Batgirl #37 is published by DC Comics. It is written by Cecil Castellucci with art by Carmine Di Giandomenico and colors by Jordie Bellaire.
This is the first issue with the new creative team and they’re not wasting any time jumping in to things. A bit of a transitional build up would have been nice, but it’s DC’s Year of the Villain (YOTV) event, so they pretty much had to dive right in. Which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just that #36 was a pretty epic finale to Mairghread Scott’s run and now Oracle is flung back into the mix. I’m not sure how much time is supposed to have passed since the last issue either, but it’s been long enough for the Terrible Trio to find a new Shark.
While the Terrible Trio are venturing through the mountains, Batgirl is busy foiling the plans of a villain who’s usually an easy capture, Killer Moth. However, Killer Moth is different. He’s stronger, he has more tricks up his sleeve, and in particular, he’s somehow gotten himself a kinetic energy suit that’s capable of powering his gun. The whole fight, Killer Moth keeps talking about proving himself so he may get an “offer”, we don’t know what that means yet but we have a notice to “see many of the DCU books this month” – couldn’t have just given us a little hint, guys? That’s a lot of books to cover and I don’t exactly have the time/money to read every single one. Just saying.
Anyway, we’ve got this surprisingly cool fight between Batgirl and Killer Moth, then we cut back to Vulture, Fox, and Shark, doing their best to keep Oracle from possibly killing them by guessing the “password” it keeps asking for. Spoiler alert: it’s not going well. Now, Oracle does eventually chill out, but I won’t tell you why or how, it’s an interesting turn of events though and I’m assuming this is our slight allusion to what this “offer” is going to be about just because of who shows up.
Like I said, it seems a bit sudden to bring Oracle back and already have a new Terrible Trio member right after the events of issue #36. Plus we have some stuff thrown in there with Jason realizing his feelings for Babs might be more than friendship, which I’m indifferent to if I’m being honest. Its development I guess, but I don’t really find it that relevant right now. While Castellucci tackles all of this content well, it does feel like a lot for one issue. It could have definitely been split into two, but as I said previously, DC wants their event to kick off and everything needs to happen in specific order with specific timing or things will get thrown off. Hopefully that means next issue will be able to either split up or more effectively combine these three plots.
OVERALL SCORE: 8 / 10
Make sure to pick up Batgirl #37 from your local comic shop!
Happy reading!
