Batgirl #38 is published by DC Comics. It is written by Cecil Castellucci with art by Carmine Di Giandomenico and colors by Jordie Bellaire.
In the last issue, we were left with a couple cliff hangers: the first, an actual robot called “Oracle” was woken up by the hologram Lex Luther that’s been lurking around, the second, Batgirl was being viciously attacked by nanobots left by Killer Moth.
Needless to say, Barbara uses her wits to escape death only to show up at work where her co-workers think she’s being abused due to her unexplained injuries.
That’s a really interesting angle to approach. I mean, her co-worker, Jason, is reasonably worried about her. Your co-worker shows up with unexplained bruises regularly, always seems exhausted, and has excuses that don’t seem to make sense – any normal person would assume abuse and be worried.
Now Babs has to find a way to show him her injuries aren’t from abuse but she also can’t reveal her identity as Batgirl. I especially liked this because Jason wasn’t afraid to confront her about her injuries and didn’t give up even after Babs offered up excuses.
Abuse is a serious matter and even though we readers know it’s just a result of being Batgirl, I’m glad Cecil Castellucci had Jason act the way a normal person in that scenario should act. Also the brief Jayna and Zan appearance made me happy.
While I really liked the Batgirl/Barbara parts, this new “Oracle” thing is confusing at best and not a very good decision at worst. Perhaps it’s both. I don’t find it to be a good move, not given Barbara as Oracle or Oracle’s general mantle history.
Two people have been Oracle, the first, obviously, is Barbara Gordon following her paralysis at the hands of the Joker, and much later, a computer hacker named Gus Yale was inspired by Oracle and took the mantle following her disappearance (aka when Barbara returned to being Batgirl) but in Birds of Prey #19 (2018), Gus died.
And from my understanding, that was that with Oracle. There was Barbara, she returned to being Batgirl, there was Gus, he died. End of story. So where did this robot come from?
I guess they’ll explain later, but I don’t understand why Barbara would have built it in the first place and why she then discarded it. SHE was Oracle, not some AI that she programmed. The incredibly intelligent, strong, never-gives-up, Barbara Gordon.
So are we just going to pretend that all of her work while she was paralyzed is actually thanks to a robot and not herself? Why does the robot have boobs? Why would Barbara make a gender specific robot anyway? If it was a robot as Oracle, then when she returned to being Batgirl there would have been no reason for Oracle to cease existing. It could have been kind of like Alfred for her or something.
Anyway, the issue wasn’t bad. Carmine Di Giandomenico’s art and Jordie Bellaire’s colors were gorgeous as always and I really like the design of this “Oracle” character, I just don’t understand her purpose.
Hopefully things will be better explained in the future without totally retconning Barbara’s very important time as Oracle.
OVERALL SCORE: 7.5 / 10
Make sure you pick up Batgirl #38 from your local comic shop!
Happy reading!
