Batgirl #28 Review and **SPOILERS**

Sorry Daddy, I’m Batty

Writer: Mairghread Scott 

Penciller: Paul Pelletier 

Inker: Norm Rapmund 

Colorist: Jordie Bellaire 

Letterer: Deron Bennett 

Main Cover Artists: Julian Totino Tedesco 

Variant Cover Artist: Joshua Middleton 

Editor: Brittany Holzherr 

Group Editor: Jamie S. Rich 

Cover Price: $3.99 

On Sale Date: October 24, 2018

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

Back to the “new look” Batgirl, currently skulking around Gotham City. It’s been a slow burn thus far, a few issues into Scott and Pelletier’s run, but it’s definitely kept me interested. I’m notoriously easy to distract, too. Let’s see if Batgirl #28 will hold my attention by reading my review, right here!

Explain It!

Like a lot of dudes, I’m a complete pussy when I get sick. And it doesn’t have to be very sick, either—god, I can’t remember the last time I was actually bedridden—I require coddling and sympathy over a recurring sneeze. That’s why I really have to hand it to Barbara, who keeps going out to do Batgirl stuff despite the fact that the microchip in the base of the spine, the thing that allows her to walk, is on the fritz. Still, being a hero means overcoming such deficiencies, and when Detective Douglas accuses Babs of having murdered Philippe Riann, she’s still able to bowl him over and get away. Detective Douglas figures she’ll get hers eventually—since secretly, he’s the new, extra-murderous Grotesque!

It gets a little complicated from here: Douglas is being mind-controlled by Wyrm of the Dark Web to rob artwork, but it’s unclear as to whether or not Wyrm is ordering him to butcher people in the process. And it’s not like Wyrm is controlling Douglas like a robot, he’s just periodically showing him holographs of his dead daughter, which keeps him compliant enough. So this is why Barbara’s chip gets interfered with sometimes when she’s around Grotesque, some kind of internet/holographic whatsitz is going on. I had a little trouble with all of this, because Wyrm’s endgame isn’t clear, nor am I sure that Wyrm and Detective Douglas are working towards the same end. I suppose we’ll find out.

Barbara creeps back into her dad’s apartment to find him waiting up for her like she’s a wayward teenager. The two of them have a heart-to-heart, and eventually hug it out. This is an important scene because Batgirl has been somewhat estranged from her father since she moved to Burnside. There was no bad blood between then, and he did show up in the book plenty of times, but they haven’t had an interaction like this in a little while. Unfortunately, it ran a page or two too long for my tastes. Later, Babs heads to the old Birds of Prey clubhouse in the GCPD clock tower, and there checks out the hard drive she ripped off from the cops a couple of issues back. There, she finds out that Grotesque’s next hit will be a gala affair being attended by several luminaries, including her dad—and this time, Grotesque plans to blow the place up!

There was a lot to like in this issue, and I am really intrigued by how this story is deepening. There were a couple of problems, however, that impeded my smooth enjoyment of the thing. As mentioned, the stuff between Wyrm and Douglas wasn’t well-defined, and Barbara’s reconnecting with her dad, while touching, went on for too long. Overall, the transitions were somewhat jarring, and it felt like Babs was flitting from place to place while mulling things over, but not necessarily accruing new information—though she did learn something new at the clock tower, but there was so much mental exposition along the way that you could almost have missed it. Still a cool story and a decent issue, but this particular arc might be running in place at the moment.

Bits and Pieces:

We meet the new Grotesque and some of the scope of their plot, but not enough to hang our hats on. Barbara's character continues to be elevated in subtle but lasting ways, and this issue has a much-needed talk between Babs and her dad, though it ran a little long. This has been a pretty cool story arc, I think I'm ready for its conclusion now.

7/10