Barbara Gordon: Breakout #5: Locked Up but Not Locked In

Sparrow is alive, meaning if she recovers there’s a chance of her explaining herself.  We finally meet the politician Vanessa Woods, the one Savage has tried so hard to erase. As Barbara tries to introduce herself, Die interrupts, asserting her dominance in the prison yet again. We see another flash of Barbara’s personality here, which I feel has been sorely lacking as of late, as she reconsiders what went wrong in her last encounter before being able to turn the tide. Barbara explains her take on Die as it stands, used by Savage, but not the one who ‘killed’ Sparrow, as Sparrow was one of her people. In her rage, she kills Woods, and at the same time, Sparrow passes away in hospital.

We cut to Vandal Savage in a restaurant, finally seeing the man in this series for the first time. He’s enraged by the mess in Supermax. We don’t learn what his next move will be, but personally I’m hoping we get a bit of direct involvement from him in the plot. The lack of a compelling antagonist has made this run drag as it’s gone on, and Savage could inject a bit of charisma. Sparrow made a clicking noise before she died. Barbara realises she heard the same thing before she was attacked. The issue ends with her receiving a note that reads “I DID THIS FOR YOU.” We can only assume the ‘doing’ is killing Sparrow. I mentioned a few reviews ago that I didn’t trust Sparrow, but the whole thing seemed to have been dropped as the focus.

I remain struggling with this book. The pacing has continued to be really rough with very little to sink my teeth into. There’s only a few named characters, none of which have much going on. I’m tired of ending up at the end of an issue feeling like we’re exactly where we started. We learn so little each time, I think we could probably condense everything we’ve had so far down into maybe two installments. I also feel like Barbara is just getting beaten on repeatedly, it’s getting tough to watch when she is on the back foot so much as to not even be able to solve this mystery, she’s too injured, too tired and too stuck in the carceral system to be able to do anything. Maybe it’s my expectations that are out of order, maybe we’ll get to the end of this and go “Wow! All of that time toiling in prison really paid off”! Maybe I’m being impatient, but as it stands I’m finding this book unfocused and unwilling to show its hand in a way that is uncompelling.

My thoughts are pretty clear by now I imagine. I love the concept of this series but the execution has left something to be desired. I don’t think the current cast is enough to make it a page turner and the mystery is being dragged out without much to really say. If this series continues on I hope we can get past this initial mystery and move onto something more proactive, Barbara’s reactive personality in this run is getting hard to watch.