COMIC: Top of the Stack - Batgirl #17 (Review)

Written by Bryan Q. Miller
Pencils by Pere Perez
Cover by Dustin Nguyen

Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $2.99

The second week of January brought several monumental series to my comic book stack. The last issue of the under-appreciated Thor: The Mighty Avenger came out as well as the long-awaited and ever-growing Spawn #200, along with easily the best Knight & Squire issue yet to be made. There was even a Wonder Girl one-shot that was fantastic and so close to being top of the stack, but in the end it was Batgirl #17 written by Bryan Q. Miller that won me over with its balance of fun and adventure accompanied with solid art.

Miller has been the regular writer on Batgirl since its launch in 2009 after the Battle for the Cowl Batman event, and has constantly delivered a solid book that would have been up for multiple top of the stack nominations had I been doing reviews for that long. Instead this is Batgirl's first time as top of the stack and I can not think of a more deserving series or issue to spotlight.

This issue highlights the chemistry between the Batgirl and Robin dynamic now that the next generation is fully implanted in the roles with Damian is Robin and Stephanie as Batgirl. Damian made a cameo in a previous issue but this time around you see more teamwork between the two, both in and out of costume. Miller's portrayal of Damian and Stephanie was perfect, making sure to push Damian out of his comfort zone but still acting accordingly to his personality and Stephanie still being the fun, wisecracker we remember from her Spoiler days but with a new sense of sisterly love for her surrogate "little brother".

All January DC is bringing a cover theme to their line of comics consisting of a spotlight on the book's cover along with that character's logo/symbol. Batgirl #17 had a beautiful rendering of Batgirl from regular series artist Dustin Nguyen. Nguyen did not draw the interiors for this issue, those duties fell to fil-in artist Pere Perez. Perez has regularly contributed to Batgirl titles and for the main book Perez did an amazing job of retaining the style and feel of Batgirl fans all know and love.

Batgirl has been a consistently solid performer in this new generation of books with Miller writing the character. My reservations for the title have been somewhat irrelevant as the newly created character Detective Gage's exposure has been little and easily ignored. I do worry about Oracle/Barbara not being in the book as much as readers were lead to believe at the launch of the book but I have no problems with Proxy filling in occasionally. Now if there can just be some Dick Grayson Batman teamups with Batgirl, otherwise I have no worries about the series always having a solid story behind it. It seems to be what Miller does regularly.

Check out Geek Plate's Tumblr for today's Batgirl themed picspam.