OK, having bitched about how Stormwatch and Suicide Squad are too Image Comics "bad-ass", this one goes too far the other way.
I bought it because I liked Gail Simone's work on Birds of Prey and Sinister Six. I was expecting something perhaps a little more akin to Rucka's excellent work on Batwoman.
Instead... I don't know. It was very 1970s Batgirl, kind of cute and quirky, and a little bit insecure. Batman is shown as being a big marshmellow, and Nightwing is a over-protective ex-boyfriend. There was a layer of frosted saccharine over the entire title which left me feeling a little unwell.
Batgirl faces down two villains in this book: a deranged retired soldier called Mirror, and a shot journo turned mesmerising kookball named Gretal. Each of the villains has a sympathetic back story, which is pretty typical of Gail Simone's work. But the sympathy in each case, and Batgirl's "group hug" handling of each threat was just... dull. Batgirl is described as the "smart one" of the Batfamily, and therefore not as prone to violent confrotnation of her enemies. the character kind of demonstrates that, but there is nothng particularly exciting or even clever about the character, or the plot.
What I think has happened here is the editor has given the writer too much rein and let the ethos overshadow the pace of the book. Or perhaps the book is written to a particular market - teenaged girls. Either way, it didn't resonate with me.
