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DC’s Batgirl Changes Creative Teams: Stewart and Fletcher Take Over for Simone, Babs Tarr on Art

By | July 10th, 2014
Posted in News | 7 Comments

DC continues to announce various shifts and changes to their books and creative teams, and today comes a big one: Gail Simone’s run on “Batgirl” has come to an end.

As announced on #1 Comics News Site MTV, October will see Cameron Stewart and Brenden Fletcher taking over the book as the new co-writing team. Stewart is certainly a familiar face to many Batman fans, having been one of the artists to work on Morrison’s sprawling Bat-Epic, and Fletcher is actually co-writing another book with the previously announced “Gotham Academy,” so that’s two hands he has in the general Gotham pie now.

The book will feature some massive changes to the series as Babs endeavors to move away from the darkness emanating around her life and moves to Burnside, the “cool, trendy borough of Gotham, to focus on grad school.” Fletcher describes the book as “Veronica Mars meets Girls with a dash of Sherlock” and… wait, wait, this just in! Breaking news, but it appears that this is the best description of the book and appeals to most if not all of my interests. Sources tell me that this will certainly be a book I have to check out, and early indications appear to note that it’s one you will want to as well.

Joining them on the title is Babs “Not Gordon” Tarr, a newcomer to DC and an incredibly talented artist. Together with Stewart, Tarr has redesigned Batgirl’s costume, and it looks pretty great:

As Tarr notes, “I am excited to bring some flirt, fun, and fashion to the title! I don’t think you see a lot of that in mainstream comics and I am excited to bring that to the table. Who doesn’t love a sassy super hero?” Who doesn’t indeed. Given the amount of grim and darkness that has hovered over Gotham, especially in the New 52, it’s exciting to see a team that seems to want to inject a massive dose of fun and modernism to the gothic landscape, and that’s the kind of change I’m excited to see.

And, as a note that MTV left out, Stewart will also be doing covers and layouts and the magnificently talented Jordie Bellaire will be coloring the book, which is yet another reason why this book has quickly become the most hotly anticipated mainstream superhero this October.

Having launched the New 52 iteration of “Batgirl,” Simone’s presence in the book will be missed. While this isn’t the first time Simone has been relieved of the book, this time the split seems much more amicable, as “Batgirl” #34 indicates an arc ending, there’s no Twitter controversy over anyone being fired, and MTV’s article actually notes that Simone has a new project lined up. Simone’s been the preeminent voice for Babs in the New 52, so it’ll be interesting to see what Stewart, Fletcher and Tarr have in mind — but given the seismic shift the book appears to be undertaking, I would expect very good things indeed.

Still, it will be exciting to see what Simone has next. Maybe that Plastic Man project finally came together?

The new run begins with “Batgirl” #35 in October. In the meantime, those of us who typically do not read DC Comics because of the New 52 will be busy explaining to their retailers that no, we’re not joking, we know we dropped all of our DC books a while ago but just add “Batgirl” onto our pull, dammit, stop making this a scene.


Matthew Meylikhov

Once upon a time, Matthew Meylikhov became the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Multiversity Comics, where he was known for his beard and fondness for cats. Then he became only one of those things. Now, if you listen really carefully at night, you may still hear from whispers on the wind a faint voice saying, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not as bad as everyone says it issss."

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