Batgirl # 29: Gordons Don’t Give Up

Batgirl races to the museum. She has figured everything out. She knows that Detective Douglas is the new Grotesque and that he is working for Wyrm. Their plan is to blow up the museum to cover the fact that they have stolen the art and replaced it with fakes. She’s knows it all now. The only problem is that her implant is malfunctioning.

She enters the museum as Barbara Gordon. She talks with her dad a bit, who thinks she should be home resting. Detective Douglas tries to talk her into leaving. Barbara wonders if Douglas is beginning to get cold feet? She surveys the room to see if she can see any of the phantasm implants that Wyrm uses. She sees one for sure. She knows that several in the crowd will be under Wyrm’s control. She goes to the bathroom and changes back to Batgirl. She sets of a fire alarm to get people to leave the building.

Batgirl then confronts Douglas/Grotesque. She offers him help to get out from out of Wyrm’s control. She has a device that will block him. Grotesque says that Wyrm isn’t controlling him and that he has been doing everything of his own free will. Apparently, the woman we had seen previously wasn’t a dead lover, but an A.I. constructed girlfriend to help him feel like his life was more normal and that he didn’t have to deal with human misery every day on the job. He became Grotesque because he was jealous that the rich people her robbed from seemed to be immune to the darker sides of life.  His phantasm implant is activated, and he now has the appearance of a robot. There are several more “robots” in the crowd.

Commissioner Gordon tries to stop one of them, and he gets knocked out. Batgirl fights Grotesque, but she is getting weaker by the moment. Grotesque beats her and knocks her to the ground. She can see that her dad is unconscious and that the robots are preventing the crowd from escaping. Grotesque had ordered them to let the people go but they aren’t listening. Batgirl remembers that “Gordons never give up.” She then breaks Grotesque’s leg and drops him to the floor. She convinces him to let her use his device on him to break Wyrm’s influence. He returns to his normal appearance and tells her where the bomb is.  Batgirl goes for the bomb while he covers her with his gun. She stops the bomb, but Wyrm kills Grotesque remotely for betraying him.

Later, Barbara talks to Commissioner Gordon in the hospital. They both talk about their fears. Jim is worried that the work he does is never enough. Barbara feels the same. She is also worried about the surgery to put in a new implant. The issue ends with Barbara going in for surgery and Commissioner Gordon is confronted with some FBI agents who have questions for him.