Batgirl, #49

[CBR News]

To unravel the secret of Batgirl's bizarre new nemesis, her friends must travel to strange and uncharted territory: the inside of Barbara Gordon's spectacular mind!


Full article here.

[Godlike13]

That damn Fugue...

[vasir12]

I'm almost certain they're making a Birds of Prey out of these people.

[Rac7d*]

I'm almost certain they're making a Birds of Prey out of these people.

I've been saying that since stepahnie cameo in the annual way back

an since we have a birds of prey coming makes sense

I mean if harper wants to exist

[Babs]

Honestly, i don't know what to think of this. I really don't like seeing Barbara de-powered like this.
When Stewart and Fletcher ended their first arc, they said it was to move Barbara away from the darkness of The Killing Joke that overshadowed the character's life, and that after the whole deal with the evil AI was done, they were done with that dark shadow of the past that seemed to have plagued the character throughout Gail Simone's run, and that they were going to focus more on the more lighthearted fun Batgirl adventures.
Now with the very next arc nearing completion, we're right back into the another dark story of Barbara as the victim instead of the triumphant heroic Batgirl, and again it ties into her neural implant like their first arc, and thus the very basis of the story arc is still connected to the events of The Killing Joke. Not as much as in the previous arc, but still, the fact that the neural implant is as the core of this arc again makes me feel uncomfortable. I want to read The Batgirl Adventures, and i had hoped the 2nd arc would have been all about that, and not the neural implant again. This stuff victimizes Barbara way too much, and it makes me feel very uncomfortable reading it.
I also don't like how deep they're going into science fantasy with this for the sake of a spooky thriller story. Yes, Barbara can walk again because of a neural implant. We get that. No need to spend two arcs in a row on that. Making Barbara so overly reliant on the neural implant that her own brain can somehow be entirely "hacked" and manipulated is just strange and unrealistic to the point where the suspension of disbelief is stretched beyond it's limits for me, and also feels like awful and very unnecessary de-powering of the character.
We already went from a disabled person being able to walk through a neural implant that sends a signal from her brain to her spine. Then we're supposed to believe that in order to get this right, they required a full scan of Barbara's brain, and that this algorithm became a self-aware AI, and now we're supposed to believe that the neural implant is somehow so powerful that people can toy with Barbara's entire brain and memory because of it?

This seems like an awful lot of character de-powerment for the sake of having a cheap matrix style thriller story.
I had hoped the second arc would be celebrating BATGIRL's adventures more. I really expected more from Fletcher and Stewart, to be honest. Something more like Stephanie Brown's run as Batgirl, where it's all about the girl who puts on a costume because she has a thirst for justice, and because she can! Not this "There's something wrong with Barbara's brain again!" stuff.

Having said this, i do think Fletcher, Stewart, and Tarr should stay on the book after the whole rebirth relaunch, because i still feel that their initial revamping of the character was perfect. The covers for #50 and #52 look really really good, and if those amazing covers are any indication of what the new Batgirl #1 and Batgirl & The Birds of Prey will be like, than i'm all for that. I want Batgirl Adventures.

[RedQueen]

I think it's an interesting arc but I don't like Babs being depowered to hype up some supporting cast like Harper, Steph etc. If this were to set the stage in a new Birds of Prey title I'd rather it not be done in Babs' solo title which is meant to highlight her as a character, not depower her so Steph or Harper can have a chance to be useful. Set the stage in the new title, I mean Babs has been basically out of it for the last few issues because of Greg and I'm reading this title for Babs so it's kind of an annoying situation. I think this arc will be interesting though but I have some reservations.

[K. Jones]

I'm hyped for this, actually. Fugue is neat. Not as fun as Livewire or Velvet Tiger, no, but I like the play with the Babs/A.I./Oracley bits and bobs. I'm pretty stoked on the growth of this obvious incarnation of Birds of Prey, too.

[batsgrayson]

I wasn't even excited for this issue, but then i read this: https://twitter.com/FotoCub/status/704668428171399168

Kinda hyped and maybe a little worried now...

[Godlike13]

This one was interesting. I appreciate the stakes here. I still can't take the name Fugue seriously, and Fugue still comes off rather cartoony, mwhahah and all that, but what he's did to Babs is pretty creepy. Not sure what major part of Babs' history was changed though.

[K. Jones]

Not entirely sure what element of her history might have been changed.

I mean Fugue was straight up tampering with Barbara's memories and within those memories were definitely homages and references to Dixon & Martin's Batgirl: Year One as well as bits and bobs of the N52 origins, TKJ, and a few other things. I didn't recognize all of the little bits of swirly memory dialogue that might've been quotes and references to previous Batgirl stories. I guess the impetus might be that somewhere within Barbara's memories are the "lost memories" of many of the pre-flashpoint events, but that's stretching it.

Anyway, I dug the issue a lot. Really Frankie's time to shine, as she cyber-dived into Babs' eidetic memory to battle Fugue, who proves to still be novel, even if he's not the most 'inspired' of villains. But novel enough for Babs and her best allies to come together to defeat, certainly. And to inch Frankie closer to being Oracle by having her mentally link with not only Babs but the Babs A.I. is peachy-keen in my book. It felt a lot like one of the V.R. cyber-fights Babs-as-Oracle might've had versus Calculator or something, or like her stint as Internet 3.0 Firewall in Batman, Inc.

The guest artists were used really cleverly, too, to indicate that what we were seeing wasn't "real", the "real" bits being the Babs Tarr panels.

[HellHere]

spoilers:

The Killing Joke is a fake memory.

end of spoilers

[Rakzo]

Solid read overall. The different segments from Babs' memories allows for a lot of possibilities in the future and some of them have already been teased.

While interestingly implemented, the different artists made the issue feel a bit disjointed though.

[Frontier]

spoilers:

The Killing Joke is a fake memory.

end of spoilers

Just in time for the Rebirth....

[BatGlamorous]

Great issue. It hit a rough patch a few issues ago, but now I'll be sad to see it go. I hope the tone stays more-or-less the same, even if she's moving on from Burnside.

As for the retcon, I'm going to wait for an official source. But if it's true.....finally.

[vasir12]

spoilers:

The Killing Joke is a fake memory.

end of spoilers

Didn't even notice that.... if this is true, then is big.