Reading through Batgirl 35 (DEC2014) over the weekend gave me a mixed feeling. While Batgirl is one of my favorite characters—I especially enjoyed the Oracle character as well, but I guess there is no going back there, at least for a while–this book takes the character of Batgirl in a different, less dark direction. I’m not quite sure I’m in favor.
No, I’m not against a little bit of light hearted reading. My concern is that the character—who recently killed her own brother (kinda) and went toe to toe with James Gordon himself, suddenly is the sorority girl next door. It just doesn’t make sense. The storyline and tone change may have been too quick for me, I guess. I seems that the storyline went to Archie Comics overnight.
Another concern I have about the book and the following books is the lack of detail on the development of a certain costume. The only speculation I see in the book regarding the new costume is that there is a fire in Black Canary’s apartment where Barbara has stored her Batgirl gear and now Dianna is sleeping on Barbara’s couch. It simply doesn’t make sense that they would leave so many details out. I’m hoping that in the near future those details will spill out.
With all of my negative talk, I don’t want to leave the impression that I hated the book. I don’t. In fact, I actually like it and the story it tells. My main criticism was that it didn’t quite meet my expectation and took me by surprise in a negative way.