After a rough start Bryan Q. Milller has been really hitting his stride on Batgirl. This title has been consistently a good read since the third issue. This is part two of the crossover between Batgirl and Red Robin. Even though Miller has done a good job on Batgirl I don’t like that this series is being dragged into a crossover. Typically when a young series has a crossover it kills the flow of the stories the ongoing writer is trying to tell. So going into Batgirl #8 I am worried about the quality of the story. Let’s see if Miller can surprise and pull of this crossover with Red Robin.
Creative Team
Writer: Bryan Q. Miller
Artists: Talent Caldwell, Yvel Guitchet and John Stanisci
Colorist: Guy Major
Story Rating: 5 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 2 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 3.5 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: Inside the Batcave Batgirl is training using some the training droids Barbara created for her. Stephanie thinks to herself that she needs to get better and suddenly hears someone call her Cassandra. She turns around to see Tim in his Red Robin costume.
Tim asks Stephanie what she is doing wearing a costume. Steph says Tim told her not to be Spoiler anymore. Tim says she is still playing dress-up. Steph comes back and says he is no better as he is dressed up as Dr. Mid-Nite. Tim is taken aback by this and asks her what she is doing.
Steph says that she and Barbara have set-up shot in the Batcave and that Dick took everything somewhere else. Tim asks where Tim is but Steph just tells him to use the Batsignal. Tim asks Steph not to be useless which pisses her off and they start arguing.
The alarms go off telling the two of them someone has hacked into Thompkins Clinic. Tim heads over to his bike and says he is going to handle things. Steph says she is not going to follow him but moment’s later gets on her Ricochet and starts to follow him.
At a diner Barbara is having a date with Detective Nick. Barbara asks Nick why he transferred to Gotham. Nick says that he likes a challenge and then asks her the same question about her working at Gotham University. Barbara just says she likes a challenge. Barbara thinks to herself how she is starting to like him. Suddenly everyone cell phones at the diner stop working. At that same moment Red Robin and Batgirl pass the diner and Barbara and Nick say they each have to be somewhere.
Over at Thompkins Clinic Batgirl watches Red Robin take down some assassins through a window thinking about how colder his fighting style has become. Red Robin sneaks up on Batgirl which scares her. He says he got some info of the assassin’s and they hack into the computer systems. Red Robin looks through the system to see what Ra’s is up to and Batgirl says he is going to need her help.
We then see them a couple hours later on a roof watching Leslie at a party at the Gotham Metropolitian Museum and Red Robin says he is going to need Batgirl’s help. Batgirl asks if their mission is to extract Leslie without using their costumes. Red Robin says that she is right and that to give him 20 minutes to get them some clothes.
Over at the Batcave Barbara arrives and sees that all communication is down. She thinks to herself that Tim was in the Batcave and then sees Batgirl’s Ricochet with a note on it. Barbara gets to work on trying to get communication back online.
At the party Tim shows up with Stephanie and is greeted by Lucious. Stephanie sees Leslie with Wendy.
Wendy says she feels like a charity case but Leslie says that Wendy needs to show the world that she is a strong woman. Stephanie comes up to Leslie and says they need to talk. Wendy then notices Tim who is being asked by Lucius where his daughter is.
Inside the museum Stephanie is trying to get Leslie to a safe location but the lights go out. Stephanie tells Leslie to hide and suddenly someone comes up behind Stephanie and grabs her. She turns around and sees that it is Tim who tells her they are surrounded by assassins.
Tim and Stephanie start fighting all of the assassins. As they do Stephanie remembers all the times she and Tim fought together as Spoiler and Robin. Still lost in her train of thought she accidently punches Tim who was trying to tell her that they already took down all the assassins.
Leslie then tells the two of them that their phones are working again. Barbara calls Stephanie to tell her she had Supergirl take down the League of Assassins satellite. Stephanie thanks Supergirl for the help. The cops then arrive and take the assassins to jail.
Later Batgirl and Red Tobin are running on top of the rooftops. Batgirl tells Red Robin that she has changed and that she is wearing the Batgirl costume because she wants to protect all of Gotham and not just herself. Batgirl apologizes for Bruce but Red Robin says she doesn’t have to and that he is proud of her. He goes in to try to kiss Batgirl but she stops him saying that they should do it. Pru suddenly appears and Batgirl asks if she is a friend of Red Robin. He says it’s complicated. End of issue.
Comments
The Good: Batgirl #8 was the worst issue of Batgirl that we have had in this young series. It is very disappointing that Miller was not able to keep up the good work he has been doing on this title. The dialogue was awkward and the art was just ugly.
Now sticking to the Revolutions Rule of Positivity I did like that Miller had a good sense of the history between Stephanie and Tim. Miller did a nice job showing that Tim is Stephanie’s kryptonite.
Also while I have not liked the way Tim has been portrayed in Red Robin I will give Miller credit for keeping Tim’s voice to sound like he has in Red Robin. It is one of the problems that typically happens with crossovers between titles that the writers have a hard time writing the other titles starring character. So for his part Miller did keep Tim’s portrayal in line with how he has been acting in recent issues of Red Robin.
The Bad: Batgirl #8 was just a bad issue. One of the problems that this issue had was that Miller went too far with dialogue as he included dialogue in every single panel. Miller was just channeling his inner-Bendis in this issue as it was filled with Bendis-speak. I was honestly annoyed by Stephanie’s inner monologue half way into the issue. It was just too much. This issue almost read like a fan-fiction.
While this issue had horrible artwork for sure Miller should have trusted his art crew a bit more, especially with the opening two pages. The first two pages with Stephanie training should have had very minimal dialogue. Miller did not need to give that much dialogue in the first two pages even if the art was not good at all.
And this was the first time I was annoyed by Stephanie. I have been a Stephanie Brown fan but in this issue she was just plain annoying. This goes back to the Bendis-speak that Miller utilized throughout the issue. It felt like this was the first time that Miller wrote Stephanie’s character as she was just to annoying for a writer that has written the character for seven issues now to write.
Stephanie really came out looking like a very weak character in this issue. I understand that being around Tim affects her because of her past but all her whining did not make her look like a strong character. She sounded like she was a damsel in distress instead of a superhero.
Also with this issue being the second issue of the crossover with Red Robin Miller did not do much to progress the story or even show us that the League was the bad guy for this story. Outside of a couple mentions you could barely tell the League were the bad guys in the story. Instead of just giving us scenes of melodrama Miller should have invested more time in this issue in showing us what Ra’s is doing or some of the main members of the League that we have meet in the past.
Now while the story definitely had its weak points the art did not help whatsoever. The art was so bad in this issue that it affected the writing. While the story in this issue was average the art made the story feel worse than it was. It is rare that the art for a comic affects the story as bad as it did in this.
The artwork throughout the issue was horribly inconsistent. From the pencils to the inks to the coloring it was just awful. This issue is just a perfect example as to not only why it is never a good idea to have multiple artists working on a comic but also why artist should take their time with the art. I much rather see an artist take their time than rush the art. Great art can help a comic but awful artwork can ruin a comic as well. And this is an example of how awful artwork can ruin a comic.
Overall: When you mix in the fan fiction type writing and the awful artwork that Batgirl #8 you get a comic that is not very good at all. With this being part 2 of the Batgirl/Red Robin crossover this issue did not do anything to help build interest in what is going on in the story. If you are reading Red Robin you are going to have to get this issue in order to understand what is going on in Red Robin #10. For everyone else that is not reading this title or Red Robin you can completely skip this issue and this crossover.