott-free with no jail time despite his many criminal actions.
Losing his job didn't matter as he himself said ex-cops can find jobs and his vicki interview didn't affect him in any way we've seen, i.e. nothing there. As for his leg, who cares when you get injured being a villain and causing innocent deaths.
basically new-52 Jason Bard is the opposite of pre-52 Bard and maaaany ppl hate him and this development. If this was pre-52 Jason Bard, I think most (including me) would be on-board for the relationship, but no to new-52 Bard.
The "redemption" being done since his re-introduction in Batgirl #30 has been very poorly written and rushed, and hell, Bard acts like what he did in Eternal was nothing and he still gets mixed up with wrong people (that caused a riot, detonated a bomb) annnd teams up with villains as he STILL hates vigilantes (Batgirl), he didn't learn his lesson and is quite the hypocrite about hating on Batgirl.
sure he's trying to do some good now and he talks about it, but that's hardly worth much for what he has to show for it against what he's done. Heck, has he even at least apologised to Babs and Jim for what he did to them? -_-
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then we come to the side of Babs who is written like an idiot when she just forgets to investigate any of Bard's involvement in the bombing and just buys his story right off, something quite against her character :/
then let's go the latest Batgirl issue #42:
Babs has to literally force herself to forgive him (I want to say no but I have to say yes, wtf is this line?) and trust him for reasons that even she says she can't explain (why exactly does she have to forget and forgive?). She admits to going against her instincts, and then Castellucci even makes Babs feel guilty about Bard's leg despite all the **** Bard was doing when that happened (are heroes now meant to feel guilty about hurting villains while they are doing bad stuff?)... i.e. it's all BS, forced and something Babs would never do, she's too smart a character for this nonsense.
and Bard is STILL is hating on Batgirl right to her face even in this chapter... like what is Babs doing just ignoring that? -_-
Are we to believe Babs now has romantic feelings for him when she has not even remotely thought that way about him thus far? Did she even like the guy before this issue? So we're meant to believe that she now completely trusts and forgives him (and doesn't care that he hates Batgirl) in a matter of a literal hour or so such that she decides to kiss him instead of shaking his hand or something like that to make peace with him? like wat??? so she's now in love with him? From not even liking/distrusting the guy (they weren't even friends despite working together) to kissing him and even in the kiss, thinking "what am I going to do"?
everything about this relationship and Bard's redemption has been so rushed, forced and poorly written. The fact that the huge majority of people who still read this comic, hate this development and Bard, clearly shows that -_-
and if we go ahead and ignore all the stuff Bard's done for a second: the rest of his time spent related to Babs, has been spent basically stalking her (getting her address without permission, showing up to her place without invitation, constantly asking only about her and so on) and forcing his way onto her at literally any chance and way he could. It really came off as creepy especially when Babs was clearly never interested or even friends with him.
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honestly just feels like yet another time where DC cannot have Babs without a love interest for completely stupid reasons, which we got so much of during Burnside that it became ridiculous. And this one is made even worse (apart from Bard being a terrible character Babs should be giving none of her time to) as we know Dick is coming (thoughts/rumours are spring time for his return) and they've been teasing DickXBabs so wtf is even the point of Bard?
As a redditor put it:
cause they think they can't tell a story if she doesn't have one. Because the drama of heroics getting in the way of a relationship isn't something we haven't seen from dozens of characters already. It's a shame, Scott and Simone did a good job of writing Babs without a boyfriend.
Last edited by voidox; 01-07-2020 at 11:35 AM.
Variant cover for Crimes of Passion #1!
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I like this outfit. Never cared for the purple outfit they gave her. It looks more like a cosplayer outfit.
Yes, written by Jay Baruchel.
Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/screenr...g-batgirl/amp/
Then I suppose you was happy to see it destroyed last issue. She put it on a dummy and it was ripped to shreds.
Speaking of costumes, the reasoning for the Burnside costume's introduction was that the old one had been destroyed in a fire. A Nightwing issue just after Dick got shot showed that that shouldn't have happened though. "Ric" destroys a hideout which had four Nightwing costumes on display (New Teen Titans 1984, New Titans 1991, New 52 2011 and Rebirth 2016). The costumes survived the fire. If Nightwing's costumes are fireproof, why aren't Batgirl's?
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Sorry to see the Purple Outfit go. But I do not understand the "I will never wear it again" stuff she said here. Or was it a meta comment coming from the writer? Seeing how DC is often eager to put old stuff under the bus, that is the Thing making the most sense.
Because, as is SUPER clear from the latest issue, the current writing and editorial on Batgirl are incredibly lazy and bad at their jobs.
I didn't mind the Burnside outfit, and I don't mind the Murphy outfit now. The Murphy outfit is most like the Year One outfit, and I think that's the most distinctively Babs one in my mind, so that gives it a ton of points for me. At this point, it's clear that editorial will never do anything actually interesting with Babs's secret identity, so I don't care that her mask is goofy in that respect. It's just like Clark's eyeglasses - they work, it's not interesting as a story point to go on about it, so I shrug and move on.
"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'm sad that Mairghread Scott's storyline was cut short. I'm not sure she got to work with good villains in the end, but she got a mature Babs right, a Babs who wasn't defined by TKJ any longer, no matter what anyone else around her still thought.
Batgirl (2016-) 027-011.jpg
«Speaking generally, it is because of the desire of the tragic poets for the marvellous that so varied and inconsistent an account of Medea has been given out» (Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History [4.56.1])
I didn't dislike the Burnside look at first and in-context but I think it wore out its welcome over time, and became a representation of all the character issues with Babs that occurred around that time.