Review: Batgirl #50

Batgirl has managed to fix her memory and get The Fugue out of her head, but his plans do not stop with just her.  He has bigger plans for all of Burnside, unfortunately for him, he told Batgirl before messing with her memory.  She has recruited Black Canary, Spoiler and Bluebird to help take him down and save the city.

The Positive

The Fugue has assembled his own team from Batgirl’s adversaries in an effort to bring her down.  The Fugue has made for a really interesting villain, because at any moment you are never sure if anything you know about him is true.  Batgirl has pulled in Black Canary, Spoiler, Bluebird and her roommate turned helper, Operator.

Each team spreads out among the city.  The Fugue’s team is trying to install a device that will control everyone in the city while Batgirl’s crew tries to stop them.  Each villain and hero get their own section where we see them face off and fight.  There are even great fight cards for each one.

The story flows from one fight to the next as the heroes and villains face off.  All of it then culminates with Batgirl facing against the Fugue.  Batgirl shows her true strength as a character and a hero in how she defeats him, she sacrifices everything that she has gained from the last 50 issues to put a stop to him.  It’s a simply fantastic finale with some great emotional moments.

The Negative

The issue moves pretty quickly from one fight to the next, however they don’t spend much time lingering on any one fight and each fight wraps up pretty quickly.  We don’t get to spend more than a page or two on each one before moving on to the next one.  None of the fights really feel like much of a challenge for the heroes either.  For an oversized issue, we don’t get much depth except when it comes to the ending confrontation between Batgirl and Fugue.

The Verdict

This issue wraps everything up very well with an emotional ending and sets things up to be bigger and better in the next issue.  I really liked seeing all of the heroes come together, and she may not be the title character but I greatly enjoy seeing Stephanie Brown in a Batgirl book.

Batgirl goes big for the 50th issue and delivers a great adventure.