Batgirl #6 Review and **SPOILERS**

-->

Nightmare at $2.99

Writer: Hope Larson 

Art: Rafael Albuquerque 

Colors: Dave McCaig 

Letters: Deron Bennett 

Cover: Rafael Albuquerque 

Cover Price: $2.99 

On Sale Date: December 28, 2016

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

Flew in from Shanghai, by way of Okinawa

Didn’t get to bed last night

On the way my Batarang was digging in my back

Man, I had a dreadful flight

I’m back in the B.U.R.N.

You don’t know how lucky you’ve been, boy

Back in the B.U.

Back in the B.U.

Back in the B.U.R.N., yeah

Explain It!

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for: Barbara Gordon leaves that godforsaken mess of a story we had of her flitting around Asian kung-fu nerds and returns to that sunny suburb of Gotham City, Burnside! But first…the flight? Does this whole issue take place on an airplane. Oh please no…it does, doesn’t it? This whole comic book is about Barbara Gordon flying from Shanghai to Gotham. God-fucking-dammit. I know it’s a long flight, but I don’t want to have to sit through this crap any more than she does.

While on the plane, the passengers start smelling something stinky, so of course Barbara gets into her Batgirl outfit to investigate. This basically gives away her identity pretty neatly, since now you know that she’s a passenger on the manifest, and a cross-referencing of people and possibly interviewing folks on the airplane about any neighbors that were missing for a majority of the flight would reveal her identity pretty quickly. You could even just pick from among the red-headed women on the flight, though there would be some competition since Dr. Pamela Isley, aka Poison Ivy is also on this inter-continental journey. She’s down in the hold with Batgirl, explaining that the lingering stench comes from an ancient plant whose flowers smell like rotting flesh—and which should not still be alive! Air turbulence, suggests Ivy, must have awakened it. Air turbulence. Woke up an extinct stink plant. This is almost as scientifically sound as the movie the Giant Claw (b&w, 1957).

So the plant starts to overtake the plane and knocks out an engine, Ivy knocks out everyone on the plane with some pheromones, and eventually she acquiesces to killing the prehistoric plant because, after all, it did try to kill Batgirl first. The plane disembarks and Babs is greeted by Frankie, and we see that an E. Cobblepot was also on the plane, which is sure to bear fruit in this series later on. But lord, I don’t think I care any more. I don’t understand why a monthly comic book has to have a filler issue like this, unless it’s to pad out the trade collection. And if that’s the case, that’s absolute bullshit. I still love Rafael Albuquerque’s artwork, and it looks great here, but even that won’t spare my ire for this series. Batgirl used to be good. But that seems like a time long ago in a place far away.

Bits and Pieces:

A filler issue on a monthly book makes for a waste of time and money. Rafael Albuquerque's skills are wasted on a directionless series featuring an annoying character. I'd like to say that Barbara's return to Burnside is a good portent, but I've lost faith in this book under the direction of Hope Larson. Perhaps I will be proven wrong with issue #7. I was wrong once before.

5/10