Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batgirl (Vol. 4), Issue #2 – “Cut Short, Cut Deep”! In the previous installment, we learn that the Joker, dressed up like Morty Seinfeld on vacation, shot Barbara Gordon in the stomach once. This caused her to be a paraplegic for only three years, and suddenly she’s miraculously ok. But now she has post-traumatic stress disorder and is incredibly antsy when trying to be Batgirl and stuff.

The Big Bad is some guy named “Mirror” who has a list of people that he’s killing one by one. Batgirl saved a family during a home invasion, and one of the young home invader punks was in the hospital recovering from Home Invasion-itis, but Mirror needs to kill him so Mirror shows up at the hospital to kill him. Batgirl hesitates after Mirror points a gun at her, and after Mirror kicks the kid’s bed out of the hospital room window a cop has the AUDACITY to accuse BATGIRL of murder just because she was IN THE ROOM while Mirror MURDERED THE KID.

I bet the next 40 issues comprises Batgirl’s boring-ass trial. I hope she lawyered up with Saul Goodman! Let us continue with Issue #2, all you frothing Batgirl fanatics!

Batgirl (Vol. 4), Issue #2 [December, 2011]
Written by: Gail Simone
“Cut Short, Cut Deep”

How nice of Batgirl to give us a little “Previously on Batgirl” exposition just in case you forgot the comic book you just finished four minutes ago. The alive cop, the one that didn’t die and also accused Batgirl of murder, tries to take vigilante justice into her own hands. Mirror blows this popsicle stand and shoots a cute grappling hook out of his big bad gun. Batgirl gives chase into the dark, dreary, and rainy Gotham night.

So it happened again, and this is pretty funny. Once Batgirl catches up with Mirror she accidentally kicks him too hard and they both end up toppling over the edge of a balcony. He’s hanging onto her, she’s hanging onto the edge, just like in the last issue during the home invasion. “Oh no oh no oh no oh no” she thinks, and wonders why she’s pushing it when she only got out of a wheelchair like seven hours ago. Mirror is nervous, he says he’s not supposed to die this way. Batgirl, foolishly, lends a helping hand, but Mirror takes advantage and hoists her above his head. “You’re on the list,” he says. Oh no! He tosses her off the building.

As Batgirl falls, she whips out her own grappling hook and latches on to an overhanging gargoyle bust. She avoids slamming to the ground, but ends up slamming into a parked taxi instead. Batgirl doesn’t seem very graceful. Batgirl gets yelled at by the taxi driver, who looks like the pigeon lady from Home Alone 2. “Whyncha go swoop over Metropolis and fight Larry Luthor!” she yells, and I agree with all of that as well.

Fightin’ with the locals! The true Gotham experience.

Back at the hospital, Alive Cop (Detective McKenna) is being difficult with the physicians, but it’s only because she’s just grieving about Dead Cop (Detective Dead Cop). Commissioner “Pornstache” Gordon pops in to chew McKenna out a bit, and McKenna tells him that they need a second warrant. “For Batgirl. She’s back.” This causes ol’ Commish’s eyes to practically pop out of his ginger skull.

Batgirl follows Mirror over to one of Gotham’s many, many, many, many, MANY, MANY, many cemeteries. While she and Mirror duke it out there’s a lot of unnecessary narration about how this particular cemetery keeps getting slated for demolition to make room for shopping malls, but the rich people of Gotham keep throwing money at the city government to stop it. This must be important, right? I’ll make note of it! *sprays my own dick with a fountain pen* Now then, Mirror punches Batgirl right in the breadbasket she’s like “OOOF THAT’S WHERE JOKER SHOT MEEEEE” so, again, it’s still dumb that she’s out here doing her Batgirling when she should be at home resting with a cool can of Clamato and one of those many drugstore checkout line magazines with George Clooney on them. She is most certainly trying to keep her hard-ass exterior through it all. Mirror flashes her his mirror, and she is unphased (unlike previous victims of the dreaded chest mirror). She continues to try to beat him up, but he’s big and strong and she’s small and not, apparently, and she’s getting her ass handed to her on a plate. Batgirl, though, attempts to outsmart him, you see, and she holds some paper up to Mirror’s face, and Mirror is all like “NOOOO!”. They hear police sirens and Mirror runs away. AND THE DAY IS SAVED! Way to go Batgirl, what would Gotham do without you?? Nice job!

You want some of this?! Yeah, didn’t think so! I’m 103 pounds of pure, flailing and thrashing fury! I’ve also got hollow bird bones! Step off!

Batgirl AKA Barbara Gordon (spoiler alert!) stumbles her way back home to the apartment, where she so-far has spent all of 10 minutes total. I forgot her roommate’s name already. Dorothy? Mary? Jonesy? Jonesaaayy. Gordon falls asleep in Jonesy’s bed, and Jonesy ain’t happy about it! However, Jonesy notices that Gordon is all banged up so she’s ready to send some domestic abuser boyfriend to jail tout suite! She tells Alysia (oh wait haha, her name is Alysia and not at all Jonesy) that she’s keepin’ secrets, so back off honey. Alysia is like “fine” and offers to make some soup. Gordon asks to borrow a dress. Alysia sneers at her.

BUT IT’S CUZ BARBARA GORDON IS GOING ON A DATE, Y’ALL! She’s dating her physical therapist! Whoops, that’s gonna end up being dumb! Goddamnit, Barbara…

They take a cozy walk in the park. Gregor (yuck) asks her why they never talk about getting her legs back. She says “WE’LL TALK ABOUT THEM WHEN THEY’RE BEHIND MY EARS, PUDDIN’!”. Ugh, no, fine, she says no such thing. She actually thinks she didn’t deserve it. Hmm.

The next morning, Gordon puts on her Batgirl garb to go hang out at the library. You know, for fun. She suspects Mirror went to the cemetery for insidious reasons. Corpse fucking? I wish! Actually, after some internet sleuthing, she discovers that a former federal agent named Jonathan Mills was married to an heiress of a large corporation…and his entire family was killed by a car bomb except him. Hmm.

She travels over to Mirror’s pad to start grilling him with this new information. Something doesn’t add up! Batgirl tries to connect the dots, figuring out that all these people on Mirror’s list are people who should have died but didn’t, and he’s taking it upon himself to finish the job Final Destination style! He believes that all these people who should have died wanted to die, and he’s being a good Samaritan by putting these people out of their misery? Sounds cool to me, guv’nor. But Batgirl doesn’t think so! She thinks this guy is cRaAaAaAaZzZyY! And maybe he is, for you see, there’s a guy who should’ve died on some train tracks a few months ago when he collapsed with a heart attack right on top of them. Someone saved him. Now Mirror is like “fuck that” and put a bomb on a train to kill this guy dead for good. Batgirl is like “NoOoooOOOooOOOooo!”

Hey, check it out, Michael Douglas from Falling Down rides this train!

Final Thoughts

This Mirror guy is a real rotten apple! I sure hope he gets his!

I think overall people were pretty down on this Batgirl reboot for reasons I can’t appreciate. Something about erasing decades of backstory, wah wah wah. I’m enjoying this. I like my heroes to have no Y chromosomes once in a while damnit! Plus, she’s not perfect whatsoever. Not necessarily an anti-hero, but I like that she’s a human being. Not like Bruce Wayne, who has the personality of a paper bag filled with semen.

This story is interesting! I like it better so far than the Court of Owls storyline from the first six issues of the New 52 Batman series. The biggest part that made me take pause was Commissioner Gordon’s “HUUUUHHHHH” face when Detective McKenna said Batgirl was back. Does the Commish hate Batgirl? Is this like him not knowing that Bruce Wayne and Batman are one in the same? And, most of all, I still want to know why the Joker was wearing a 95-year-old man’s vacation outfit when he shot Barbara in the stomach. Grrrr.