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347 reviews for:
Batgirl, Volume 1: Batgirl of Burnside
Brenden Fletcher, Irene Koh, Babs Tarr, Cameron Stewart
3.72 AVERAGE
347 reviews for:
Batgirl, Volume 1: Batgirl of Burnside
Brenden Fletcher, Irene Koh, Babs Tarr, Cameron Stewart
3.72 AVERAGE
Despite the pile of poor reviews for this one, I absolutely adored it. This is my first encounter with a Batgirl comic though, so I think my clean palate may have something to do with it. Babs is such a sweet and interesting character, with quite the backstory, and in my opinion, Cameron brings her into a new exciting and fresh, modern light. I'm a sucker for the inclusion of technology and social media throughout graphic novels these days, and I think it is executed extremely well in this new volume of Batgirl. Between that, the incredibly stunning art that I am now completely in love with, the amazing diversity in Babs' circle, and the creative and mostly intriguing villains, I am giving this one five stars with great admiration and no hesitation, as I eagerly await the next installment.
This was a huge departure in every sense of the word - the art, the story, everything took on a much lighter tone. (Probably for the best for reading in 2017.)
Okay... not sure how to phrase this but if you have never read a Batgirl comic before this series, you will probably enjoy this. If you've read quite a bit of Barbara Gordon's previous features, you will probably hate this. Unless you're better at compartmentalizing than I am because nothing about this felt like Barbara Gordon.
I have a problem with the trend of smarmy, snarky female characters in comics. Some began that way like Kate Bishop and I love her because that's the way she was written from the get go. However, lately I feel like male writers keep creating the same clone of the "Cool Girl" image and we get 500 different versions of this character type meant to appeal to both millennials and to men who will want to get with them. (Not that ladies don't want to get with them, as well. (Kate, if you're reading this, call me).) It was done to Jessica Drew, for example.
So, I preface my review with that to explain that I understand who this book is meant to appeal to. It came at an odd time because New 52 had been going for a while and we already had Gail's New 52 book before hand. I adore the way Gail writes Babs. She's partially responsible for my love of the character. When DC took Babs out of the chair and I still read Gail's run because she writes a Babs I believe in. Barbara Gordon is smart, confident, mature and capable. That's who's she's always been in the books I've read.
This Babs is better suited for a CW television series about the struggles of fighting crimes and getting Instagram followers. Literally, that's a plot from this book. She talks like a teenager, she worries about things a teenager would worry about and this book is so colorful that it felt like a Bryan Lee O'Malley book. And all of this would have been fine with me if the main character was not called Barbara Gordon. If they'd introduced a brand new character and made her Batgirl, that would have been fine with me.
But they didn't. They called this character Babs and gave her Babs' history. So, I have to look at this book and line it up with other iterations of Babs and it doesn't hold up. This book is quite shallow. The plots don't last long and Babs doesn't seem very capable of anything. She's constantly asking other people to drop what's going on in their lives to help her. She doesn't seem able to make anything for herself except her costume which is also very geared towards millennials. Her thesis is supposed to be quite important to her yet we never see her really working on it ever.
The few things I will give this book credit for:
- passes the Bechdel test
- more than one other female character exists in a significant role
- it is diverse and features a disabled character who occasionally needs leg braces. That's not something I've ever seen before.
- the art is beautiful!
I will say, I was 10x more interested in Frankie and Dinah and if Frankie had been in Dinah's book, I would've dropped this one to read that one in a heartbeat.
So, at the end of the day, I ask myself if it's fair to rate this.
If this was a book about some random character called, oh, I don't know, Jessica or something, I would be less harsh on this.
But, this is supposed to be Barbara Gordon; one of DC's beloved characters, Barbara Gordon and so I must consider what I know about the character.
This is not a recommend unless you've never read a Barbara Gordon book in your life.
I have a problem with the trend of smarmy, snarky female characters in comics. Some began that way like Kate Bishop and I love her because that's the way she was written from the get go. However, lately I feel like male writers keep creating the same clone of the "Cool Girl" image and we get 500 different versions of this character type meant to appeal to both millennials and to men who will want to get with them. (Not that ladies don't want to get with them, as well. (Kate, if you're reading this, call me).) It was done to Jessica Drew, for example.
So, I preface my review with that to explain that I understand who this book is meant to appeal to. It came at an odd time because New 52 had been going for a while and we already had Gail's New 52 book before hand. I adore the way Gail writes Babs. She's partially responsible for my love of the character. When DC took Babs out of the chair and I still read Gail's run because she writes a Babs I believe in. Barbara Gordon is smart, confident, mature and capable. That's who's she's always been in the books I've read.
This Babs is better suited for a CW television series about the struggles of fighting crimes and getting Instagram followers. Literally, that's a plot from this book. She talks like a teenager, she worries about things a teenager would worry about and this book is so colorful that it felt like a Bryan Lee O'Malley book. And all of this would have been fine with me if the main character was not called Barbara Gordon. If they'd introduced a brand new character and made her Batgirl, that would have been fine with me.
But they didn't. They called this character Babs and gave her Babs' history. So, I have to look at this book and line it up with other iterations of Babs and it doesn't hold up. This book is quite shallow. The plots don't last long and Babs doesn't seem very capable of anything. She's constantly asking other people to drop what's going on in their lives to help her. She doesn't seem able to make anything for herself except her costume which is also very geared towards millennials. Her thesis is supposed to be quite important to her yet we never see her really working on it ever.
The few things I will give this book credit for:
- passes the Bechdel test
- more than one other female character exists in a significant role
- it is diverse and features a disabled character who occasionally needs leg braces. That's not something I've ever seen before.
- the art is beautiful!
I will say, I was 10x more interested in Frankie and Dinah and if Frankie had been in Dinah's book, I would've dropped this one to read that one in a heartbeat.
So, at the end of the day, I ask myself if it's fair to rate this.
If this was a book about some random character called, oh, I don't know, Jessica or something, I would be less harsh on this.
But, this is supposed to be Barbara Gordon; one of DC's beloved characters, Barbara Gordon and so I must consider what I know about the character.
This is not a recommend unless you've never read a Barbara Gordon book in your life.
Feels like Batgirl for the post-Barbie set. As a middle-aged comic nerd, I am definitely not the target market for this title.
I received Batgirl: The Batgirl of Burnside from NetGalley as part of a "Young Gotham Sampler."
Batgirl is one of my all time favorite superheroes and the new 52 didn't disapoint. It had a very cool art concept-- different yet imaginative that added a very modern twist to the story. In this reboot, Babs moves to Burnside and has to take up the cowl to defeat a tech-savvy villain. Overall, I was happily impressed.
5/5 Stars.
Since the Galley I received was just a sampler, further review will come upon my reading of the entire Volume 1.
Update 05/05/2016
After finally having read and finished Batgirl of Burnside, I'm pleased to say that the rest of it met my expectations. The story line is very contemporary, with a diverse set of characters that are both respectable and very likable. I'm excited to see what Volume 2 holds for Babs.
Batgirl is one of my all time favorite superheroes and the new 52 didn't disapoint. It had a very cool art concept-- different yet imaginative that added a very modern twist to the story. In this reboot, Babs moves to Burnside and has to take up the cowl to defeat a tech-savvy villain. Overall, I was happily impressed.
5/5 Stars.
Since the Galley I received was just a sampler, further review will come upon my reading of the entire Volume 1.
Update 05/05/2016
After finally having read and finished Batgirl of Burnside, I'm pleased to say that the rest of it met my expectations. The story line is very contemporary, with a diverse set of characters that are both respectable and very likable. I'm excited to see what Volume 2 holds for Babs.
Batgirl of Burnside is great for many reasons.
The art is fantastic with awesome facial expressions, a practical but beautiful costume design, diverse characters, and exciting action panels.
I liked how the social media was incorporated into the page. Seeing the texts, e-mails and dating profiles helped the story move forward without too much exposition and gave the comic a more contemporary feel.
Babs is the perfect combination of smart, heroic and fun. She is a great role model for young women. She isn't perfect and her vanity gets her into trouble but she is well meaning and she uses her wits and strength.
The narrative strays from the old Barbara Gordan timeline I'm familiar with but DC's new comics have done that with many heroes and for the most part I've liked the changes.
I liked that the comic included the police perspective and that a young woman with a disability was able to use her technical skills to help fight crime.
The art is fantastic with awesome facial expressions, a practical but beautiful costume design, diverse characters, and exciting action panels.
I liked how the social media was incorporated into the page. Seeing the texts, e-mails and dating profiles helped the story move forward without too much exposition and gave the comic a more contemporary feel.
Babs is the perfect combination of smart, heroic and fun. She is a great role model for young women. She isn't perfect and her vanity gets her into trouble but she is well meaning and she uses her wits and strength.
The narrative strays from the old Barbara Gordan timeline I'm familiar with but DC's new comics have done that with many heroes and for the most part I've liked the changes.
I liked that the comic included the police perspective and that a young woman with a disability was able to use her technical skills to help fight crime.
The Batgirl of Burnside is a fun, action packed, and entertaining comic. I would definitely recommend it for fans of superhero comics, or readers that want to get into reading more superhero genre comics. I’m not too familiar with Batgirl’s back story, so this book was hard to read at times and I was left feeling a bit confused. While it gives readers glimpses of her past there is no real concrete character background given, so my best advice would be to read some other Batgirl comics or research her story.
Batgirl as a person is likable and quirky. She’s super intelligent and is very kind-hearted as she’s always looking out for others. As a superhero sometimes she can cause more damage than actually help-crime stopping (which is not an easy job), but she has the best of intentions. She’s quick on her feet, a skilled fighter, and gets to work with some cool tech gadgets which I wish I had. Like most superhero comics we get a glance at her vigilante life as well as her daily life. This volume also has Batgirl do a bit of soul-searching as she tries to sort out her personal and superhero life. All in all, I loved the artwork, story, and appreciated the amount of ethnic characters/ diverse backgrounds that were presented as well.
Batgirl as a person is likable and quirky. She’s super intelligent and is very kind-hearted as she’s always looking out for others. As a superhero sometimes she can cause more damage than actually help-crime stopping (which is not an easy job), but she has the best of intentions. She’s quick on her feet, a skilled fighter, and gets to work with some cool tech gadgets which I wish I had. Like most superhero comics we get a glance at her vigilante life as well as her daily life. This volume also has Batgirl do a bit of soul-searching as she tries to sort out her personal and superhero life. All in all, I loved the artwork, story, and appreciated the amount of ethnic characters/ diverse backgrounds that were presented as well.
Overall, I didn't hate it. It certainly wasn't as good as I was expecting and as other people said it did read like a very odd kids comic mixed with some adult things that initially surprised me.
What I did like was the inclusion of lots of different types of characters and people. Not something you always see in anything pop culturally. So that was nice.
Unfortunately, Barbara was downright unlikable at times and I didn't like what they did to Dinah at all. I'm not usually one for reviews, but I wanted to explain why I gave this 3 stars even though I wasn't a huge fan of it. Basically it has 3 instead of 2 because at the end I'm not upset that I read it. It wasn't as good as I hoped for and it read a bit weirdly. But the art was great and once I got a handle on the story line it was ok and ok to me makes it a 3.
What I did like was the inclusion of lots of different types of characters and people. Not something you always see in anything pop culturally. So that was nice.
Unfortunately, Barbara was downright unlikable at times and I didn't like what they did to Dinah at all. I'm not usually one for reviews, but I wanted to explain why I gave this 3 stars even though I wasn't a huge fan of it. Basically it has 3 instead of 2 because at the end I'm not upset that I read it. It wasn't as good as I hoped for and it read a bit weirdly. But the art was great and once I got a handle on the story line it was ok and ok to me makes it a 3.