Batgirl #8 - A Review

Despite her best efforts - up to and including a date that went far better than expected - Barbara Gordon can't find anything dirty about Ethan Cobblepot - a bastard son of The Penguin whose fingers seem to be in every new tech-based start-up in Gotham. Yet Babs can't shake the feeling that something is shady about Ethan even before she finds out that the supervillain Magpie is being employed by his new business that provides safety in numbers to ladies in need of someone to walk home with them.


When thinking of easy comparisons to the new Batgirl series, I have to go all the way back to the original run of Amazing Spider-Man. Much as Stan Lee and Steve Ditko focused on Peter Parker's life as a student and photographer as much as his exploits as Spidey, Hope Larson splits the story's focus between Barbara's life as an aspiring librarian and her beating people up as Batgirl.

The series borrows from the best aspects of the Gail Simone and "Burnside" eras of this series, utilizing the former runs' full cast of supporting characters. Further props must be given for promoting MIT's App Inventor project and showcasing Barabra's compassion and how she puts her talents to work helping others outside of her superheroics.


Larson is backed by an equally skilled art team. Chris Wildgoose has quickly become one of my favorite pencilers after only two issues on this series. Jon Lam has a perfect sense of what to emphasize with the inks and what to leave unshaded. And colorist Mat Lopes adds to the emotion of the story with some well-chosen changes to the background colors during the action sequences.

Bottom line - this is one of the best books to come out of DC Rebirth.