Pick of the Brown Bag
July 26, 2022
by
Ray Tate
Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag. In this column, I review comic books, good and bad, independent and mainstream.
For this and the next posting it's a deep dive into the written work of Becky Cloonan, Mike Conrad and Tom Taylor. I'm also looking at renditions of artists Robbi Rodriguez, Rico Renzi, Bruno Redondo, Adriano Lucas, Cian Tormey and the rest of the creative teams behind Batgirls, Nightwing and Superman Son of Kal-El.
This blowout isn't a quick decision kind of thing, but you can still find my snappier judgements on twitter: #PickoftheBrownBag.
If you haven't been paying attention, all of the aforementioned titles crossover to create a unique, optimistic shared world that's within the DC Universe proper. Perhaps, one may even say that Batgirls, Nightwing and Superman Son of Kal-El now comprise the DCU proper.
Not through plotting although there are examples in that area, but with regard to the characters. This phenomena will become apparent as you read on.
The most improved book award goes to Batgirls.
Finally somebody listened.
The fine tradition continues in current issue of Batgirls number eight.
As well as the restoration of Babs' blue eyes, Batgirls is overall well-written, gorgeously illustrated in a singular style and Babs is suited up more often than not within the book, not just the cover.
That's really all I'm looking for in a skillfully scribed bona fide Batgirl book. Blue eyes and a Batgirl uniform. I mean, honestly you give me those three things in a so-so comic, I'll probably buy it.
These two issues of Batgirls still unfortunately deal with the leftovers from the last Big Batman Stupid Event; for that reason, you should probably read them after Nightwing eight-six but before Nightwing eighty-nine.
The seeds of that Big Stupid Event sprouted from the soft reboot Infinite Frontier introducing nobody villain Simon Saint.
Simple Simon, I refuse to refer to him as Saint, since there are two gentlemen who have rightful claim to that name, damaged Gotham by lighting it up with flying saucers...
...and attempting to eliminate the Bat population with dudes in low-rent Gundam suits.
Stormtroopers would have been more successful. Anyway. The aftermath of this whole shindig results in Batgirl and her entourage trying to fend off the lethal advances of nineties post-apocalyptic patterned dudes like Tarsus up there. Tarsus by the way may sound familiar to you if you took an anatomy class. Once you realize what Tarsus is you should have known this bucket-headed menace was doomed to fail. You might say that he has an Achilles heel. See what I did there?
These two issues of Batgirls despite dealing with the remains of the Big Stupid Event, also deliver a tale with a beginning, middle and end. So you actually get something of traditional worth.
Beginning, the bad guy kidnaps a girl.
Yikes. I haven't seen this much inappropriate man-on-man love since Devin Nunes wanted to have Trump's baby. Oh, so it's not misconstrued, I support LGBT. Just not the Trump/Devin Nunes tryst, nor the monstrous baby they may have conceived.
The middle, Batgirl and her team investigate.
You see? I'm perfectly aware Batgirls features somebody other than Barbara Gordon. I'm also willing to talk about and spotlight Spoiler and Cassandra Cain. I've got nothing against them. They just never should have been substitute Batgirls when Barbara's spine could have been healed at any time.
Cass looks much better with a face. Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner proved that in Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey. Rodriguez classes her up in Batgirls.
Rodriguez demonstrates how a real artist should draw Cassandra Cain when wearing her classic costume. He generates lit contrasts, so you can see the detail. Was this really so hard? Rodriguez's partner colorist Rico Renzi further enhances the differences in texture and hue. Thus, the design doesn't look like somebody spilled a bottle of ink on the page and as an afterthought decided to finger out the shape of a bat with little bat boobs.
The end, rescue or defeat. I'm not saying which.
It just so happens that the girl in question is another leftover from the Big Stupid Event debacle. So you may not care about the actual character, but you should care in general because she is just a girl and deserves to be saved. Unless, you're thinking like this waste of skin.
Disbarment and defamation lawsuit coming soon
to a courtroom near you.
Of course if you're that waste of skin, you're probably not reading this blog anyhow. Cause you're likely not that much of a reader.
Batgirl calls in Nightwing to help her infiltrate the Iceberg Lounge, where Tarsus stashed the girl. The Iceberg Lounge is owned of course by the Penguin. Rodriguez and Renzi contribute a delightfully grotesque depiction. The Penguin is wearing the hat.
Some good old school fisticuffs against villains you may not know...
...villains you do know as well as villains that work for villains you know ensue.
This is pretty much a perfect comic book. The art and writing do justice to the stars, who have been around for ten to forty or so years. The other characters' longevity is irrelevant since they're just here to be punched and disposed of cleverly, and for those of you that want it, there's a love story going on behind the scenes.
The creative team behind Batgirls and Nightwing are very Dick Grayson and Babs Gordon pro-romance.
I have never been a Batgirl/Robin shipper. I never thought they should hook up because Batgirl originally was five to seven years older than Robin.
She was at least twenty-five since she was a Congresswoman. Though I clocked her older. Estimating twenty-seven. Robin wasn't even in his senior year of college. This made Robin about nineteen at the most. Twenty if you want to be really generous.
Given my comic book youth I never even considered May/December romances as a thing that actually happened outside of movies. So it never occurred to me that Robin actually had a shot with Batgirl should she choose. I had heard but dismissed as a myth about the older woman making a man out of a boy. Batgirl didn't seem the type, and Robin seemed too immature to be a man.
All of what I knew changed during the post-Crisis.
DC incorporated The Killing Joke into proper continuity. Never should have been done given how all the magic and science fiction once available in the pre-Crisis resurfaced in the post-Crisis. To add insult to injury, DC also de-aged Barbara so that she would be within Robin's--Now Nightwing's--reach. This made me furious.
Rather than de-age Babs and heal her spine. They just de-aged her to create a fantasy where Nightiwng and Barbara could have sex in a different world kind of bullshit. They took away one obstacle to create a wet dream that benefitted Nightwing, who in the post-Crisis was a sphincter.
Oh, Kindly Shut Up.
That jerk didn't deserve Batgirl. In fact he didn't deserve sex, which made his horn dog successes with women even more irritating.
With the birth of the New 52, the Powers That Be, specifically writer Kyle Higgins, restored the humanity in Nightwing. He was no longer Night-Whiner.
Dick Grayson actually became a decent guy. Other writers like Scott Snyder and "show-runner" editors decided that Batman didn't need to be a hateful machine to be fucking cool. In fact, he's way cooler now than he was in the post-Crisis. Possibly even the pre-Crisis.
They restored Batman's relationships with Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon and even Jason Todd, truly resurrected after ambivalently being resurrected, maybe.
So now, after twenty or so years of teasing shippers, Nightwing seems to be headed into a permanent relationship with Barbara Gordon, courtesy of Cloonan, Conrad and Tom Taylor. How do I feel about it? I'm good. I never considered Barbara Gordon as some kind of nerd girlfriend. She's not real.
Yvonne Craig was real and my first crush.
I just wanted Babs to have somebody that deserved her. Man or woman, despite my never once imagining her to be gay. Would have been totally fine if Supergirl and Batgirl picked each other. Would have been fine if she never thought about sex again. Nightwing however finally does deserve Barbara Gordon.
The relationship develops slowly and humorously throughout the run of Nightwing where in fact Babs first returns as Batgirl.
Fuck yeah!
That is her current, awesome costume designed by Robbi Rodriguez and Adriano Lucas. Batgirl's return occurs in Nightwing eighty-four which is still part of the Fear State business with Simple Simon.
In the next issue, Babs and Dick under the influence of the Scarecrow's fear gas, employed by Simple Simon battle each other until...
Yeah. So, they're an almost item now, but Tom Taylor isn't making them a typical couple.
In the next Pick of the Brown Bag I look at the Nightwing and Superman Son of Kal-El duality and how Tom Taylor incorporates/sneaks much of the DCU in the two titles.
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