Batgirl #22
Written by Bryan Q. Miller
Art by Pere Perez and Guy Major
Batgirl team up! That’s right everyone, Steph gets a team up! An international one, as she heads across the pond to England on a Batman Inc mission. So far we’ve seen the upgrades to her arsenal, as provided by Bruce, but we haven’t seen her give back…so to speak. Steph has been previewed on the cover of Batman Inc #9, teaming up with Bruce, so Bryan went ahead and used this issue to get her there. Of course, Bryan isn’t some lazy phone-it-in kind of writer, so we get a very memorable team up issue complete with deeper meaning towards the end.
So who is lucky enough to team up with the hottest soon to not have a book character in DC comics? The Squire, fresh from Paul Cornell’s Knight and Squire mini (haven’t read it? Check it out), is here to provide a little local color as well as a nice charater for Steph to play off of. It’s been a recurring theme in this title that regardless of who Steph teams up with it always feels natural, and at times makes for the best issues of the run. The Damian/Steph issue is still easily one of my favorites, and that’s not to discount Steph and Supergirl. Miller keys himself into just what the character in question would mean to Steph and finds a way to make even odd couples work out. Maybe it’s just that Stephanie Brown is as likable as a character on panel as she is to readers.
The two get along well, and I mean, they aren’t that different of characters save for one key detail. They’re both talkers…smart asses, they leap in without looking a bit, they’ve both made Tim Drake awkward, but you know what separates them? Only one is a sidekick. The difference becomes evident a little ways into the issue, that while seeing Batgirl in action without another Bat is completely natural, Squire without The Knight is like Robin without Batman. You can do it, but it still feels like something is missing (save for Teen Titans or solo use, but you guys know what I mean). She’s great at understanding what a problem is, talking about what will happen and why, but it takes Steph to really bring it together and decide what to do.
On top of great characterization you’ve got the fact that both characters are funny as hell. You take some American humor, some British humor, then have two characters going back and forth with it, and you’re going to get a laugh. The fish out of water scenario for Steph, as far as understanding most of what Beryl is saying, is in full effect; especially once the bad guy, The Orphan (who has an Oliver Twist theme), winds up being after the Greenwich Mean. Yes, that Greenwich Mean, and yes, Steph has the same reaction you most likely are. Miller takes the way the world sets its time and makes a crazy plot out of it involving a sword and frozen time, and it’s awesome. The incident is a cross between Cornell’s Knight and Squire and the always great BQM Batgirl confrontations, with Steph and Beryl playing great off of each other.
Pere Perez provides the art for the issue and does a bang up job. This book has thrived with a stable of artists who each bring their own style without creating jarring shifts in the look of the book. Pere isn’t the most well known artist, but I’d like to see anyone try and say something negative about his work after reading this book. The out of costume stuff is just as good as the in costume, the fights are clear, the characters are defined, and the book looks as great as usual. Whichever relaunch title secures fill-in art by him is going to be that much better because of it, and the characters benefitting from his pencils and ink are going to look that much better.
This book is bittersweet due to the unlikely combination of being an amazing book, of the best written books that DC publishes, but one that we already know isn’t surviving the DC relaunch of September. Not only is Stephanie not previewed or solicited, not only is Barbra Gordon officially Batgirl again, but the biggest crime is that Bryan Q. Miller doesn’t have a new project announced! I can’t imagine that this will be a lasting issue, and hope that Bryan have secured an ongoing series by the time DC gets ready to launch the second wave of books…preferably with Steph in the lead role. This series is a gem, and it would be a shame to not find a way to continue the magic in the new DC Universe.
Overall?
9.5/10
