Ah, it looks like we won’t get too many more of these.  It is a bittersweet play-by-play indeed.

We start with Stephanie getting a message on her BatIpad, which projects a bat signal on a her wall.  Not subtle, Bruce.  Off she goes on an airplane to London, in what appears to be a costume that they would put on Doris Day in fifties if they wanted her to play a businesswoman.

1.  A bun with a pencil stuck through it.

2.  And entirely purple wardrobe, including a little purple rolling suitcase.

3.  Matching pearl necklace and earrings.  Outside of old movies and Lisa Simpson, does anyone wear pearls anymore?

She is waylaid in her Bruce-designated quest to get across town in 20 minutes by Squire, who proceeds to be British to the point of unintelligibility.  Basically, she knows that Stephanie is batgirl (and that knowledge is going to be out of date in three, two, one) and they have an assignment.  Off they go in a motorcycle with a sidecar that I so want, even though it would get me killed in San Francisco.

They pass various British landmarks on the way, and come up on guys wearing clocks who are trying to steal the ‘Greenwich Mean,” the standard for the world’s clocks.  It appears that it holds in place a time paradox.  The guy trying to steal it is Orphan, because he ‘always wants some more’.  Well-played.

The Mean is held in place by a sword in a stone (Britishness rising to dangerous levels), and when Orphan plucks it from the stone, it suddenly freezes the world.  Batgirl and Squire remain unfrozen because they were caught in the electrical flux when the sword was plucked.  Yes.  Magic.  The guys wearing the clocks seem to be unaffected.

Orphan goes out and uses the frozen time to try to kill the frozen Knight.  When Stephanie punches through a guy’s clock and breaks it, he freezes in time, too.  They know what they have to do!  Squire fights Orphan, but she’s getting slower.  The electrical (magic) flux is waning and she’s slowing down.

Orphan gloats, saying, “You’re slowing down, Squire.  And once you do, I’ll put your feather in my cap, too.”

Stephanie tackles him, rightly pointing out that euphemisms in British accents only make things sound creepier.  The guy says he can just wait until she slows down.  At which point, she holds up the clock she stole from him.  Game over!

Ish.  It looks like they unfroze Knight, locked up the other guys, and took the bombs off the hostages.  (Did I forget to mention?  The guys stealing the Mean had hostages with bombs on them.  As you do.)  Batgirl drops the sword back into the stone, and the world is saved.

Stephanie and Beryl(Squire) have a little discussion about what it means to be Batgirl and what it means to be a sidekick.  (It means musical chairs when it comes to continuity, apparently.)  They hit old London town, and Stephanie finally gets to the hotel wearing a t-shirt with the pattern of the British Union flag on it, and eating a chocolate bar . . . also with the flag on it.

Batman is apparently not an Anglophile, because he comes out of the shadows mighty pissed and beginning a story that we are told will continue in Batman Incorporated #9.

Conclusions:

Random Irrelevant Detail: On the motorcycle ride, Stephanie is wearing a bearskin hat.  I’m pretty sure wearing all that weight on your head on a motorcycle would snap your neck in two, but if anyone has photos of guards wearing those hats on motorcycles, I’d like to see them because they would be hilarious.

Suckiness Advisory Warning:  Well.  The book is going to be cancelled and the character is going to be shoved into obscurity along with another good character.  So that sucks.

Overall Awesomeness Level:  Extremely adversely affected by the suckiness.  Also, I feel like I overdosed on British.  But I look forward to Batman Inc and the last two issues of this series.  (Sniff.)

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