Digging deeper and learning more.
Creative Staff:
Story: Hope Larson
Art: Rafael Albuquerque
Colors: Dave McCaig
Letterer: Deron Bennett
What They Say:
“Beyond Burnside” part two. Batgirl is off to Singapore! Following the mysterious advice of the ancient superhero known as Fruit Bat, Babs dives into the dangerous world of MMA fighting. But her first opponent may be more than just an adversary in the ring. Could she be connected to Babs’ new travel-companion-slash-maybe-crush?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Though the Rebirth installment of Batgirl won me over in a big way, the opening issue of the ongoing was solid but left me a little wary with the whole backpacking across the world thing. It makes sense and getting Barbara out of Gotham for a while is a plus since there’s a whole world of stories out there and this allows it all to be pretty personal and introspective. But something about it just didn’t click fully, though Albuquerque’s artwork makes everything better. With the second installment we get the continuation of the journey “Beyond Burnside” as Barbara is dealing with a couple of very different things all while trying to figure herself out and what she wants. It’s an age old question and storyline but one that Larson brings together pretty well here.
With a few hints as to what’s going on in the first issue, she’s now landed herself in Singapore amid all the modern glory of the place. The main thrust of this book has her looking to expand her physical fighting capabilites by picking up some MMA skills and that leads us to learning about how the region treats female fights and the problems there, which is interesting enough. She ends up at a smaller place and gets some solid and hard intensity training from a woman named May that fills her in on the regional dynamic, but mostly it’s just engaging to watch how Barbara relishes the training and the growth that comes from it. She’s always dealt with challenges well, mental and physical, and this one is definitely fun as she goes through a week or so of training before getting into a very tough match – that cycles back to the killer school girl from before. It’s all tease and no meat but it’s the right kind of layered setup.
As interesting as all of it is, and I do appreciate that Larson avoids the whole “white girl masters everything Asian quickly” thing, I’m far more interested in what’s going on with her and Kai. He ends up essentially following her and since he knows more than he’s letting on you have to wonder at his plan. She’s not exactly acting like a school girl herself here but she is finding herself getting closer to him even though she knows he’s trouble. The couple of references to her needing a therapist are both amusing and accurate since self reflection is a good thing. She’s really conflicted by what she’s experiencing with him throughout this, especially with the place he gets access to for a while that leads to a wonderful kiss, and I’m glad that she’s mostly erring on the side of caution. Kai simply raises a whole host of red flags and watching her acknowledging that and pushing some but not all of them to the side works quite well since she knows she may be overcompensating based on her line of work.
In Summary:
Batgirl continues her journey here and outside of a brief but amusing piece at the start she spends this installment outside of her costume. What we get here for the most part is an expansion on her physical fighting capabilities, some fun challenges for her to meet, and a lot of internal strife and confusion over her feelings that involves her trying to explore some of how her costumed side impacts her views of things. It’s not a book that makes any sort of big statements or pivotal character moments, but it’s issue two and we’re getting some good foundations and exploration of the character with some slow growth. A lot of the appeal is still in Albuquerque’s artwork as I love his take on Barbara and that we get so much time out of costume and out of Gotham. That side of her is served well at the moment with the Birds of Prey series. Here, we’re getting what could turn into a solid spiritual journey depending on how it goes and could help grow her up just a little bit more in some engaging ways.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: August 24th, 2016
MSRP: $2.99
