Batgirl, Vol. 3: Death of the Family by Gail Simone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the third TPB to collect the Batgirl issues written by Gail Simone. When these were being published I had recently dropped almost all DC titles (New 52! My butt!!) and the "Court of Owls" storyline pushed me to drop the remaining Bat books. As good a writer as Simone is she was stuck in one of those situations where she had to put a halt to much of the story she had been writing so that Barbara Gordon and others could take part in the Court cross-over. Unfortunately, this makes this and the prior volume sometimes hard to follow, as part of the story was continued in the other Batman affiliated titles.

Once the Court arc is taken care of Simone is able to return to the storyline involving Barbara dealing with her guilt over her recovery and the return of The Joker. This is the phase where he was wearing his old face stapled onto his now disfigured one. I'm not blaming Simone for that stupidity, but it's still there and for me takes me out of most scenes where you see it in closeup.

Along with that Barbara must deal with the return of her mother, the somewhat strained relationship with her father the Commissioner and the escape of her serial killer brother, James.

Once everything is in place Simone does a great job of bringing everything together and moving along the lives of her characters. Generally a good read once things get straightened out.


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