Book Review: Batgirl, Volume 4: Strange Loop

Batgirl, Volume 4: Strange Loop by Hope Larson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Lot of short stories in this one. Overall thoughts:

White Elephant: At a party, Harley Quinn poisons a sleezy businessman, Batgirl and a couple of Barabra Gordon's friends try to follow the trail to the antitdote and prove their own moral superiority.

Cold Snap: There's a sudden Blizard but Penguin's to the rescue. However, Batgirl senses something wrong. A callback to Volume 2. Overall, not bad but not remarkable either.

Father Knows Best: A sludge monster is coming out of the sewer to attack people in Burnside. There's a witness that gives them a clue and it leads to a team-up between Batgirl and her father (who doesn't know her identity.) Overall, a nice story with them interacting.

Strange Loop: Final written by Hope Larson. Barbara stops a woman's abusive ex, but finds old friends from her trip to Asia showing up in Volume 1 and then she gets a shocking reveal at the end of the first of the two issue story. This isn't ad, but I've seen better books using a similar plot device.

Choices: Batgirl is concerned about a young man and tries to stop him going down the wrong path. It shows her earnestness and personality which is good. Would like a it more reaction to the ending.

The Reason: A story of two halves. Batgirl deals with the death of a man in Batman: The Wedding that she'd saved in an off-panel story. She meets with the man's mother who's kind and conforming. It's a good and moving idea for a story. Unfortunately, we don't have enough for a full issue, so in the second half, Barbara rents a hotel room and meets Dick Grayson and spends the rest of the book philosophizing in her underwear until the issue ends.

Overall, while the smaller stories provided a chance to shine with some good quick stories like happened in Volume 3, but there weren't any great stories. The best stories in her were pretty good, leading to an overall mediocre feel, which has been true of every volume of this book in Rebirth except for Volume 3. Here's hoping the new writer produces something better in Volume 5.



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