Red Robin #25 & Batgirl #23

It's finally DC time! The first two DC comics I'll be reviewing this week are one of my favorite DC titles(Batgirl), as well as one of my favorite DC characters(Red Robin). With DC rapidly moving towards the reboot, I doubt either of these books will have any sort of lasting impact, but hopefully they'll at least be good reads...

Red Robin #25:

Summary: This issue gets started with Black Bat(the former Batgirl, Cassandra Cain), swooping in to save Red Robin from being deflowered... What?! She did!! Anyway, Cass takes care of Ra's Al Ghul's wacky half-sister(who was trying to get it on with Saint Timmy) and Promise before freeing Tim. With the villains down and Tim safe, the two discuss what their next step should be with this whole assassination tournament, and while Tim is deep in thought and distracted, Cass stabs him with her katana, seemingly killing him! With Tim dead, Cass is declared the winner of the tourney, and a secret door opens up allowing her to enter to claim her prize. A disembodied voice tells her she'd be immortalized for her victory, and a laser blast comes at her, but she is saved by Tim?! It turns out Tim and Cass planned a way to fake his death in order to get Cass access to whoever was running the tourney. The voice tells Tim that it was impressed with his actions, and that it held the tournament to discover the most deadly assassins and then eliminate them for the good of mankind. Before Tim and Cass can glean anything more, the lair begins to self destruct, and it winds up exploding after the two get clear. With that taken care of, Tim heads to Hong Kong to try to help Cass defeat the Cricket, who kicks both of their asses and leaves Tim with a broken arm and some fractured ribs. We also learn that Lucius Fox was still alive, and that his death was faked by the Gotham Police department. Tam Fox is furious with Tim for not telling her that her dad was still alive, and she winds up breaking up with him. With ALL of that out of the way, this issue ends with Tim wondering how his life would change now that he was responsible for assassinating Capt. Boomerang(!?).

Thoughts: Again, and I've been saying this A LOT when it comes to the DC books lately, this issue was very rushed. The assassination tournament stuff was wrapped up, as was the longer running sister of Al Ghul thing. Tim finally broke up with Tam Fox, which doesn't bother me because I never really got their relationship. And in one quick page we get the Lucius Fox is alive announcement, as well as a quick one page blurb showing Cass and Tim getting owned by the Cricket. I mean, I did like the way everything ended, so I can't complain about any of that, it was all just so brisk... I'd have loved to have seen a longer battle between Cass/Tim and the Cricket. Or a longer scene showing exactly how Tim broke the news to Tam about her father. But alas, it was not to be. Still in all though, this issue was quite good, probably one of the better DC books I've read in some time, so I guess I can't complain too much...

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.That's gonna leave a mark! Or will it???


Batgirl #23:

Summary: We get started with three of the Reapers armor-clad goons attacking a police station to steal back the armor that had been impounded by the police from two of their members. The armor-clad goons make short work of the cops, killing several of them before they manage to find the two sets of armor and leave. Meanwhile, Batgirl and Det. Gage come across the corpse of the Grey Ghost, Batgirl's unwanted sidekick. It turns out that Ghost had managed to infiltrate the Reapers base to feed Batgirl information to prove his worth, but the Reapers found out about his duplicity and killed him. All he left was a recording that goes off when Batgirl touches the device, telling her that the Reapers were trying to gain metahuman powers, but that the check from their mystery benefactor bounced. Before he could say anymore though, he is found out and the transmission abruptly ceases. Right after that, Gage hears about the robbery at the police station and both he and Batgirl realize that the Reapers next step would be to free their two captured members from Blackgate prison. Before long, Batgirl heads to Blackgate just as after the Reapers had broken in and caused a riot to cover their tracks. We learn that the Reapers mystery benefactor was actually at the prison, and the Reapers begin to march through the prison in search of him. Batgirl arrives on the scene and attacks all five of the Reapers, but quickly finds herself overpowered. Before the Reapers can kill her, she screams out, “Shazam!”(?!), which confuses the Reapers, but signals Supergirl, Stargirl, Miss Martian and Bombshell to come in to help. The five females make quick work of the five armor-clad Reapers, and while her four allies head through the prison to quell the riot, Batgirl decides to see if she could find whoever it was that pissed off the Reapers by giving them the bounced check. After walking through the prison, Batgirl finds one cell that was not open, and figures that whoever was inside was hiding from the Reapers, and opens it up to find... Her own father, the villain known as the Cluemaster!!!

Thoughts: Okay, that ending was all kinds of awesome! The rest of this comic? It was okay. I mean with only one more issue left of this magnificent series, I get that Bryan Q. Miller had to rush his story a bit, which is why we probably got a quick, one issue showdown between Batgirl(and friends) against the Reapers. With that said though, with how long the Reapers/Batgirl stuff had been building, I'd have hoped for a longer, more dramatic battle there... I mean this was a perfectly acceptable comic book, but that was about all it was...

Score: 7 out of 10.Why would the Gotham City prison system allow a costumed criminal to keep their costume in their cell???