Book Review: Batgirl, Joker War

Batgirl (2016-), Vol. 8: The Joker War by Cecil Castellucci

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This brings us to the end of Barbara Gordon's Batgirl series.

We start with an unengaging mystery and a Batwoman appearance, a tie-in to Joker War that calls back to the classic Killing Joke comic while being over the top, hammy, and ridiculous. Then a somewhat more interesting mystery about someone killing red heads and dressing them up as Batgirl, and then a big oversized Issue 50 where she's doing stuff and showing attitude to a lot of people. We get some back-up stories. One that's somewhat bleh, and another that's decent with the apparent message that girsl should play DnD.

And that's it. Fifty issues of Batgirl come to a close. There were multiple creative teams, some good story arcs, some bad story arcs, but never really a consistent direction. The book seems to have existed mainly because someone thought there should be a Barbara Gordon Batgirl comic, and there should be, but she deserves better than she got, particularly in this sputtering conclusion to her book.



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