Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batgirl (Vol. 4), Issue #4 – “An End to Dreams”! In the previous installment, a whole lot of story was crammed into some meticulously-illustrated panels, yes indeed. Mirror is trying to kill people who should have died by killing them in a way similar to how they should have died. Batgirl tries to catch Mirror at his own game, but Mirror knows how to play his own game better than Batgirl, so a train blows up and Batgirl is forlorn about failing. Later, she meets up with Nightwing who she used to fuck. No, sorry, this is a “Rated T for Teen” production. She meets up with Nightwing who she used to “play chess with” and after a few panels where Nightwing “puts her in check”, Batgirl “steals his queen” and then Nightwing “tells Batgirl to go eat shit” and flies away. Got me? Ugghhhhh, ok, so Batgirl insists that she wants to work alone and she’s tired of everybody worrying about her, including but not limited to, uh, the people who really care about her.

And that’s it! You’re all caught up! Let’s get a move on.

Batgirl (Vol. 4), Issue #4 [February, 2012]
Written by: Gail Simone
“An End to Dreams”

With the cover art showing Batgirl kicking Mirror right in his stupid mirror face, I’m guessing that we’re going to witness an EPIC BATTLE of GOOD VS. EVUL, one where Batgirl earns herself seven years of bad luck! Uh oh!

Batgirl is in a wheelchair getting yelled at by another non-Batgirl Barbara Gordon, who is standing on two legs. Mirror is there too. The band is back together, it seems! Non-Batgirl Barbara Gordon is asking Batgirl why she thinks she deserves this miracle, the getting-up-and-walking-around miracle. “WHY CAN’T YOU LOOK IN THE MIRROR, BARBARA?” Barbara says to Barbara while Mirror’s mirrors are all around her. She wakes up.

Nightmares all the time and Barbara chalks it up to survivor’s guilt. ‘Tis Christmastime, and Barbara’s roommate (Jonesy! No, Alysia, it’s Alysia) is spread-eagled in front of the glowing Christmas tree in the middle of the night. She sits on the floor with her, and Jonesy starts talking about Christmas in Singapore and her desire to make a living painting and cooking. All the while, Gordon’s inner monologue keeps talking about how lonely she is and how she rarely opens up, but feels like opening up now. So I think Barbara’s gonna fuck Jonesy in front of the Christmas tree. Sorry, it’s Alysia, her name is Alysia.

Wait, what?? Big secret! BIG SECRET! You can stick around for one more sentence! GAHH!

So Jonesy asks Gordon what the best Christmas present she ever got was, and Gordon begins the answer with “My mom walked out on us when I was just twelve years old…” so I bet Jonesy/Alysia is regretting that question already. But, she ends up instead talking about last year’s Christmas when Commissioner Dad told wheelchair-bound Barbara that there was a healer in South Africa! Once Alysia realizes that the wheelchair she saw while Barbara moved in (from Issue #1) was actually hers, Barbara wishes she hadn’t started talking about it in the first place. Alysia feels the tension in the room so she is like “haha uh hey so uh I have a secret too”, but Barbara gives me some blue balls with this goddamned response: “gotta go, see you later”. It’s like 2am, Gordon, you can hear your roommate say one more sentence before you fuck off. Maybe she has a collection of her murder victims’ teeth that she keeps as a necklace? Maybe she wants to bone you? Goddamnit. I want to see some bonin’.

Batgirl prances around the snowy urban landscape in the dead of night in search of Mirror. I was going to make another crack about Batgirl never sleeping, but since we just saw that she has nightmares I guess I’ll leave her alone about it for now. Bah.

Elsewhere in the city, an alley crime is happening! Maybe they should remove all the alleys in Gotham City, I’ll run that one by the Commissioner since he and I are like this *motions finger penetrating a circle over and over*. A well-dressed socialite-type couple is being shaken down by some rude thugs with iPhone apps that tell them where Bat-related superheroes in the city are at the moment. I guess the app doesn’t check for Batgirl because of possibly misogynistic reasons? She swoops down on them and starts fucking them up. Merry Christmas you filthy animals! Ha! Home Alone! After she makes short work of these scoundrels, the couple is pleased and thankful. A superhero’s job is never done, I suppose, unless they die!

“I despise vulgarity”?? You know what I have to say to that? “GUH HHK”. That’ll learn ya.

Batgirl heads over to the graveyard where Mirror’s family is buried. His wife Shandra and his two twin girls Tabitha and Jennipher. Yeah, I threw up in my mouth a little too. Batgirl recaps the whole Mirror-car-bomb-he-survived thing again, except now she says he was a DEA agent and the cartel planted the bomb in his car. Was that mentioned before? Probably, but I’m sure I glossed over it when I was in a fevered frenzy over the Joker’s stupid hat. Batgirl knows that Mirror is going to come back to the graveyard since it’s Christmas Eve and all, so she leaves him a note on one of the snowy graves. He finds it and reads it:

“Mirror. You have no right to be here. You shame your family’s memory with every name you scratch off the list of yours. You were a victim. And now, you are a murderer. And I have no sympathy for you. Millions of people have suffered tragedy, and had the courage to continue living. To kill innocent people to stop your own pain and guilt is the act not of an angel, but of a coward. I have given the GCPD all the names of the targets on your list, as well as your modus operandi. If you want to face me, I will be at Sprang Park near the old Botanic Gardens. You’ll know the building when you see it. Signed, –BATGIRL”.

That shit is weaktoast! Here’s a better note:

“Mirror. Suck my dick! I oughta box your ears, you terrible little sea urchin! You are a slimy little pile! A feckless chump! A quivering stump! A real gutter pigeon from the River Styx courtesy of Mr. Devil himself! Back to Planet Shit where you belong, Sparky!”

Ohhhh shit. Ironic punishment alert! In my business, we call that “writing”.

That’s more like it! It seems Sprag Park is an abandoned run-down carnival. “Look around you, this place is as broken as you are.” Batgirl taunts Mirror only with overwrought irony and poetry, and to add yet another overwrought layer to the overwrought cake of turds, she leads him to the House of Mirrors. There she BLINDSIDES him and starts punching and kicking him, she even gets in an elbow drop to his back. However, just like the other nine fights so far in this series, her initial success is short lived and Mirror grabs her by the scruff. “You used my wife and daughters’ graves as BAIT?” he asks incredulously. Looks like Mirror’s line was crossed! Batgirl knees him right in the jaw, breaking his mirror face (CALLED IT!) and causes him to bleed profusely with what looks more like Open Pit barbecue sauce than blood to me. Batgirl uppercuts his chin with a hearty KRAKOW, which we all know was the capital of Poland until 1596. As Mirror collects his bearings and leaps to attack, Batgirl clicks on a film projector out of nowhere (seriously) and shows him the news headline of the car bomb incident on the funhouse mirrors. He doesn’t like this either. Maybe he didn’t know?? He starts losing his mind a bit, and Batgirl punches him yet again. “We live in Gotham City, Mirror” she reminds the poor sap. Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. “And people get their miracles whether they deserve them or not” she adds as a bit of an epiphany for herself as well.

We end the issue with Barbara and Alysia opening Christmas presents and then BOOM! A KNOCK ON THE DOOR. BARBARA’S MOM OUT OF NOWHERE. KRAKOW!

Yeah, ok, slow your roll there, red-haired lady. I’ve already got mothers all over town!

Final Thoughts

This is both hamhanded AND hamfisted! So much ham! Why do these superheroes have to make these elaborate schemes in the first place? Of course it always goes their way, but there was a 99.9999% chance that Mirror was gonna be like “Nah fuck that” and skip going to Batgirl’s Carnival of Poetic Justice, leaving Batgirl waiting all night going “buhhhhh”.

It appears that even though the Mirror threat has been neutralized, there’s a NEW threat in town. The MOM threat. Batgirl has already survived a bullet to the gut but can she handle MOM!?! Oh Gail Simone, you sure know how to spin a yarn! Spin it into a sweater of feces. Tell me about Alysia’s big secret, damnit, what about that?

Argh.