Spoilers, of course.

We open on the smartest criminal ever to hit Gotham’s streets; Johnny C.

“Who,” you ask?

The guy with dynamite around his waist, planning to bomb a train. 

“That doesn’t sound so smart,” you say.

And you’d be right, except that this guy’s rant actually makes sense. 

“Johnny C. does want to hurt people . . . . If this works, maybe – just maybe – people will get the damned hint and leave Gotham.  I mean, seriously – why the hell does anyone live here anymore?”

Because otherwise Batman would just be petulantly wandering around a deserted city.  ‘HelLO!  I am VENgeance!  I am the NIIIiiight!  Someone pay attention to me!”

Stephanie is getting dragged along behind the train, but manages to climb over it, have Oracle cut the lights, take out the guy, and get a round of applause from the passengers.  She responds to the clapping with, “All in a day’s work, um, citizens.”

Don’t go that way, Stephanie.  Sure, you seem like sixties Batman now, but in just a few decades you’ll be subtracting all the personal pronouns from your internal monologue and being a dick to your allies and being played by Christian Bale.  Just keep smiling and getting pats on the back from the Commissioner. 

Back at the university, Wendy and Barbara listen to a radio report about an upcoming rainstorm and talk about Wendy’s origin story while trying not to make it seem completely ridiculous.  They fail, but that’s hardly their fault.  The friggin’ Wonder Dog at Wendy’s brother, for crying out loud.  Wendy’s still working hard on being bitter, and I can’t say that I blame her.  Stephanie walks in and Barbara gets her coat.  It’s time to get down to business.

Instead of seeing what Steph and Babs are up to, we switch to Saint Nick and Jim Gordon looking over a murder scene, the rendering of which must have depleted national stores of red ink.  It seems the victim was an office worker who just got up out of his cubicle, locked himself in a spare room, and killed himself.  There’s also a metallic smell in the room, according to Nick.  Gordon remarks that Nick likes unusual cases (Mysterious Past Alert!) and hands the case over to him.

Babs, meanwhile, is showing Stephanie around her Oracle cave.  It is not as impressive as the Batcave, in that the roof is leaking.  And since they’re underground, under and apartment building, and therefore not getting rained on, I’m thinking that’s . . . let’s just call it ‘shower water.’  Ew.

Back to the office building.  An alarm goes off.  Nick goes to figure out what’s going on, leaving a female office worker alone.  The phone rings.  When she picks it up, it reads off a series of zeroes and ones to her.  She repeats that series, as the area around her eyes starts to build up what looks like a circuit board. 

Here’s why, even if this weren’t magic-as-science, that plan would never work.  I’ve answered phones for companies before, and as soon as I realize it’s a computer calling?  I hang up.  As would any other wage-making employee.  That was a long series of codes, and frankly, no one has time for that when they can be wondering about whether or not they can catch a quick nap in the bathroom.

Now if that code were embedded in a flamewar online, half the world would be assimilated.  Still.

Nick charges off in the direction of the alarm and finds a guy in a security guard’s uniform with a briefcase and a gun.  Nick accidentally drops his own gun.  The guy has circuit eyes.  Saint Nick?  You’re about to be a martyr, as well.

But wait!  A batarang knocks the gun from the guard’s hand.  So he does the next logical thing.  He goes out the window.   Stephanie tries to catch him with her grapple gun, but the line slips off his foot and he dies.

At the morgue, Stephanie broods, and the morgue tech finds ‘weird metal in his blood.’  If they survived for more than a year in the morgue in Gotham, I don’t believe a tech would find anything weird, but okay.

Stephanie gets a sample of the blood back to Oracle, and she finds little micro-metal-bugs attached to the red blood cells.  She calls up shipping manifests of the company that was robbed and finds that they have been hoarding technology from Apokolips.  She orders Stephanie back to the cave, explaining that, “He’s coming.”

The female office worker walks, with the briefcase that the guard stole, to a rural farmhouse.  The man inside, Calculator, takes the briefcase from her and tells her to kill herself, which she does.

Dude.  Johnny C has a point.

Calculator turns to a decomposing corpse on the chair next to him and says, “Marvin, my boy, my son, we’re going to get your sister back.  We’re going to save Wendy.  And you won’t want to miss the best part.  The part where I murder Oracle.”

I think Marvin has missed it, Calcy.  I know you’re disappointed, but maybe it’s time to make a new plan.

Conclusions:

Random Irrelevant Detail:  Marvin the Kid and Marvin the Corpse both appear to be wearing the same puffy down-filled vest.  Considering the way those things leak through even the slightest scratch, that Wonder Dog had to be fantastically precise killing machine.

Suckiness Advisory Warning:  Come on, DC.  Is there no book I can read that doesn’t have a Dead Kid storyline?  I know that this, at least, is a villain’s kid, so you’re not grimming up a perfectly good hero, but damn it, I hate Dead Kid storylines.

Overall Awesomeness Level:  Pretty high, despite the Dead Kid story.  There wasn’t too much angst despite the slipped jump line.  Calculator’s a good villain for Oracle.  And I always love stories where Stephanie gets dragged through the air behind something fast.  The poses and dialogue are so dynamic and fun for scenes like that.  And again, Johnny C.  Voice of Reason.

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Posted in Batgirl Play-by-Plays, comic books, reviews by Esther Inglis-Arkell |