The Batmom

Batgirl 12

COVERGIRL: How can you NOT want to read when the cover promises Bat-on-Bat action? Though I know Batwoman, at least a little, and she would never stand like that.

INSIDE STORY: After showing Babs her superchops, Batwoman joins McKenna and Batgirl in taking on the The Disgraced, AKA Knightfall’s soldiers. After a few rounds, Batgirl slips away, in hopes of saving a car thief Knightfall caught in a bear trap. Knightfall stops her via knife-thrust to the belly.

Commissioner Gordon despairs to learn that his psychotic son James has escaped Arkham Asylum. James teams up with Knightfall, hoping to get his hands bloody.

RAMBLE: Love the juxtaposition of Batwoman, the proper and silent superheroine, and Batgirl, whose internal chatter brings Buffy to mind. I am fascinated that the two she-Bats have never met, given their shared mentoring by the Bat and devotion to keeping Gotham safe. (I am purposely avoiding back-story research until I've consumed a year's worth of story.)

Eager to read more about James, one of few characters in pop-color ink who freaks me out. Usually I delight in a good villain, but James is real-life disturbing. As in, stay away from my kids, bucko.

RAMBLING OFFSHOOT: The words fall like lead. Thunk across the page. Liked Batgirl #12, but my writing was uninspired, the process unfun. There is no joy in Leadville.

(I know it’s Mudville, people. Making a lame pencil joke. I persist in describing my writing as if I employ the simple tools of yore, rather than a sputtering Apple minus one “volume up” key, plus an impressive crack across the touchpad.)

I’ve been at my parents’ all week. I always expect I’ll sleep well, with no cats kneading my face at night, but I don’t. All the small guilts and worries that I squash down by making lunches, stacking dishes, and in general Tending To (I say this like a woman with a clean home), plague me when I’m not at home. The insomnia that at home kicks in at 3 a.m. alongside the cats, here keeps me tossing and turning from the get-go.

And so sludge floods the brain. My apologies to Barbara Gordon, who performed amusingly and well. Except the part where she got shanked.*

*The Urban Dictionary claims shanked is used by "gangsters and delinquents." Make that "gangsters, delinquents, and bleary-eyed housewives."

Who the Hell are These People?

Batgirl/Barbara Jordan: Former Batman trainee, along with Robin (now Nightwing). Shot by the Joker and left paralyzed. Regained use of legs after radical neural surgery. Now struggling to return to her former powerful self. Self-deprecating, clever.

Batwoman/Kate Kane: : Survived a brutal kidnapping by terrorists that killed her mother and turned her sister into a crazy villain. West Point student, lesbian, expelled under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Currently working with the Department of Extranormal Operations.

James Jr.: Batgirl's viciously insane, morally bereft brother, recently escaped from Arkham Asylum

Knightfall/Charise: Socialite; watched her family die OR murdered them; spent time being horrified in Arkham Asylum; busted out and now wreaks bloody justice on the baddies of Gotham; introduced issue 10

Detective McKenna: Police detective in the employ of Commissioner James Gordon, Batgirl's father husband murdered by Arkham Asylum inmates; temporarily strayed to the dark side in the name of vengeance; dislikes Batgirl

What the Hell is Going On?

Knightfall and her gang, The Disgraced, are trying to rid Gotham of all law-breakers by violent and torturous means. Batgirl is trying to take down the whole bloody kit and caboodle.

Batgirl 11

 

Batgirl takes on Knightfall's minions on the cover of #11

COVERGIRL: I don’t recognize the face, but the leg move – part cheerleader, part ninja – is signature Batgirl. Gotta be her. 

INSIDE STORY: Knightfall and her crew try to recruit Batgirl to kill bad guys, but Batgirl refuses, whereupon they try to kill her. Detective Melody McKenna, who hates Batgirl and works for Batgirl's father Commissioner Gordon, saves Batgirl and explains Knightfall’s backstory. Detective and Batgirl are getting along nicely, until they’re not.

McKenna wants to know who Batgirl is working for. Batgirl wants to know what McKenna is working on.

As they fight inside McKenna's house, Batwoman lurks outside. We know who she works for: the DEO.

Vedddddy Interesting. 

RAMBLE: Why talk Bats when everyone’s talking Con? Every third person filling my twitter feed is either at San Diego Comic Con or wishing they were.

SDCC is the mama of all Comic Cons, the uber-Con, the Taj MaCon. But other than massive amounts of famous, semi-famous, and niche-famous people and, presumably, tons of cosplay and panels … why are comic cons the end all and be all?

I just lost 2 of my 3 subscribers. Click. Click.

I had a great time at Boston Comic Con. I loved the DC artists’ panel, I thrilled at meeting Cliff Chiang, and I wowed watching Francis Manapul at work. I will go again. Stranger in a Familiar Land and I are going to NYCC in October and, I hope, to Coast City Comic Con (Portland, Maine) in November.

I’m expecting size differences: bigger or smaller crowds, more or fewer vendors, greater or lesser numbers of panels. But flavor differences? Less sure. You’ve seen one group of 20-somethings strutting the halls dressed as Birds of Prey, you’ve seen them all, right?

Not so the comic book store.

I have a personal relationship with my comic book store. The staff knows my kids, they answer my ignorant questions, they advise with intelligence, and rejoice when I rejoice in a new read. I’m not squished, I’m not rushed, and I’ll never in a million years read it all.

Harrison’s pop happiness stretches long, beginning on Essex Street in Salem, kitty-corner from a cheesy statue of Samantha Stephens my kids think is an anthropomorphic jungle gym. Busy windows full of bobbleheads and neon pull in the tourists and locals. The store is full of how-to-draws and lunchboxes and old comics and new comics and stickers and magnets and t-shirts and figurines and Japanese candy and smelly erasers and, at the front counter, an annoying button that says NO 100 different ways.

Two hours southwest of Harrison’s, in old milltown Putnam, Conn., Wonderland Comics sits at the bottom of a street-level stairway and below a row of antique stores. More squat and square than Harrison’s, Wonderland is equally, happily stuffed to the gills. The store boasts a knowledgeable and friendly staff, offers not-so-much for the kids, and houses a strange, slightly scary bathroom with mildly pornographic wall art.

Charlie’s Comics in North Conway, NH: different yet again, and depressingly so. If Harrison’s is Tutti Frutti and Wonderland is Cosmic Cherry Pop, Charlie’s is Imitation Vanilla, poorly stocked, unenthusiastically staffed, and miserably stuck at the lonely end of a shabby, deserted strip mall surrounded by blandly perky outlet malls.

I hope to visit Westside Comics when I’m in Vermont later this month, and I’ve got two Wednesday trips to Wonderland coming up in August. I've got serious decisions to make when I'm in New York for NY Comic Con in October, and I'm hoping to hit Portland, Maine's Coast City Comics and the Coast City Comic Con in November. 

I know what to expect from the comic cons, and I’m looking forward to them. I have no idea what to expect from the comic book stores, and I can’t wait.