Tag Archives: Jim Gordon

Dec 17 2013

Batgirl 26

batgirl 26Today, Spencer and Mikyzptlk are discussing Batgirl 26, originally released December 11th, 2013.

Spencer: “Blood is thicker than water.” This expression is usually used to describe how family has a special connection, how family has an obligation to stick together no matter what. It would be wonderful if that was always the case, wouldn’t it? Unfortunately, families can be dysfunctional or abusive, or just go through hard times, and when this happens it hurts all the more because it comes from family; when the people who are supposed to protect us and love us unconditionally hurt us, it’s a special kind of pain. Batgirl’s been dealing with a lot lately, horrific events that would get anyone down, but they’re even more painful because family is involved. Fortunately, at least some hope is on the horizon. Continue reading →

Aug 21 2013

Batgirl 23

batgirl 23

Today, Drew and guest writer Chuck Maa are discussing Batgirl 23, originally released August 14th, 2013.

Drew: Superheroes lead miserable lives. The demands of serialized storytelling require that they are regularly beset by life-altering tragedies, are perpetually unlucky in love, and maybe die once or twice in their career. Month-to-month, it’s exciting, but when you total it all up, the life of your average superhero is unspeakably depressing. Take, for example, Barbara Gordon. Her mother abandoned her when she was a child because of her psychotic brother; her fledgling vigilante career was violently ended when she was shot in the spine; after regaining the ability to walk, she suffered from rather severe PTSD. Oh, and remember her psychotic brother? He grows up to be a serial killer who she now feels guilty of killing. Also, her dad also holds her responsible for killing her brother. Things seemed to be finally looking up for her last month, as she forgot her troubles and went on her first date with a new squeeze, but we all knew it couldn’t last. Continue reading →

Aug 2 2013

Batman Incorporated 13

Alternating Currents: Batman Incorporated 13, Drew and Patrick

Today, Drew and Patrick are discussing Batman Incorporated 13, originally released July 31st, 2013.

It never ends. It probably never will.

-Jim Gordon

Drew: What does it mean to end a run writing Batman? How do you “end” a story featuring a character that has been published in perpetuity for over 70 years with no signs of slowing down? Sure, Grant Morrison “killed” Bruce Wayne, but that was back at the close of his epic’s second act. No, the ending here had to be something much grander, something much truer to the unrelenting nature of Batman. The sheer scope of Morrison’s epic is deserving of the same pomp and circumstance of “the definitive end” of Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern, but Morrison manages to approach that same grandiosity with modest deference, keeping in mind that, while the he may be done, Batman will keep on going. That simple nod turns his elaborate love letter to Batman’s past into an equally impassioned love letter to Batman’s future, and gracefully shifts Morrison from center stage to the audience. Continue reading →

Jul 12 2013

Batgirl 22

Alternating Currents: Batgirl 22, Drew and PatrickToday, Drew and Patrick are discussing Batgirl 22, originally released July 10th, 2013.

Drew: Gail Simone gets Barbara Gordon. I mean that both in that Simone understands Babs’ motivations and has a clear sense of her voice AND that she understands what makes her an interesting character. Early issues of Batgirl featured a fresh balance of uncertainty both under the cape (pertaining to PTSD and survivor’s guilt) and out of it (pertaining to the more pedestrian trappings of being an unemployed twenty-something looking for an apartment). More recent developments in this title (and Batman) have piled on a few more issues, from questioning the trust of Bruce Wayne to guilt over killing her own brother, which threatened to crowd out those elements I loved so much. Issue 22 finds both Simone and Babs taking a step back, separating the bat from the girl, and refocusing the story on Babs. Continue reading →

Jun 26 2013

Batman and Batgirl 21

batman and batgirl 21

Today, Drew and guest writer Gino Killiko are discussing Batman and Batgirl 21, originally released June 19th, 2013.

Drew: I have to admit, as a stage of grief, bargaining never made all that much sense to me — especially not as the third stage. I can accept that somebody might make an impassioned plea to whatever powers exist at the time of a loved one’s death, but I’m just not sure who people are bargaining with long after a loved one has died. It turns out, that is because the whole Kübler-Ross model that the “five stages of grief” are based on is actually adapted from the stages associated with an impending death, which kind of supports the notion that bargaining after the fact doesn’t necessarily make any sense. That might explain why Batman and Batgirl 21, which is meant to focus on the third stage of grief, doesn’t quite work. 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 →

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 →

Apr 12 2013

Batman 19

batman 19

Today, Scott and Drew are discussing Batman 19, originally released April 10th, 2013.

Scott: Who says Batman has to be complicated? Anyone who has read Scott Snyder’s series for the last year and a half has gotten used to arcs that take many months to unravel. First, it was Night of the Owls, then Death of the Family. Even the random peppering of Harper Row storylines feel like part of a grander scheme. Well, another multi-issue epic is on the way, in the form of Zero Year, but first Snyder has made room for a rather straightforward two-parter. The immediacy of the payoffs in Batman 19 comes almost as a shock, as Snyder reminds us how much fun it can be to watch Batman solve a mystery that feels only a couple steps –– as opposed to issues — ahead of the reader.

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 →