Tag: Babs Tarr
A Nightwing: Rebirth #1 Review – Better in Blue
TITLE: Nightwing: Rebirth #1
AUTHOR: Tim Seeley
PENCILLER: Yanick Paquette. Cover by Javier Fernandez.
***WARNING: Spoilers lay ahead.***
This issue should really be called Nightwing Returns. For yours truly, that's what it is. Not just in terms of Dick Grayson putting the costume on again. It's as simple as him wearing blue.
I can't even tell you how hung up I was on that New 52 costume. I've discussed this before, but it bears repeating: Nightwing should never wear red on a permanent basis. Red is a Robin color. In switching from Robin to Nightwing, the change from red to blue was more important than many people realize. The shift to the opposite end of the color spectrum was a visual representation of his shift toward independence. To put him in red moves him back toward Batman, intentional or not. Plus, when you realize Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and Damian Wayne all wear red and have dark hair, the whole legacy of Robin starts to look like a creepy cult. All in all, everything is better when Dick is in blue.
With his secret identity now restored, Dick stops and smells the proverbial roses with his Spyral cohorts and surrogate family members before moving on to the next phase of his life. The Parliament of Owls (a larger version of the Court of Owls) continues to target Dick. The time has now come for Dick to infiltrate the group using the identity they tried to corrupt and make their own: Nightwing!
This issue tells us Dick's identity is now a secret again. To the best of my knowledge, this happened off page somewhere. As I recall, Helena Bertinelli told Dick that Spyral could use its tech to make the world forget what they saw in Forever Evil. This kind of trick isn't new. You've got to get the genie back in the bottle somehow, of course. I just wish we'd actually seen it happen. We don't even know for sure it was Spiral that restored Dick's secret. Let's hope he didn't make a deal with Mephisto…
The whole stopping by to talk thing is a very Dick Grayson thing to do. We've seen it a bunch over the years. His talks with Tiger King and Midnighter feel like a transition out of the Grayson era. Though I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him team with the latter again soon. He briefly speaks with Helena through a door, leaving us longing for a sense of closure between the two. Though Yanick Paquette treats us to a splash page of her in the Huntress costume, practically guaranteeing they'll meet again down the line. Paquette is also on cover duty for Helena's adventures in Batgirl & The Birds of Prey, which is a nice connection between the books. Oddly enough, the variant cover by Babs Tarr gives us another Nightwing/Batgirl connection. That can't be accidental, can it?
So…does Lincoln March die in this book? He takes an arrow through the eyeball, so that's definitely the implication. If this is the end for him, that's a disappointment. His big quarrel was with his alleged brother Bruce Wayne. There was unfinished business there. Even factoring in his Grayson role, to see him snuffed out in a Nightwing book feels like a whimper. I'm hoping the Owls restore him, keep him in stasis, or something to that effect.
I've been high on Yanick Paquette in the wake of Batman #49. But some of his renderings of Dick and Damian are weirdly off in this issue. For instance, the image at right. What, pray tell, is wrong with Damian's face? Is it contorted because his eyes hurt? Is he rolling his eyes at the thought of Spyral being on the side of the angels? At certain points he also looks like he's hunching.
On the plus side, he ends on a splash page of Dick in the Nightwing suit, and it instantly satiated my craving for blue Nightwing. Well done, sir.
Just to clarify, I'm not downing Kyle Higgins, or anyone who worked on the red Nightwing book. Eddy Barrows did some nice work with Dick, and I was pleased when Higgins moved the setting to Chicago. Grayson also turned out better than many of us imagined. But this issue feels like a homecoming. Just as so much we loved about the old DCU has come back in this Rebirth initiative, so has the Nightwing we know and love.
A Batgirl #48 Review – Video Games, a T-Rex, and…Mind Wipes???
TITLE: Batgirl #48
AUTHORS: Brenden Fletcher, Cameron Stewart
PENCILLER: Babs Tarr
RELEASED: February 3, 2016
"It's a Birds of Prey reunion!" That's basically what the cover is saying to comic book fans. In retrospect, it's a wonder DC fouled up the New 52 incarnation of that book. The Birds of Prey concept has a lot going for it. But at its core it was about the friendship between Babs and Dinah (and sometimes Huntress). Considering how well Batgirl has been going, and how Black Canary factors into it, Brenden Fletcher, Cameron Stewart, and Babs Tarr might just be the heirs to Birds of Prey. Come to think of it, is DC even doing anything with Huntress right now?
Fragments of Barbara's memory have gone missing. The question is, why? And what does it have to do with her brain apparently being tampered with? Thankfully, Black Canary is there for a little extra back-up. But not before Batgirl and Batwing take on Co-Op, a villainous duo with a flair for gaming.
Considering how much history there is in the Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson romance, the success of Barbara's romance with Luke Fox has been a pleasant surprise. And then they had to taint it in this issue by reminding us that he's Batwing. Luke Fox works just fine as Barbara's super-smart boyfriend who's now helping her in a new business venture. He doesn't need to be a superhero. In fact, that was part of what made Batgirl #45 so cool, when Babs chose Luke over the muscular, dashing and daring Dick Grayson. That's not to say Luke should be helpless, and I know the Batgirl team weren't the ones who made him Batwing. But c'mon. Can't that whole concept just be left as a relic of the reboot?
These Co-Op villains are pretty fun. They're written pretty tongue-in-cheek, but that's part of their charm. And their presence gives Tarr and and the artistic team a chance to go all out with a blaze of colorful, cartoony madness. Our villains are dressed like TRON characters, one of them is riding T-Rex, our heroes are placed inside a pro wrestling arena and are fighting a big luchador. It's one of the nuttiest sequences we've seen from a DC book in quite awhile. I'd be more than okay with seeing these guys again.
Tarr really gets a chance to show off her versatility in this issue. We go absolutely crazy near the beginning of the issue. Then in the middle we have some cartoony anger and snark when Babs and Dinah come across a few Black Canary fans (shown right). Then at the end, we get a dramatic scene where the other characters are terribly concerned for Batgirl's wellbeing. While it couldn't have been done without Fletcher and Stewart's writing, make no mistake about it, Babs Tarr's art is the element that truly ushered in this new era for Batgirl. Look no further than this issue for the evidence.
Our main villain is someone Babs has seen in a nightmare, and who has in-depth access to her mind. Going forward, this has the potential to be something very scary, and very personal. It's something very much befitting the upcoming 50th issue, and they're even tying it back to their first story, collected in The Batgirl of Burnside. Batwing notwithstanding, Team Batgirl has yet to let us down. And I don't see that trend changing in the near future.
Images from batman-news.com.
A Batgirl #45 Review – Dick Grayson: Wedding Crasher
Posted on 11/02/2015 by Rob Siebert
***WARNING: Spoilers lay ahead for Batgirl #45.***
I'm a big fan of Barbara Gordon and Dick Grayson as a couple. I was as stoked as anybody when DC let Gail Simone work with them again during Convergence. That being said, the Batgirl team does real justice to Barbara by not putting her back with Dick in this issue.
There's no supervillain in Batgirl #45, and no real crisis for Babs to overcome. Instead, we find ourselves at the wedding of her friend Alysia. Our herioine is entrusted with keeping the ring safe for the bride. But when Dick shows up before the festivities and playfully swipes the ring, things get complicated.
***For the events leading up to this issue, check out Grayson #1, Batgirl Annual #3 and Grayson #12.***
It would have been very easy to put Barbara with Dick. That option is always going to be there, and it's always going to work. But that's not what happens here. In this issue, Dick is actually positioned as the antagonist. It's one of the few times in this era of "Dick Grayson, sexy super-spy" that we're put in a position to not like him. He's not malicious or cruel at all, but he's clearly in the wrong. It's surreal, but it's done in the interest of playing up Barbara's confidence and independence. As readers, we already knew she had those qualities. But this issue accents them wonderfully.
Simply put, Barbara stands up for herself when Dick tries to insert himself into her life romantically. She takes him to task for interrupting this special day, and that he must face the consequences of faking his own death, and what that did to the people he cares about. What makes this such a strong moment is that she's right, and we admire her for being brave enough to put Dick in his place. It's something he needed to hear, from the character perhaps best qualified to tell him.
Barbara's behavior in the early part of this issue is also very true to her character. She essentially becomes the Miss Fix-It of the wedding party, and literally pulls out a "Wedding Day Survival Kit." Not only does this work with Barbara's personality, but having been to a whopping three weddings this month, I can tell you firsthand that every bride wants a character like that around.
From an artistic standpoint, Tarr gets to be more flowery and formal in this issue than any she's done so far. Her work, paired with colorist Serge LaPointe's lavenders and pinks definitely give this issue a visual uniqueness. Tarr's rendering of Dick Grayson is also impossibly hunky, and a great representation of the temptation Barbara feels to cave in and be with Dick.
The issue ends with a mysterious teaser, likely about the next villain Batgirl will take on. Solicitations indicate Babs' mind may be failing her, and The Spoiler will be involved. If how they interacted in Batgirl Annual #3 is any indication, things will continue to be fun going forward. And considering how fun this series has been since Fletcher, Stewart, and Tarr took over, what more can we ask?
Image 1 from newsarama.com. Image 2 from popoptiq.com.