Review: Batgirl 19

Batgirl 19
Gail Simone, Daniel Sampere

Spoiler alert! You have been warned!

On Wednesday, immediately after reading my stack of new comics (of which there were many great titles, all from DC), I tweeted the following to my readers: “Gail Simone’s Batgirl is over the top, full of clichés, and genuinely made me feel dumber after reading it. Can’t wait to do a full review!” So, take that for what it’s worth, and rest assured that though I will admit that this is not the worst comic ever made, it is by far the worst of the New 52 and any supporters left in the editorial offices at DC need to get over themselves and do the right thing: Fire Gail Simone. If you can’t do the job, in any other job in America, you are fired. Period. I don’t care how much she complains, how much she tweets, or how much she threatens to get back on her outdated, man-hating career-crushing blog… It is time to make the tough decision. This comic, as with numerous other titles in the writer’s past, is slowly killing the love I have for Barbara Gordon. And that is saying something, because she is by far my favorite female character in any form of fiction. That’s right. Any form.

Here’s what happens in the issue, in order. Babs goes to apologize to her former roommate for getting her involved in her brother’s evil schemes during the whole Death of the Family debacle. Her roommate then reveals that she is transgender. Then Barbara tells her to call her “Babs,” because, and I quote, “The people I love call me Babs.” And then she leaves because she gets a phone call, cutting short this ridiculous attempt at a headlines-stealing scene that is not only insensitive, but poorly written and tactlessly handled. But before we can even do a collective “What the hell!?” as readers, we are forced back into the head of Gail Simone (not to be confused with Barbara Gordon, which she would have you believe), as she narrates her confrontation (with more bad dialogue) with her brother and her mother. We get a sob story that ruins the hard work Scott Snyder put into making James Gordon Jr. a threat on the level of the Joker, a poorly-executed action sequence where their mother shoots him, he’s okay, then he gets a giant mallet out of nowhere and attacks Batgirl, then gets hit in the face with a Batarang, and falls, presumably, off the dock, into the water, and to his death. But it’s okay because, according to Simone, “[Batgirl] tried to save him,” before causing a spinal injury, blinding him, and probably killing him in what had to be the worst climax to a story (not to mention sibling rivalry and character) in the history of the medium. Then Commissioner Gordon shows up and threatens to arrest her, as she retreats into her moronic inner monologue repeating that, and this is too good to not quote word for word, “I thought I was in hell already. But this is how much further I’ve fallen. I’m actually considering throwing my concussive Batarang at the person I love more than my own life. Damn it. Damn me. Tonight, I became an only child. And I may have made myself an orphan, as well.”

Sigh… What a terrible comic. Other than the art, it is almost completely without worth. Gail Simone is to scripts what Rob Liefeld is to pencils. If you think I’m being too harsh, well, obviously we’ve been reading different comics these last almost two years. So this is not really a review, so much as it is a simple fan’s plea. Please, O Great Higher Ups at DC Comics. Do what needs to be done. Get rid of this woman before she singlehandedly destroys the legacy of your great universe and the integrity of your honest company.

My Rating: 0.5/5