Batgirl #49 // Review
Babs knows that she isn't dead. That doesn't make seeing her own dead body in an alley any easier. She's going to have a hell of a time locating a killer who seems obsessed with her in Batgirl #49. Writer Cecil Castellucci crafts a darkly clever story with shadowy implications that are stylishly brought to the page by artist Robbi Rodriguez. Color soaks the page courtesy of Jordie Bellaire. There isn't very much to the mystery on the surface of the story. Yet, Castellucci is playing with subtly deeper darkness that registers an eerily haunting kind of psychological horror.
Barbara Gordon has just seen the dead body of Batgirl in an alley. So she's dead, but she hasn't stopped moving yet. Later-on her father tells her that two other people have shown-up dead in the same costume. He knows his daughter fits the profile of the serial killer, but he doesn't know she's the one all the others were dressed as. She's on the trail of the killer, but so is her father, and so is her brother. They all have the same instincts, but they don't all have the same motivations. Things are about to get very, very complicated for all three of the Gordons.
Castellucci sets-up a very sharp concept in framing the conflict for this issue. Batgirls keep turning-up dead, but none of them are the real one. She's got to find out who it is, but she's hampered by family dynamics between her law and order father and her potentially reformed criminal brother. The overall plot composition is powerful, even if the whole story's resolution is more or less predictable. The moodiness of the story and the emotional depth that it casts light into is more than enough to carry one of the more strikingly interesting issues to come out this year.
It's raining for most of the installment. Babs has a chance to walk through Gotham Square and have a brief conversation as the killer claims his next victim, but after those first six pages, it's raining straight through to the back cover. It's very, very moody stuff. Jim Gordon's face is masked by a thick, red mustache as he grimly surveys the crime scene. Babs' red hair is soaked as she pulls together clues that hint to some sort of pattern in the killing beyond physical appearances. Rodriguez's attention to tone and detail is graceful. Bellaire gives the mood the atmosphere so thick that the distinct smell of rain can almost be detected coming off the panels.
Due out the week of Halloween, the next issue is the final issue of this series's run. It's arduous to imagine Castellucci ending on a more impressive note than the one she nails in this issue. The plot might merely be playing about with themes that have been explored in the superhero genre for decades. Still, Castellucci does a brilliant job of bringing it together in a powerful finale to a two-part series.
