Review: Batgirl Vol. 1- The Darkest Reflection

Quick Summary

Pros: The main storyline is not only exciting and compelling but also a little deep and introspective as well. The story introduces some thought-provoking themes as Barbara Gordon struggles with her survivor’s guilt and her return as Batgirl.

Cons: Some odd character actions and wonky motives play out at points and make some parts of the story seem simply silly.

Overall: This book sees the controversial return of Barbara Gordon as Batgirl and manages to pull it off very well. Though not the best of the New 52, it may be one of the better titles in the Bat-family of books as it offers a compelling story, interesting themes, and neat characters. Definitely a must read for Batgirl fans and worth checking out for everyone else.

Story

The Darkest Reflection is the perfect title to describe the theme and the question that this book put forward, “what if Barbara Gordon went down a different path after getting out of her wheelchair?”. The exploration of this question is what drives the book and is what makes it worthwhile reading. While this pushes the book forward in a really nice way, other aspects manage to pull it back, causing the book to end up being a good start but nothing too amazing.

(spoilers start here)

The return of Barbara Gordon to the mantel of Batgirl is something many fans loved while many others hated, something like this would be really easy for DC to mess up. Luckily, Gail Simone knows Batgirl, and manages to make this transition very smooth and enjoyable. In fact, some of the best stuff from this book comes from seeing someone work with a character they really like and understand. I’ll say that I started out skeptical about the return of Batgirl but ended up greatly enjoying it.

The book’s highlight is undoubtedly the plot and theme regarding this “darkest reflection”. The villains Mirror and Gretel both come from a tragic past which they have now managed to recover from, just like Barbara. However, unlike her, they have used this tragedy as inspiration for evil rather than good. This allows us to see what Batgirl could have become if she let her situation control her. Specifically the addressing and examination of survivor’s guilt was very interesting. Here Simone suggest that this ability to continue is what makes Batgirl strong and special, and that this is why Barbara Gordon deserves and needs to be Batgirl again.

Some low points in the book included some occasional logical inconsistencies and weird character motivations. The first big one happens when Barbara gives Dick a lock of her hair as she tells him to leave. This feels odd as this is usually something done by people who will not be seeing each other for years rather than characters who will simply be handling their current issues separately. Then Batman chooses the brief moment when Batgirl saves him as the moment to whisper a heartfelt message/apology to her. This might make sense if they were not going to see each other later and this was the only time to talk but then they team up for the later parts of the story.

However the biggest problem is Detective McKenna’s rather insane motives and actions. McKenna blames Batgirl for some of Mirror’s victim’s deaths and thus thinks she is a menace. This happens when Batgirl freeze up as Mirror kills his victim. When this happens, McKenna then turns her gun from Mirror, who just murdered someone, to Batgirl and calls her a murderer for letting it happen. Her odd grudge against Batgirl then causes her to go on a crusade against Batgirl, even when Mirror, the actual murderer and man who killed her partner, is still on the loose. I just really fail to see the logic in this background story ark and hope it does not continue in the future.

(spoilers end here)

Art

There really is not much to say about the art here besides that it ranges from average to good. It follows the DC House Art Style pretty closely and does not really do anything unique or different. While this does not necessarily take away anything from the collection, it also does not add anything either.

The only real thing it adds is some small neat little call outs to other things in the Batman-universe. These are mostly contained to graffiti and are just small shoutouts to other DC series that DC fans may enjoy.

Continuity

Since this starts at the beginning of Batgirl’s New 52 journey, there are not a ton of connections to other works. This collection will lead directly into the next collection, Batgirl Vol. 2: Knightfall Descends (Review), since it continues the same story.

• The collection will make numerous references to Barbara Gordon’s incident with the Joker. This incident can be seen in the extremely famous and acclaimed story Batman: The Killing Joke.
• In a mini-crossover with the Nightwing series, issue three of this collection contains a small crossover with issue four of Nightwing. This mini-crossover starts here with a conversation between Batgirl and Nightwing and is finished up in Nightwing Vol. 1: Traps and Trapezes (Review).