Batgirls #1 - DC Comics

BATGIRLS No. 1, February 2022

Unreservedly supplying “the pizza slumber party of the year you don’t want to miss”, Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad’s narrative for Issue One of “Batgirls” must surely have pleased the better part of its audience when it first hit the spinner racks in December 2021 with its combination of boundless energy and pulse-pounding pugilism. True, the twenty-two-page periodical does contain a few sedentary, dialogue-heavy scenes in which the dynamic duo’s brand-new set-up on “the other side of town” is established. Yet such exposition is entirely necessary for those unfamiliar with the limitations being imposed upon their lives by the hacker Seer, and are frequently interrupted whenever Stephanie Brown wants to escape outside to pummel the local evildoers’ brains.

Indeed, one of this comic’s most endearing features is the restlessness of its cast, and the resultant trips into the “dark, gritty and oftentimes scary city of Gotham” to either seek revenge upon some idiotic muggers who take an unhealthy shine to Cassandra Cain’s favourite ‘unicorn’ robe, or rescue some mysteriously mind-controlled maintenance workers. Such interludes really help break-up some of this storyline’s more pedestrian moments with a quick blast of high-octane action, and also better emphasises just how chaotic the upheaval for Barbara Gordon and her two high-spirited friends really is.

Similarly as well-penned is this book’s underlying plot-thread that the titular characters have inadvertently landed themselves a residential flat smack bang in the middle of some nefarious crime wave. Whether the Batgirls’ “grumpy neighbour” really is the district’s sinister serial killer arguably sounds like something of a red herring. But there’s no doubting something evilly intriguing is taking place following the super-heroines’ encounter with a party of mantra-moaning fluorescent coat-wearing builders; “The strange workers eventually wandered off, and they called in the mugging from their burner phones.”

Helping imbue this publication with all its energetic, sense-shattering shenanigans are Jorge Corona’s layouts and Sarah Stern’s gorgeous palette of colours. The Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award-winning artist does a particularly fine job in pencilling the protagonists’ scrappy fighting style, with lots of high kicks, synchronised double-punches and incredible-looking athletic leaps, as well as providing Cain’s masked alter-ego with some genuinely humorous demoralised looks when she is being scolded by her mentor for staying out until three in the morning.

Story: Becky Cloonan & Michael Conrad, Art: Jorge Corona, and Colors: Sarah Stern