Batgirl #21

            This is the book I look forward to the most each time I get to the shop.  Whether I have five or thirty-five books collected in my hold box, it is Batgirl that I look forward to reading.  Recently she has been fighting these creepy people in black robes that have recruited her fellow students and given them suits with powers.  Stephanie Brown has risen to each challenge and faced down each threat.  Here in this issue she defeats a sound based power.  All while trying to let a fan obsessed with her down easy.  Her stalkers are even humorous as he dresses as the Grey Ghost, that old Gotham TV Show character that we know Bruce Wayne loved.

            There is a good-bye as the Wendy story seems to have taken a creepy turn.  She is talking more and more with her dead brother Marvin. He displays a dark sarcasm that is really Wendy's own mental personality, maybe.  She makes a decision to find a way to heal her broken spirit.  We also learn with time she might be able to also walk again.  So Stephanie's technical support is heading to Nanda Parabat.

            Reading through this book again, after the announcement that DC will relaunch new number ones has me worried.  One of the new titles is Batgirl #1 featuring Barbara Gordon as Batgirl.  Where does that leave Stephanie?  Will she be retro-ed back to a bungling spoiler?  Maybe she becomes Spoiler again and is the same age.  Either way I see the wrapping up of Batgirl's adventures here in this title.  I have an uneasy feeling that they will kill her again.  Strip away all her support and then just discard her like a used tissue. 

            It is the loss of this book and probably others I get in my pull box that makes me not want to read any DC after the reboot or whatever it is called.  I see the same path I took with Marvel.  Batman Beyond will be the Nova representative and when they end the book I will be left with a few independent companies to read.  It feels like a betrayal because I have been a loyal customer of the DC line few a number of years and now it is being drastically adjusted and what remains might be something I do not want.

            We do not know enough to really see what Dc has planned.  All they are doing is cheer-leading the new books to come out.  I wish they would just show us the landscape after this editorial decision is finalized.  I am afraid for Stephanie Brown.

BDS