Batgirls #15 // Review
Steph’s dad is dead. Only he’s not. He’s kidnapped her and taken her to a remote cabin to...play a game with her. She wants answers, and he wants to give them to her...and since she’s all tied up, he’ll be giving them to her game show-style in Batgirls #15. Writers Becky Cloonan and Michael W. Conrad put Steph in the line of danger with the aid of artist Neil Googe and colorist Rico Renzi. Steph’s past is given a close-up in a suspenseful issue that peers a bit more into the history of one of the Batgirls.
Steph’s dad calls himself the Cluemaster. His game show is not televised. His buzzer actually administers her an electric shock. But only when she gives the answers he’s not looking for. Thankfully, Cass knows exactly where Steph and her dad are. She’s on her way to save her friend and colleague. The problem is that she is dealing with a psychopath who has the entire remote cabin rigged. So even if she makes it straight in to confront the Cluemaster directly, there’s still going to be the small matter of all of the deathtraps that he’s laid out for anyone foolish enough to enter.
Cloonan and Conrad definitely craft a story that delves deep into the psychology of Steph and her father without slowing down the action or the tension at all. It’s a very twisted and dysfunctional family dynamic that Steph has been victimized by. Cloonan and Conrad manage to find a way to present the shifting complexities of daughter and back-from-the-dead father with striking clarity for a story that is weighted so heavily in one climactic scene. The flurry of one-page moments after that scene do a good job of grounding it in the larger continuity of the series.
Googe’s art generally works better in big, dynamic action scenes than it does with close-up drama. There IS some really excellent action in and around the edges of the issue, but most of the tension lies in the confrontation between a father and the daughter he has tied to a chair in a secluded cabin in the woods. To his credit, Googe renders some of the dramatic tension with a stunning degree of nuance. The Cluemaster’s madness feels suitably unhinged. Steph’s strength and Cass’s heroism come through with remarkable clarity.
There has been a very clear progression throughout Conrad and Cloonan’s series that has palpably brought Cass and Steph together. The tension feels as impressively well-rendered as the action. Everything feels quite fluid in a series that has proven itself to be one of the more reliably good titles in mainstream comics over the course of the past year or so. A little more time with all THREE Batgirls would serve the series well, but the relationship between Steph and Cass is deeply satisfying at the center of the book.
