Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batgirl (Vol. 4), Issue #3 – “A Breath of Broken Glass”! In the previous installment, Batgirl aka Barbara Gordon aka Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon aka Gordon “Sting” Sumner aka Gordon “ALF” Shumway aka the Gorton’s Fisherman followed a lead on Mirror’s identity and discovered that Mirror was some guy who survived a car bomb that killed his whole family. This didn’t sit well with him, and now he wants to kill everyone that should have died as an act of kindness and mercy because he has nothing better to do with his time. Batgirl, who also has nothing better to do with her time and doesn’t seem to even have a job or a steady income or anything, wants to thwart this douchebag. BUT, this douchebag put a bomb on a train, so she has to go take care of that first.

Other things happened too! Barbara Gordon dates her physical therapist and I think he’s going to die in a few issues! A warrant is out for Batgirl, I guess, and the Commissioner might be ok with that? Does he have a beef with Batgirl? Did Batgirl shit in his coffee once? And what’s up with Barbara’s new roommate? Is she, uh, is she seeing anyone? All these questions and less will be answered!

Batgirl (Vol. 4), Issue #3 [January, 2012]
Written by: Gail Simone
“A Breath of Broken Glass”

Batgirl is second-guessing her desire to stop evil-doers, since this Mirror guy is pretty evil as far as doers go. She’s on her way to find the bomb-train so she can…uh, do something about it? She probably doesn’t even know what she’ll do yet. Mirror gave her an earpiece so he can talk to her while she goes off to do the superhero thing. “His whole motivation seems to be that he doesn’t think anyone should believe in miracles,” Batgirl narrates, morosely, “He says miracles are a lie–just a cruel prank. He’s wrong. I know he’s wrong.” You know what, if this comic series starts getting Jesus-y then I’m bowing out post haste! Of course, Batgirl only thinks this because she was shot in the stomach and rendered a paraplegic for only three years. So she wants to prove him wrong? Who cares? Go home and watch TV.

Batgirl lands on the runaway speeding train on the elevated rail. She bends over in front of a window and asks the operator if he can stop it or do anything. No. Batgirl is like “fuck”, anchors herself to the train with her grappling hook, and whips around the side to crash into the train through a window, effectively shattering harmful, sharp glass all over the already-traumatized passengers like some sort of huge asshole!

The left button is the “Never Find the Bomb On Time” button! Hah hah hah hah haaaaaah! The right button is for ordering nachos!

While Mirror taunts her via one-way walkie-talkie technology, Batgirl calls out for Rupert Ansell, the man who should have died on the train tracks a few months back and the reason Mirror is trying to bomb a train in the first place. Once she finds him, she orders the rest of the passengers to leave that particular train car. After they all leave, Batgirl sucks Ansell’s dick! Ha! It goes on graphically for the next nine pages! Haha! Wait, no, she doesn’t suck his dick, but Ansell does think she’s trying to make some moves on him at any rate. While Ansell just stands there bewildered, Batgirl attempts to connect the dots out loud to Mirror about why she’s on his list: she was supposed to die hanging on the balcony while stopping the Brisby Killers. ERGO, she needs to die ironically because Mirror likes to spend an extraordinarily unnecessary amount of time setting up and following through on making sure these people die similarly to how they were supposed to die. ERGO, Batgirl can’t be blown up, and so Mirror can’t kill Ansell while she’s on the train as well. Did I get all that right? Bleh. APPARANTLY, though, Batgirl forgot one thing…

…YES, the good Samaritan takes the train running in the opposite direction! Take that, Batgirl! (??) (???) Boom.

Goddamnit, I always, always, ALWAYS, forget about the good Samaritan! Grrrr!

Two hours after train go blowup, we see Detective McKenna frying eggs at home while bugging Commissioner Gordon who probably has better things to do than to tell one of his police detectives, AGAIN, that she can’t work right now. McKenna is like “fine” and hangs up, but she’s probably going to do some police work anyway because these kinds of comics do not mirror reality on a believable level whatsoever. Where I come from, cops don’t even do police work while they’re on duty. Barbara Gordon was already standing at the office door waiting for her dad to get off the fucking phone already, looking worried and numb. The Commissioner asks what’s wrong, Barbara’s laundry list of worries runs through her head but she doesn’t tell him anything. For secret identity reasons. What I’ve learned about comics so far is that secret identities are important because…… uh. Anyway, Commissioner Gary Oldman tells Barbara to be careful and cuts and runs to follow a fake lead that Batgirl gave him. Barbara wonders why everyone worries about her all the time. Probably because people keep trying to kill her? Yeah, gee, I wonder.

OOoOoooOOOOOOOoohhhh, pierogis!

Instead of being careful like Commissioner Daddy said, Barbara puts on her batclothes and flutters off into the night again because people in comic books don’t sleep for 46 days in a row. She heads over to the vehicle impound lot to recover her Batbike that she had to abandon in the hospital after, as you recall, she drove right inside the building and into the lobby elevator. Two seconds after she finds it a voice behind her goes “Stealing from the cops now, are we?” It’s Nightwing, AKA past-Robin, AKA Dick Grayson, AKA the 9-year-old superhero. Batgirl pretends that she knew Nightwing was following her this whole time, but she’s a filthy fucking liar. Nightwing was probably following Batgirl because he has a Robin-sized boner for her. Ah, apparently the feeling is mutual, because he sits behind her on the Batbike and wraps his arms around her as they plow through the closed gate of the impound lot…and she all like “yeah baby”. Her internal monologue talks about how she used to not like him in the past, but she can’t believe that these days. That’s kind of a bummer, because I’d much rather read a story where Nightwing and Batgirl fight like 5th-graders. He pulls on her hair, she kicks him in the dick. That kind of thing.

So Nightwing is worried about her, which Batgirl finds annoying because she was just complaining that everyone worries about her all the time. I starting to sense a pattern here that all these fucking MEN need to shut the damn-hell up and let Batgirl do her thing. Where’s Batgirl’s roommate? Get her in here instead! She’ll leave Batgirl alone. Nightwing asks her if she’ll be able to take Mirror on by herself; Batgirl responds by kicking Nightwing’s legs away from under him and grappling away! Ah, young love. *farts*

We cut to a flashback scene with Barbara and Dick talking to each other at what I assume is a Wayne Manor charity event. They flirt and shit. Well, they don’t shit. Maybe someone shits. Anyway, the point is they like each other but apparently they can’t be together? One of those tales as old as time, eh? Woody Allen and Soon-Yi made it happen! Jaime and Cersei Lannister? Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia? Am I implying that these two are also somewhat related! I hope so, that would be a funny twist!

We cut back to the present day, where Batgirl and Nightwing are playfully leaping around buildings in a game of superhero grab-ass. I feel like this has been going on for 10 pages. Come on, Gail Simone, who wants romance in their superhero stories?? GIRLS?! Just kidding, I’m basically a girl. Maybe it’s because I don’t care about either of these characters yet? I hope they get hit by a blimp during their fancy-free escapades.

Young love! The delicate dance of attraction! The push and pull! The punching and kicking and screaming!

Wait, something happens that still satisfies my cynical cravings for schadenfreude! Batgirl starts beating the tar out of Nightwing. It turns out their version of “flirting” really is just kicking the piss out of each other. Now that’s the kind of love I can relate with! After the tussle is over, Batgirl reiterates that she doesn’t want people to worry. She wants understanding and respect, not pity and comfort. She says that she’s going about this alone, and Nightwing can’t deal with that then she’s kicking his ass to the curb! Away with the zero, get yourself a hero, girlfriend. Nightwing begrudgingly acquiesces to Batgirl’s wishes and does a provocative pose as one final “get a good look at THIS because you’re not seeing it anymore!” before he fucks off into the night.

The judges give it a 10 for presentation, but a 4 for flavor.

Final Thoughts

Every single character sure is stubborn. Barbara Gordon, Commissioner Gordon, Detective McKenna, Nightwing, Mirror, George Costanza, Jack Shephard, Jack Bauer, Jack-Be-Nimble. I suppose it could go either way, but my prediction is that Barbara Gordon will prove herself right about being able to handle everything on her own, despite all these worrywart white-knighting MEN in her life that may think otherwise. You can’t really name yourself “Batgirl” without being treated like a girl, whether you’re 12 or 42 years old. I’m guessing most Batgirl stories over the years handle the heroine like a precocious, yet naively flawed individual.

There seems to be more to it than even that, though, which makes me still wonder if it will indeed go the other way. She’ll be proven wrong, she’ll bite off more than she can chew, and she’ll have a problem she won’t be able to get out of so easily? There’s nuance to this series that’s drawing me in. I think whatever happens, I’ll be surprised. Or not! Maybe the Joker will pop up and blast her in the gut with a shotgun this time! He’ll be wearing assless chaps and a cowboy hat!