It's the all-new Batgirl, which is mostly just a “Veronica Mars” in college where Babs solves hip crimes–the supervillain this issue is hacking phones and putting the embarrassing private information online. Why? Because he's a bad guy. And he's got a cybernetic brain and can hold his own with Batgirl in a fight.
Writers Cameron Stewart and Brendan Fletcher write a painfully hip comic for hip comic reading college girls, but they do so with fervor and a real understanding of how to tell a story. For all the visual, modern gimmicks, this issue of Batgirl is just seventies DC Comics updated. The dressing is just a little different.
Babs Tarr's art is fine–Stewart handles the page layouts. Stewart and Fletcher do it like an episode of “Sherlock” how Babs sees the world with her photographic memory.
It feels a little too like Kate Bishop Hawkeye but it's successful enough.
CREDITS
Burned; writers, Cameron Stewart and Brenden Fletcher; pencillers, Stewart and Babs Tarr; inker, Tarr; colorist, Maris Wicks; letterer, Jared K. Fletcher; editors, Dave Wielgosz and Chris Conroy; publisher, DC Comics.
Well, despite the “rerun” of elements in comic storytelling, this book was pretty successful. It pains me the way this comic stands out from the rest of the dreck that is the new DC 52. As far as retreading, I am happy that there’s more “detecting” here than a years worth of the current Batman run. While she wears her influences on her sleeve, Batgirl impresses me that DC could put out such a book in the first place.
If DC really had gumption they’d retitle and relaunch her as Batgrrl