Batgirl #23
Written by Bryan Q. Miller
Art by Pere Perez and Guy Major
It’s turned into a recurring theme for me over the last week as my three favorite DC title all had their penultimate issues ship out in a two week span. I talked about my love of Secret Six, I put over just how great Booster Gold is, but now…I think now it’s time to gush about my favorite book in comics, and the book I’m going to miss the most. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, with this issue there is only one issue left of Batgirl by Bryan Q. Miller and Pere Perez (not to discount the fantastic art from previous series artists Lee Garbett and Dustin Nguyen). The best Bat title, the best DC title, the best super hero title (all of this subjective, obviously, and my opinions only reflect those of the Nexus Editor in Chief as he is me, but oddly enough nobody has ever argued with my love of Batgirl), it’s coming to an end. Thankfully Bryan uses the time he has left to bring his plots to a more than satisfactory conclusion instead of leaving us with the lions share of his plots up in the air.
As the issue opens we have some armored Reapers making short work of the Gotham Police as they liberate the powersuits of Slipstream and Harmony before moving on to the wearers of the suits. We’ll get back to that, we also see the depressing end to the biggest pain in Stephanie’s ass as Clancy “The Gray Ghost” Johnson meets his untimely end in the beginning of this issue. Clancy was murdered by the Reapers after they caught him spying on them, the Gotham Police received his last call and found the body, and with his last moments of life he managed to create a recording for Steph. The guilt is hard to argue with, and Steph’s blaming of herself makes a lot of sense given the interactions between the two. She pushed him away, he wanted to help her, and he may have been a little bit crazy…it doesn’t mean he deserved to die, just that it was hardly an unlikely outcome.
But Steph isn’t about to let someone’s murder go unpunished, especially when she knows who did it, and thanks to the Reapers attacking the police and her being alongside some police, she knows exactly where they are. In recent issues during her fights with them she’s been struggling to take them on one at a time, and this issue sees her up against five of them. Those odds are ridiculous, and she accepts as much, but this is her issue and she has to stop them. The extent of Detective Gage’s history with the Reapers is revealed just as Clancy’s last words tell them that the Reapers are after their client used them and bounced a check. Seriously, a bounced check is what leads Steph to have to drop down into a prison right with power suits. How awesome is that?
The battle itself, or at least the part Steph does by herself, is short and sweet. BQM could easily have found a way to give Steph a solid win here on her own through acts of random chance, but he goes a different route that makes it so much sweeter. She jumps into insurmountable odds and holding her own slips panel to panel. Steph isn’t a master fighter, I mean she’s good in a pinch, but this is a fight that would give Batman trouble. Thankfully Steph has at least some of cleverness of her namesake, not to mention the friends. Steph gets backed up in a big way, and it makes for a few pages that I thought were just awesome.
Above all else in this book, from day one, I’ve loved the characterization. Steph went from being the kind of a supporting character that the Bat offices was willing to have tortured across multiple titles and then get killed for a forgettable event to being the real Batgirl in the eyes of many fans. She went from a supporting character to a star, and it isn’t just the fact that the story was her doing that; her character has evolved so much over the last two years. I mean, I’ve never been secretive of the fact that I was never really a huge Spoiler fan, but I absolutely love Stephanie now. She’s witty, headstrong, devoted, and she has this desire and drive to do better even when everyone thinks she’s done all she can. She doesn’t know the meaning of the word quit, even when the situation is completely against her. She’s an incredibly endearing character, and this is quite simply a fantastic book.
Pere Perez seems to have assumed the art duties full time as the book moves into it’s conclusion (though if he does this issue and next issue…that’s it), and I am perfectly fine with this. After next issue he’ll have pencilled eight of the books-twenty four issues, a solid third of the book, and his style only made the book that much better. When Pere first tackled the book I felt that while he was doing a good job, that he was best suited as a fill in for Garbett or Nguyen, but it’s gotten to the point now where I look forward to his work as much as anyone elses. The characters look great, the action is fluid, faces filled with emotions, and hey, the attention to detail is top notch. If he doesn’t get a new gig coming out of this then there is something really wrong with the DC brass, as he is definitely one of sleeper artistic talents of the last few years and Batgirl has been fortunate enough to have him.
The issue itself ends on quite a major cliffhanger as Steph discovers just who the bad guy is, setting up the finale. The clues have been there all along, and while part of me expected it, Bryan did a great job still making the reveal a shock. The end of this book is great, from the team up to stop the Reapers, all the way through the reveal, and I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for next issue. Honestly though, for all the books DC is ending without promise of immediate revival, this one hurts the most. This is the best book they have, and I hate to think that it will be forgotten about with Babs taking over the mantle. With any and all good fortune DC will let Bryan and Pere team up again in the future to tell the further adventures of Ms. Stephanie Brown, whether she be Batgirl, Spoiler, or whatever name she may choose. I’d buy it up in a heartbeat. This book has just been that damn good.
Overall?
9/10
