This is going to be a very atypical review, and one that will be a bit more brief than most.
Yesterday, Batgirl #15 came out, which for the most part isn’t a big deal to me. I had not purchased any of the previous 14 issues, nor had I any interest in buying this.
But when I was walking the stands at my local comic book shop, the remarkable cover from Dustin Nguyen sucked me in. The solitary image of Stephanie Brown/Batgirl out on the rooftops in brilliant watercolor, pencil and ink just completely floored me. As a fan of the Tim Drake Robin series, I had been a fan of Stephanie Brown for quite some time, yet for some reason I never picked this book up.
The cover brought me in, and once I flipped through the first few pages and saw Bryan Q. Miller and Nguyen’s simple, elegant and hilarious Cliffs Notes representation of the history the Batfolk, I was sold. The cover and this section are two of my favorite Bat-related anythings in quite some time, to be perfectly honest.
The comic itself was very, very solid. Considering that I hadn’t been reading it, I was pleased to find out jumping right in was no problem. Bryan Q. Miller writes Stephanie as an easy to relate to and interesting character, and the integration of Oracle into her day-to-day life along with Wendy (from Teen Titans) gives her an able and developing supporting cast. Throw in interior art from Nguyen that is also quite good, I went from not buying this book to buying this book, all thanks to a single, solitary cover. I’ll be back next month Team Batgirl. Keep up the good work.
Final Verdict: 8.0 – Buy
