Batman & Batgirl #21

Batman, still distraught from the recent death of Robin, is acting like an ass. Batgirl sees this, and confronts him.
 

Creative Team: Peter J. Tomasi (Writer) Cliff Richards (Penciller)

Thoughts: The character work and plot of this issue are pretty stellar, but the execution falls flat. What Babs’ (Batgirl) is going through is brilliant. She’s reeling from the events of Death of the Family, Damien’s death, and accidentally murdering her psychopathic brother. The weight of the world is starting to crush her, and she’s finally ready to reach out for help. That help being Batman. Unfortunately, Batman is in need of help, but he’s not ready to reach out, just yet. This creates a parallel between the two characters, while also showing a place that Batman needs to get to. Babs’ is at a point in grieving where she understands that the only way to help herself is others, and the book contrasts that with Batman, who just acts like an ass. And my gods, is he an ass. It’s not the downright crazy of the past two issues, but he’s extremely rough, and not willing to talk to anyone. He feels almost like a pissed off force of nature. At one point, Detective Bullock tries to calm him down, and Batman throws him off, saying “Don’t ever touch me Bullock”. I love the way his reaction is being handled. It feels very natural that in each issue he tones it down a little. He’s not learning a lesson about grief; so much as slowly getting through it.

An interesting thing about this issue was that it was from Babs’ perspective. The last two issues weren’t really from a perspective; more, the reader watching the action unfold. I liked seeing her perspective, especially since I find her solo title unreadable, despite loving the character. It also plays well into what Tomasi is doing. He’s trying to tell a visceral story about the five stages of grief, this issue being bargaining. The past two issues, while definitely fitting their own stage, had Batman doing a fair share of bargaining, so
Tomasi has Babs’ doing the bargaining. It works well from a storytelling standpoint, and gives the reader an outside view of Batman.

So, what was wrong with the issue? Poor dialogue. Very poor dialogue. It starts off nicely, with Babs’ inner monologue revealing everything we need to know about where she is as a person, and her current motivations. Batman comes in, and we understand what’s going on with him. Then, we get a clunky expositional scene, with Babs’ talking to her dad about recent events in her book, except he can’t hear her because she’s outside the window. But wait, I thought we already knew her state of being. Was a detailed rundown of recent events necessary? No. It wasn’t. Throughout the rest of the issue, the dialogue is just weak. Like it was written by somebody who hasn’t ever spoken to another human being. It even ruined what should have been a fantastic emotional climax to the story. Tomasi can do much better than this. He consistently does.

The art in this issue was done by a fill in team, and there was nothing wrong with it. In fact, the action sequences were choreographed fantastically. The problem is, it just doesn’t live up to Patrick Gleason, the regular penciller’s, work. His pencils are always stunning, and this issue is just average. Not bad, but disappointing, due to the normal quality.

Overall: This is a sub-par issue of a book that is consistently my favorite bat title. The characters and plot were great, but the weak dialogue hit the book hard, and the art was disappointing.