Wait a second...
Is this one of those weeks where the previous weekend's holiday has bumped our regularly scheduled new-comics-Wednesday to Thursday?
Because if not...has anyone read Oracle: The Cure #2?
Morbid curiousity, I has it.
I just discovered the Preview on IGN, which had previously slipped under my radar.
I am becoming increasingly irritated by third-person narration in comics. I can forgive it in comics that are 25+ years old, because I can imagine the narrator has that cheesy "SAME BAT-CHANNEL, SAME BAT-TIME!" voice. It was a different time, I think to myself, I can tolerate and indulge it.
And then it appears in a new comic, like this, and the only reason I can fathom is because Barbara Gordon clearly could not be thinking all those thought boxes herself. I'm wondering if I can convince myself that she's possessed by the spirit of a whiny defenceless teenager. Or maybe they never fully removed that Brainiac virus, but it's been eating at her brain ever so slightly in places, causing her to lose her ethical standards and intelligence.
How else can you explain this:
She strikes her meat puppet in the spine again. But it won't kick anymore.
She thinks maybe she broke it.
She hadn't planned on fighting.
MEAT PUPPET? SHE THINKS MAYBE SHE BROKE SOME MUGGER'S SPINE? And...meat puppet?
[ETA: Nev has pointed out to me that "She thinks maybe she broke it" line more likely means she broke the guy, you know, her meat puppet. Not that that's much better. /ETA]
The next page however, I'm not even sure how to react to...because if what happened in those last panels is what I think happened, I don't know if I can forgive it.
Stupid pointlessly cheesecakey covers? Fine, I may not like it, but it's not as though it's all that shocking in superhero comics.
Barbara suddenly acting as though she only just lost the use of her legs and glorifying her days as Batgirl? Well, maybe she's been having a rough time lately, and has been jerked from writer to writer a lot lately.
Barbara blowing up her home and headquarters? Uhg, been there, done that, didn't like it the first time, but whatever, it makes sense that she'd want to be back in Gotham after Batman dying, maybe misses her dad, or maybe she doesn't feel safe in Platinum Flats after the Joker attacked her. It can be rationalized.
Barbara ditching the Birds and bailing on the (previously homeless) teen-aged girl who sort of idolized her? And leaving her and the team with a lousy note? Okay, that's pretty out of character and I can't believe she'd do that to Charlie, but maybe it's salvageable. Maybe there's some unseen threat that Babs is trying to protect the others from or something, right? It's possible that a logical explanation could be revealed eventually.
Barbara not returning Dinah and Dick's phone calls, especially when Dick's adoptive father and her long-time friend/mentor/colleague is dead? Well...maybe it's Babs's turn at some good old-fashioned Batdickery. Maybe she needs to hide out for a while to grieve. It can be made sense of, perhaps.
Barbara not being aware and prepared to defend herself while travelling alone in a foreign city, presumably there to fight crime or solve a mystery of some sort? That's pretty dumb, but whatever, maybe the plot'll take us somewhere interesting.
But Barbara purposely breaking someone's spine? It doesn't matter if the dude's a mugger and a criminal who attacked her, she would never inflict that kind of injury on someone. And not just because of her own injury, but because that's an evil thing to do, and she's not petty enough to do that to someone who isn't the Joker (and even then, it would be so contrary to her morals, she still probably wouldn't do it).
And Barbara knocking out the other mugger from afar, and then repeatedly smashing his head into the ground, probably killing him? That is not Barbara Gordon.
I hate to sound so dramatic, but I'm devastated.
Because if not...has anyone read Oracle: The Cure #2?
Morbid curiousity, I has it.
I just discovered the Preview on IGN, which had previously slipped under my radar.
I am becoming increasingly irritated by third-person narration in comics. I can forgive it in comics that are 25+ years old, because I can imagine the narrator has that cheesy "SAME BAT-CHANNEL, SAME BAT-TIME!" voice. It was a different time, I think to myself, I can tolerate and indulge it.
And then it appears in a new comic, like this, and the only reason I can fathom is because Barbara Gordon clearly could not be thinking all those thought boxes herself. I'm wondering if I can convince myself that she's possessed by the spirit of a whiny defenceless teenager. Or maybe they never fully removed that Brainiac virus, but it's been eating at her brain ever so slightly in places, causing her to lose her ethical standards and intelligence.
How else can you explain this:
She strikes her meat puppet in the spine again. But it won't kick anymore.
She thinks maybe she broke it.
She hadn't planned on fighting.
MEAT PUPPET? SHE THINKS MAYBE SHE BROKE SOME MUGGER'S SPINE? And...meat puppet?
[ETA: Nev has pointed out to me that "She thinks maybe she broke it" line more likely means she broke the guy, you know, her meat puppet. Not that that's much better. /ETA]
The next page however, I'm not even sure how to react to...because if what happened in those last panels is what I think happened, I don't know if I can forgive it.
Stupid pointlessly cheesecakey covers? Fine, I may not like it, but it's not as though it's all that shocking in superhero comics.
Barbara suddenly acting as though she only just lost the use of her legs and glorifying her days as Batgirl? Well, maybe she's been having a rough time lately, and has been jerked from writer to writer a lot lately.
Barbara blowing up her home and headquarters? Uhg, been there, done that, didn't like it the first time, but whatever, it makes sense that she'd want to be back in Gotham after Batman dying, maybe misses her dad, or maybe she doesn't feel safe in Platinum Flats after the Joker attacked her. It can be rationalized.
Barbara ditching the Birds and bailing on the (previously homeless) teen-aged girl who sort of idolized her? And leaving her and the team with a lousy note? Okay, that's pretty out of character and I can't believe she'd do that to Charlie, but maybe it's salvageable. Maybe there's some unseen threat that Babs is trying to protect the others from or something, right? It's possible that a logical explanation could be revealed eventually.
Barbara not returning Dinah and Dick's phone calls, especially when Dick's adoptive father and her long-time friend/mentor/colleague is dead? Well...maybe it's Babs's turn at some good old-fashioned Batdickery. Maybe she needs to hide out for a while to grieve. It can be made sense of, perhaps.
Barbara not being aware and prepared to defend herself while travelling alone in a foreign city, presumably there to fight crime or solve a mystery of some sort? That's pretty dumb, but whatever, maybe the plot'll take us somewhere interesting.
But Barbara purposely breaking someone's spine? It doesn't matter if the dude's a mugger and a criminal who attacked her, she would never inflict that kind of injury on someone. And not just because of her own injury, but because that's an evil thing to do, and she's not petty enough to do that to someone who isn't the Joker (and even then, it would be so contrary to her morals, she still probably wouldn't do it).
And Barbara knocking out the other mugger from afar, and then repeatedly smashing his head into the ground, probably killing him? That is not Barbara Gordon.
I hate to sound so dramatic, but I'm devastated.