Batgirl #13 Discussion

[RedBird]

I'm sensing that Larson is trying to find a balance between Burnside and pre TJK Babs as well as a balance between being a Batman world character and her own character.

That's kinda what I got too, I feel like it sort of embraced all the silliness of the situation which strangely helped to ground the story when it concerned Esme, who was certainly pretty cute.

[darkseidpwns]

That's kinda what I got too, I feel like it sort of embraced all the silliness of the situation which strangely helped to ground the story when it concerned Esme, who was certainly pretty cute.

I'm not fond of the execution but I appreciate the intent.

[millernumber1]

I'm not fond of the execution but I appreciate the intent.

I'm just not convinced that in Larson's mind, Babs ever experienced TKJ. I know that according to editorial, she must, because this is the same world as Birds of Prey, but you could not tell that from anything Larson's written.

[Babs]

I'm in the minority because I enjoyed it. A sort of palate cleanser.

I don't think you are. It seems today that geek and outrage culture have decided that the internet exists primarily to shamelessly shout and complain about everything you hate or don't agree with.

[millernumber1]

I don't think you are. It seems today that geek and outrage culture have decided that the internet exists primarily to shamelessly shout and complain about everything you hate or don't agree with.

Not every criticism is outrage culture.

[Alycat]

I don't think you are. It seems today that geek and outrage culture have decided that the internet exists primarily to shamelessly shout and complain about everything you hate or don't agree with.

I don't see anyone outraged or shouting.

[WontonGirl]

I only picked this issue up because of Catwoman, and I quite clearly wasn't the target demographic of the book. It seems to be written for young girls. There's nothing wrong with that, but yeah I really didn't enjoy it.

Me too. I only read it for Catwoman and I'm not the demographic either. Way too young for my reading taste.

[OBrianTallent]

While I enjoyed the story, I have to agree it seemed like it would have been far better suited within the Batman: The Animated Series world rather than the "regular" DCU. But it was a fun story, the art was ok...not as nuanced as Miranda's work on Catwoman but then this title isn't as nuanced as that one was either. (Although I would love to see Valentine take a run on the title!) But it was a cute little story. No real complaints.

[Babs]

Not every criticism is outrage culture.

No, but ever since 2014, or even 2011, there has been a very vocal group of comicbook geeks who repeat the same stuff, and come to the same conclusions over and over again with each new issue of Batgirl, and that's not really criticism. That's being stuck in a narrative.

From 2011 to 2014 all people were saying was that Simone's run was too dark and gritty for a Batgirl title.

Then in 2014 DC decided to listen to the "critics" and brighten things up and give the book a more friendly style and tone.

Then with Stewart and Fletcher took over from Simone, the narrative of criticism took a complete 90 degree turn and comicbook fans switched to: This is too light and cartoonish, and pandering to social justice warriors and to "Tumblr".

...and here we are now in Rebirth with Hope Larson, and all we see is "This is too childish, and cartoonish" ect ect.

and it just comes off as whining. When you come to a conclusion once, that's fine, but there seems to be this part within geek culture that is addicted to criticizing and complaining about what they don't like, but instead of coming to a conclusion and then move on to something they do like, they keep following the content anyway.
Like that whining Youtuber, Mundane Matt, who even a year after the release and everyone has already forgotten the film, still makes video after video complaining how terrible Ghostbusters 2016 was.

The way i see it, DC has done everything to pander to the critics, but whatever they do, nothing is ever good enough. It's literally a constant echo of all these Jeff Alberton types going "Too dark, too light, still not right" and i applaud DC for sticking to targeting on a young female demographic for the Batgirl title.

[millernumber1]

No, but ever since 2014, or even 2011, there has been a very vocal group of comicbook geeks who repeat the same stuff, and come to the same conclusions over and over again with each new issue of Batgirl, and that's not really criticism. That's being stuck in a narrative.

From 2011 to 2014 all people were saying was that Simone's run was too dark and gritty for a Batgirl title.

Then in 2014 DC decided to listen to the "critics" and brighten things up and give the book a more friendly style and tone.

Then with Stewart and Fletcher took over from Simone, the narrative of criticism took a complete 90 degree turn and comicbook fans switched to: This is too light and cartoonish, and pandering to social justice warriors and to "Tumblr".

...and here we are now in Rebirth with Hope Larson, and all we see is "This is too childish, and cartoonish" ect ect.

and it just comes off as whining. When you come to a conclusion once, that's fine, but there seems to be this part within geek culture that is addicted to criticizing and complaining about what they don't like, but instead of coming to a conclusion and then move on to something they do like, they keep following the content anyway.
Like that whining Youtuber, Mundane Matt, who even a year after the release and everyone has already forgotten the film, still makes video after video complaining how terrible Ghostbusters 2016 was.

The way i see it, DC has done everything to pander to the critics, but whatever they do, nothing is ever good enough. It's literally a constant echo of all these Jeff Alberton types going "Too dark, too light, still not right" and i applaud DC for sticking to targeting on a young female demographic for the Batgirl title.

The response was not appropriate for the discussion that was actually taking place in the thread. People were giving differing points of view with reasons and actual elements of the story that worked or didn't work for them. Additionally, for myself, I've been assigned to review Batgirl since the start of Rebirth for the website I write for, and I've done my best to view each issue as its own work as well as in the larger context. I've put a lot of work into seeing similarities and differences between the Burnside run and Larson's run, and I don't appreciate what I said being dismissed as "outrage culture," just "shout and complain about everything you hate and don't agree with." It's simply not appropriate for what was actually in the thread. If the thread was a bunch of dogpiling of people who always dogpile on the book, I could understand, but it's not.

To address your historical concerns - 1) Simone's run wasn't too dark and gritty for a Batgirl title - it was unnecessarily interested in the villains at the expense of Batgirl being a dynamic character with agency in her own book. Which led to it becoming "dark and gritty" - and way too similar to all of the other books the n52 produced. 2) Stewart, Fletcher, and Tarr's run was too light and cartoonish - a serious lack of craftsmanship in the actual stories being told, for all the visual flair they had. 3) Larson's run is self-admittedly taking its cue from Fletcher, Stewart, and Tarr, but with significantly better storytelling skills. I think this thread is generally disappointed because Larson's been better than this so far.

Also, unless you have an argument that Larson's run is drastically changing (which gives it the chance of improvement - if it stays the same, it's not improving, so why would people who didn't like it have a change of opinion?), then all you're saying is that you're unhappy with the general negative reception the book has with the majority of fans who comment here. I know I've said similar things in the Detective Comics threads, but dismissing other's as just whining is offensive.

DC has not done everything to pander to critics. If they had, we'd have Oracle again, with Steph and Cass in a League of Batgirls. I think it's pretty clear that DC has their own ideas of what will make Batgirl marketable, and they're going with that - sadly without a significant sales success. I've said many times if they're shooting for a demographic who doesn't have much interest in following Batgirl to the wider DC universe, they should make a Batgirl title like DC Superhero Girls, Batman Adventures, or Supergirl: Adventures in the 8th Grade - give it a new continuity, and then you have perfect freedom and no constraints. But keeping Batgirl in her own isolated universe isn't helping the wider universe or her own title - it imposes serious constraints on Batgirl, and doesn't make the core DC readership happy either.