By: Bryan Q. Miller (writer), Dustin Nguyen (penciller and painter), Derek Fridolfs (inker), Guy Major (colors)
The Story: Batgirl is enjoying Valentine’s Day until she runs into a magical phenomenon that is stealing hearts, and being that this is Gotham, this is not a metaphor. On the plus side, she gets to meet up with Klarion the Witch-Boy and his randy cat….
What’s Good and What’s Not So Good: This issue, and increasingly this series, is silly fun. This issue has much the same tone as the recent Batgirl/Supergirl team-up, you know, the one with the 3D movie vampires? Klarion the Witch-Boy and Stephanie Brown get some good laughs out of their unlikely pairing. Lines like “I’m not a pilgrim!”, “I’ve never tasered a were-cat before,” and “She’s not a witch!” are classic Batgirl fun and Klarion is a very effective straight man for her. She gets to see his weird world, and in the end, she shows him hers (Gotham U on valentine’s day), and there’s a satisfying sense of reconciliation, even if she smells a bit like Christmas….
The Nguyen/Fridolfs art team still isn’t lighting my fire and this issue spends a lot of time calling on Guy Major to fill in empty backgrounds. Major is a great colorist, and I’d like for the artist to leave him more to show off. I’m not sure if that’s a comedic stylistic choice or if that’s Nguyen’s style (I thought I’d seen more detail in his work elsewhere in Gotham). I do have to take my hat off to Nguyen though, for his painted sequences. They were beautiful and the look on Klarion’s face when he gets his cat laid is priceless.
Now, Batgirl is more and more descending into fanciful comedy. The danger of Miller taking the Batgirl title in a direction where it does not take itself seriously is that there’s a fair chance that it can lose its one major asset, which is Stephanie and her struggle to earn the respect of her colleagues and of herself. Batgirl #1 was about klutz-girl with motor-mouth, utility belt and superhero ambitions taking on world, despite the Bat-Cartel thinking she’s going to hurt herself. The charm of the stories was her unjustified belief that she can do it, paired up with Oracle’s unjustified belief that Steph could do it. Miller got a lot of good stories, and I mean meaningful stories, out of that essential conflict of Stephanie trying to make it as a superhero. The silliness factor in the 3D vampires and Klarion the Witch-Boy is large enough that we get short-term gags, but it’s not something that will sustain a series for too long.
Conclusion: Silly Batgirl fun on Valentine’s day. Not necessary to buy for the sake of continuity, but probably important for hardcore Stephanie Brown fans and completist collectors.
Grade: C+
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