Tag Archives: Barbara Gordon

Jun 25 2013

Birds of Prey 20-21

birds of prey 20-21

Today, Patrick and Mikyzptlk are discussing Birds of Prey 20-21, originally released May 15th and June 19th, 2013.

Patrick: Fun fact: when Family Matters debuted in 1989, Jaleel White had not been cast on the show. Instead of being the adventures of Steve Urkel and the neighbors he loved to annoy, the show was a simple spin-off of Perfect Strangers – the story of a middle class working family in Chicago. But Steve Urkel made his appearance in the twelfth episode and was so well-received that it changed the DNA of the series forever. For better or for worse Steve Urkel had taken over Family Matters, and suddenly he was the only thing mattered. As Birds of Prey struggles to find it’s own audience and its own direction, it receives an Urkel of its own: The Court of Owls. Continue reading →

Jun 19 2013

Batgirl 21

batgirl 21Today, Patrick and Shelby are discussing Batgirl 18, originally released March 13th, 2013.

Patrick: I used to live in an apartment in Uptown Chicago with Taylor and our friend Andrew. This is right out of college and none of us really knew what we were doing in that town – just that we had some friends in the area and where else were we going to find jobs? The later part of that equation proved more taxing that we had originally expected (hooray for economic downturns!), and living there eventually became an endurance match against the city. You’d spend the morning sleeping, the afternoon looking for jobs, the evenings trying to figure out what the fuck you’re doing with your life, and the nights drinking. It’s a vicious little cycle, and every phone call to your folks to ask for a couple bucks so you could cover rent, every email from faraway friends, piled up into this feeling of helplessness – like you were stuck in a make-believe life that bore to similarities to the life you knew before. Oddly, it was getting jobs that we all hated that grounded us – provided structure to our lives. It’s just when Batgirl feels that her old life has totally slipped away from her that regains her structure the old fashioned way: doing her job and punching a villain in the face. Continue reading →

May 17 2013

Batgirl 20

batgirl 20

Today, Spencer and Patrick are discussing Batgirl 20, originally released May 15th, 2013.

Spencer: We expect our heroes to be there for us when we need them, but who’s there for our heroes when they need help? Batman turns to Alfred, Superman turns to Lois Lane, and Batgirl turns to…her psychiatrist? While Barbara isn’t the first superhero to see a shrink, it’s rare for one with a secret identity to do so. Babs is putting herself at risk, yet where else can she turn? The failure of Barbara’s support system couldn’t have come at a worse time; not only is she weighed down by guilt, she’s also facing the most frightening new villain to show her face in Gotham in years. Continue reading →

Apr 23 2013

Birds of Prey 18-19

birds of prey 18-19

Today, Shelby and Taylor are discussing Birds of Prey 18-19, originally released March 20th and April 17th, 2013.

Shelby: I have the most trouble writing beginnings and endings. Beginnings are hard because you have to draw the reader in, entice them enough to keep reading. Endings are hard because you have to conclude your message with enough finality that there’s a sense of closure without being too abrupt. My biggest complaint about  Duane Swierczynski’s run on Birds of Prey was his endings; story arcs just sort of … stopped. There is little I find more frustrating than a well-written story that doesn’t deliver on the ending, that simply ends. Birds finds itself with a new beginning, though, as Christy Marx wraps up Sword of Sorcery and takes over writing duties here; her strong, female-centric take on Nilaa won me over from day one, and would seem to make her a perfect fit for this superheroine team title. Continue reading →

Apr 17 2013

Batgirl 19

batgirl 19

Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing Batgirl 19, originally released April 10th, 2013.

Shelby: I’m the oldest kid of three. My brother, sister, and I get on famously now, but that certainly wasn’t always the case. As a kid, I knew that Lindsey and Ben would always be compared to me; I came first, chronologically speaking, and that made me the yardstick. It’s not a fair system: not fair to the sibling forced to be the standard and DEFINITELY not fair to the siblings forced to be compared to someone else instead of being free to forge their own path. Happily, though, the Peterson kids weren’t raised in Gotham, where sibling rivalry is enough to turn a kid with an overachiever sister into a sociopath.  Continue reading →

Mar 15 2013

Batgirl 18

batgirl 18

Today, Patrick and Shelby are discussing Batgirl 18, originally released March 13th, 2013.

Patrick: You know how NBC does a week of environmentally themed shows for the week of Earth Day? (Maybe they even call it Earth Week, who knows?) It’s a network-wide mandate and there’s a persistent green peacock in the lower right corner of the screen to remind us of this fact. How individual shows deal with this mandate is sorta flexible — The Office will relegate their green message to the cold open, and 30 Rock will have Al Gore on again. Everybody tows the line because to not do it would be monstrous. You don’t want to be the only sitcom that doesn’t care about global warming, right? Batgirl 18 finds itself in a similar predicament: how to participate in this REQUIEM without derailing the series’ forward momentum. Ray Fawkes eschews convention by trading in themes rather than plot points. The results are mixed.   Continue reading →

Feb 21 2013

Nightwing 17

Alternating Currents: Nightwing 17, Drew and ScottToday, Drew and Scott are discussing Nightwing 17, originally released February 20th 2013.

Drew: Our discussions of Nightwing often find us exploring Dick’s identity. As a former-sidekick turned full-fledged superhero turned replacement-for-hero-he-sidekicked-for turned his own superhero again, it’s understandable that he might have some identity issues to work out, but what is identity in the first place? Is it fixed or dynamic? Does it stem from the person in question, or is it a series of expectations held in the world around them? In Nightwing 17, Kyle Higgins takes up these questions, yielding some rather unexpected results. Continue reading →

Feb 14 2013

Batgirl 17

batgirl 17

Today, Patrick and Shelby are discussing Batgirl 17, originally released February 13th, 2013.

Patrick: Like 20 minutes into the movie Fight Club, Ed Norton’s character meets Brad Pitt’s character for the first time. [I’m about to spoil Fight Club – heads up.] Prior to this point, there’s almost non-stop voice over from Norton’s character, prattling on about life, work, commercialism, phonies, etc. But the second Pitt’s Tyler Durden is introduced, the voice over goes away and the two men have a conversation — the irony, of course, being that they’re the same person, so he’s kinda still talking to himself. But the effect of losing that trusty, comfortable narration is jarring, setting up this scene as a Scene That Matters. Batgirl 17 robs us of a similar comfort as it delves deeper into the broken Gordon family. Continue reading →

Feb 8 2013

Swamp Thing 17

swamp thing 17 ROT

Today, Drew and Mikyzptlk are discussing Swamp Thing 17, originally released February 6th, 2013. This issue is part of the RotWorld crossover event. Click here for complete RotWorld coverage. 

“It’s horrible when you sense the “to be continued” coming. You know, you’re watching the show, you’re into the story. You know, there’s like 5 minutes left and you realize “Hey! They can’t make it! Timmy’s still stuck in the cave. There’s no way they wrap this up in 5 minutes!” I mean, the whole reason you watch a TV show is because it ends. If I want a long, boring story with no point to it, I have my life.”

– Jerry Seinfeld

Drew: Comics are a serialized medium. Spirited debates can be had about the relative virtues of straight serialization or a more episodic approach, but most readers understand that a given story may not wrap up in a single issue. The surprise “to be continued” described in the epigraph doesn’t happen as often in comics, where issues are clearly billed as the conclusion, but I found myself reminded of that experience as I neared the end of Swamp Thing 17, realizing that the “Finale” billed on the cover might not be so final, after all. Continue reading →

Feb 7 2013

Cram Session: Death of the Family

It can be hard to keep up with all the comics you love. But it’s damn near impossible to keep up with all the comics you’re interested in.

Retcon Punch got you covered.

Sure, you’re reading Batman. Did you realize there are like 20 other issues that contain Death of the Family stories? How can you possibly understand the mind-bending reveal in Batman 17 without those volumes of additional content? Here’s how: we collected every single issue of the Death of the Family — all but the very last — so you can be totally, 100% caught up. (All of our coverage of individual issues can be found here.)