BATGIRL #45: Preview/Discussion

[Andru]

Well...This issue, unfortunately for me, was a letdown. I was rather bored, even with Dick involved.

Haven't we already seen Dick and Babs explain why the two of them just aren't meant to be...like multiple times?

Hopefully things start to pick up in the next issue and we can get back to some crime fighting & mystery solving!

[joybeans]

That's what bugged me. They had put Dick acting like a douche to prop up Luke, in a way. I don't think Dick would tell Babs, or any woman, to "hush". It was very bad portrayal of Dick and a poor depiction of his relationship with Barbara.

Lol it just occurred to me that Dick is sort of 'the villain' in this issue.

I don't think Luke was propped up well, either. He's just the "other guy", that's typically a placeholder boyfriend.

Luke's the Cyril to Dick's Archer and Babs's Lana. Without any of the fun.

[dan12456]

Dick was in the wrong here
"Oh you're here with your boyfriend? Allow me to be a jerk and try and kiss you while I ruin your friends wedding"
Yeah...I think everything ended a bit too clean there but at least he got his just desserts at the end.

Like yeah, but he's only in the wrong because of bad writing. Any writer with a grasp on the character would never have him do half the things he does in this issue.

[ImprobableQuestion]

Well, although I agree that there are problems in the execution, I am not so sure Dick is as completely out of character as all that. This is a guy who lives his life with very intense focus and who pretty much expects everything else to fit around that focus one way or the other. In practical terms, that often means expecting everyone else to accept things on his terms. Even his legendary kindness is very much kindness extended on his terms and his understandings.

Like I say, I see a lot of the problems people are talking about. But this does fall roughly in line with what we saw in Grayson 12 and Batman and Robin Eternal 2. Dick believes he has good reasons for his decisions and, when push comes to shove, really does kind of expect everyone else to accept his hierarchy of values. For instance, it is pretty clear that his relationship with Batman is the most important one in his life. In those past two issues when he is dealing with the Bat Family and Stephanie, it seems that, at some fundamental level, he just doesn't get that "Because Batman asked me to," isn't an acceptable answer to most people.

So, yeah, not the smoothest characterization. But not totally off the wall, either.

That actually sounds a lot like Batman the way you describe it. Having a very focused program that doesn't respond quickly to change. One thing he picked up from his time with the Bat. Of course Bruce would never apply that strategy in as tongue-in-cheek a way as we see here. One of the major differences between him and Dick.

[batsgrayson]

I don't think Luke was propped up well, either. He's just the "other guy", that's typically a placeholder boyfriend.

Luke's the Cyril to Dick's Archer and Babs's Lana. Without any of the fun.

I was pretty indifferent to Luke when he first appeared and I still am. Well if anything this make like Luke/Babs even less.

I don't know how reviewers are fanning themselves over this issue, besides the weeding everything else was super bad.

[K. Jones]

I'm totally down with Dick being the villain here. At this point in their lives, his sweet but in-over-his-head no safety net antics have effectively separated him from the moral high ground, which Babs tends to have in spades even when she deals with like, pillars of virtue like Gordon or Bruce. Hell that's half of the reason why I identify as much as I do with the Boy Wonder. I mean his balance between veteran crimefighting/maturity and eternal immaturity are why he's so likable, and why he's the most interesting person in the entire DCU.

It's great to have a back home girl while you're off you know, shagging international spies, I'm sure. But this wouldn't even be the first time he went off to international hijinx and started getting with every other superhero girl only to come home an be like "But it's ALWAYS YOU BABS." That's like his proven track record. And as someone who has a list of best friends that includes ex-girlfriends, I get it. Sometimes you get into a weird place in your life and you start to re-conflate that best-friendship back with the old defunct relationship stuff.

It's pretty rad to see Babs not buy back into it, which is the mistake that she's made a couple times, historically. Meanwhile we do get a rather juicy love triangle play, even if it doesn't get too triangular. We get a happy snazzy pretty as all get out wedding issue. We get a transgender punk wedding. Positive representation. Luke seems charming, even in spite of nobody being able to out-charm the effortless Boy Wonder. (It's his super-power, after all.)

[dropkickjake]

I didn't love this, but I don't think I hate it quite as much as a lot of Dick fans here.

I don't think Dick was too terrible out of character. Everything makes a bit more sense when you take into account that Dick didn't know about Luke. So, initially, his plan was to suprise Babs, who already knew he was alive, at her friends wedding. Thats not only not-selfish, I'd dare to say its a fairly romantic gesture. When he finds out about Luke, who is essentially ruining goddamned everything, he tries everything he can to make the day fit his original plan for the day- sweep Babs off her feet. He's focused, doesn't admit defeat, and sorta wears his heart on his sleeve (when he is excited, he is VERY excited, when he's hurt, hes VERY hurt). I don't think the shushing was supposed to be taken as a harsh "shut up" gesture, but a chick flick moment, intended to be sweet. Stealing the ring was kinda a jack-ass move, but was sorta a hail mary to get her to chase him like they used to.

I don't think Luke was propped up well, either. He's just the "other guy", that's typically a placeholder boyfriend.

Luke's the Cyril to Dick's Archer and Babs's Lana. Without any of the fun.

Gold. And yeah, I'm not sold on Luke yet. I think the "Dick comes back" issue could have waited a bit until Luke and her relationship with him were more established. Would have been a far more effective issue if we had a reason to care about either of those. As it was, I had no reason to root for Luke.

Well, although I agree that there are problems in the execution, I am not so sure Dick is as completely out of character as all that. This is a guy who lives his life with very intense focus and who pretty much expects everything else to fit around that focus one way or the other. In practical terms, that often means expecting everyone else to accept things on his terms. Even his legendary kindness is very much kindness extended on his terms and his understandings.

Like I say, I see a lot of the problems people are talking about. But this does fall roughly in line with what we saw in Grayson 12 and Batman and Robin Eternal 2. Dick believes he has good reasons for his decisions and, when push comes to shove, really does kind of expect everyone else to accept his hierarchy of values. For instance, it is pretty clear that his relationship with Batman is the most important one in his life. In those past two issues when he is dealing with the Bat Family and Stephanie, it seems that, at some fundamental level, he just doesn't get that "Because Batman asked me to," isn't an acceptable answer to most people.

So, yeah, not the smoothest characterization. But not totally off the wall, either.

I mean his balance between veteran crimefighting/maturity and eternal immaturity are why he's so likable, and why he's the most interesting person in the entire DCU.

Wanted to give these two character analyses a shout out. Spot freaking on. I noticed in Grayson 13 (which i read right before this) that seeley and king are getting really good at writing Dick with a balance of maturity and experience while still having the personality of a young 20 something. He's still young. Impulsiveness makes sense, both for his character and his state of emotional maturity at the official age of 21, or even the more widely accepted age of 25.

[Godlike13]

LoL, poor Dick. He can have any girl but the one he wants. Though not sure what the plan was. Its not like he was gonna stop the super spy gig and get an apartment in Burnside. For someone who is all about timing, he always seems to have the worst when it comes to Babs. I didn't mind Dick being the bad guy here though. He was always gonna have to pay for faking his death, and just because he doesn't have any interest in normal things, or a normal life, doesn't mean that Babs doesn't have an interest in those things. She's not gonna drop every thing to play with him just because he's homesick. Its rough to see Dick hurt, but he kind of had it coming here. Still even as the bad guy Dick was pretty charming. So all in all, i didn't mind it.

I will say this though, if they were trying to get me to root for Luke. It didn't really accomplish that. He was the nice guy here, but also the plain one in contrast to Dick. That being said i get that thats what Babs is looking for right now, normality. Thats what the move to Burnside was about, her trying to find a more normal life to balance out her Batgirl life. And Dick doesn't really do normal, and can't right now even if he wanted to. Especially not with what he has going on in his life right now. So i get her choosing normal even if normal is, well, normal.

[Confuzzled]

I'm totally down with Dick being the villain here. At this point in their lives, his sweet but in-over-his-head no safety net antics have effectively separated him from the moral high ground, which Babs tends to have in spades even when she deals with like, pillars of virtue like Gordon or Bruce. Hell that's half of the reason why I identify as much as I do with the Boy Wonder. I mean his balance between veteran crimefighting/maturity and eternal immaturity are why he's so likable, and why he's the most interesting person in the entire DCU.

It's great to have a back home girl while you're off you know, shagging international spies, I'm sure. But this wouldn't even be the first time he went off to international hijinx and started getting with every other superhero girl only to come home an be like "But it's ALWAYS YOU BABS." That's like his proven track record. And as someone who has a list of best friends that includes ex-girlfriends, I get it. Sometimes you get into a weird place in your life and you start to re-conflate that best-friendship back with the old defunct relationship stuff.

It's pretty rad to see Babs not buy back into it, which is the mistake that she's made a couple times, historically. Meanwhile we do get a rather juicy love triangle play, even if it doesn't get too triangular. We get a happy snazzy pretty as all get out wedding issue. We get a transgender punk wedding. Positive representation. Luke seems charming, even in spite of nobody being able to out-charm the effortless Boy Wonder. (It's his super-power, after all.)

On point summation.

[Confuzzled]

I will say this though, if they were trying to get me to root for Luke. It didn't really accomplish that. He was the nice guy here, but also the plain one. Though i get that thats what Babs is looking for right now, normality. Thats what the move to Burnside was partly about, her trying to find a more normal life to balance out her Batgirl life. And Dick doesn't really do normal.

I'm not really sure they were trying to make people root for Luke in particular. Sympathise with him and Babs for sure, but only through highlighting Dick's immaturity, which as K. Jones mentioned, has always been a major aspect of his charm. It was more like "Look, dude is awesome and how can we not love him, but there are times when the very things that make us love him may prove to be very difficult for himself and the people closest to him".

I don't even think the execution was bad. Batgirl of Burnside has an incredibly defined tone and style, and the creative team has always focused on character aspects that best match that tone and style. It doesn't necessarily mean they are saying that the spotlighted aspects are all there are to the character, but they do heighten those aspects to match the consistency of the book. I can understand why this may not be everyone's cup of tea but the creators are staying true to what they have set out to do. And they aren't really betraying the characters either.

[ilovelocust]

Crossovers between books are meant to cross pollinate audiences. A well done crossover will give fans of both the home and visiting book a taste of what the other seris has to offer and hopefully convince then to give the books a shot outside the crossover event. This Batgirl really really failed in that aspect. Fans of Grayson that picked up this book aren't likely to stick around after watching a character they like get turned into a caricature (yes, he can joke around and be easy going, but the man was batman. He raised a troubled kid, ran a circus, and is now playing the spy game without letting on he's a double agent. He's not immature and he's not bad at reading how his actions will be perceived). Batgirl fans also have no reason to pick up the Grayson book after this showing. If this was your only exposure to the character who would want to spend time reading about this jerk? So yeah, not a good crossover.

[Nite-Wing]

People can say its out of character for dick to act like this because he's "older" but he's really just 21 now. Still a lot of room for that Robin immaturity to pop up.
I think he got written like a dick(no pun) but since he's in Batgirl here no issue will result from his innocent charmer act although people will view the whole "hush" and trying to kiss Babs etc as sexist.

[Confuzzled]

Crossovers between books are meant to cross pollinate audiences. A well done crossover will give fans of both the home and visiting book a taste of what the other seris has to offer and hopefully convince then to give the books a shot outside the crossover event. This Batgirl really really failed in that aspect. Fans of Grayson that picked up this book aren't likely to stick around after watching a character they like get turned into a caricature (yes, he can joke around and be easy going, but the man was batman. He raised a troubled kid, ran a circus, and is now playing the spy game without letting on he's a double agent. He's not immature and he's not bad at reading how his actions will be perceived). Batgirl fans also have no reason to pick up the Grayson book after this showing. If this was your only exposure to the character who would want to spend time reading about this jerk? So yeah, not a good crossover.

But Dick and Babs fandoms are familiar with the other character enough to know their essential traits even if they don't read the other character's book. Dick's behaviour is not going to shock Barbara fans all that much. And Dick fans just picking up Batgirl with this issue would have to accept the fact that Barbara has moved on. So they have that hurdle to cross if they want to continue with Batgirl regardless of how Dick behaved in this issue. You cannot tell for sure what will appeal or not appeal to fans. Some Grayson fans may actually be intrigued with Babs standing up to Dick and continue reading her book. While some may just like the fun tone of the book. So it isn't all cut and dried as you are making it out to be.

[JasonTodd428]

Crossovers between books are meant to cross pollinate audiences. A well done crossover will give fans of both the home and visiting book a taste of what the other seris has to offer and hopefully convince then to give the books a shot outside the crossover event. This Batgirl really really failed in that aspect. Fans of Grayson that picked up this book aren't likely to stick around after watching a character they like get turned into a caricature (yes, he can joke around and be easy going, but the man was batman. He raised a troubled kid, ran a circus, and is now playing the spy game without letting on he's a double agent. He's not immature and he's not bad at reading how his actions will be perceived). Batgirl fans also have no reason to pick up the Grayson book after this showing. If this was your only exposure to the character who would want to spend time reading about this jerk? So yeah, not a good crossover.

I only picked this one up because of Grayson being in it and frankly I have to agree with you there on all counts. This was not a good crossover and in my mind this was really no better then the first issue of this run. I was really hoping that maybe this issue would draw me back into Batgirl after the problems I had with issue one but all it did was push me even farther way from the series. Clearly this book is not and will never be for me so I'm throwing in the towel with regard to it.

[DGraysonWorldsGreatestSpy]

I am glad with the ending. Heroes being in relationships is fine but when each character has their own book with different styles it does not work. DickxBabs fans will have to wait a while before this relationship should be touched on again.