Batgirl runs into some old friends from her time in Asia and is happy to see them. But is everything what it seems?
Batgirl #22
Writer: Hope Larson
Artist: Minkyu Jung
Colorist: Mat Lopes
Cover Artists: Dan Mora, Joshua Middleton (variant)
Publisher: DC Comics
What You Need to Know:
Early in this volume, Batgirl took a trip to Asia to increase her battle skills and to find herself. She had made some friends there. Kai was an old friend from Gotham, to whom Babs found herself attracted. May Hao, who is an MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fighter. Lastly, she trained with Fruit Bat, an elderly but very skilled martial artist.
What You Will Find Out:
The issue begins with a man threatening his ex-wife and children. Batgirl rushes in to save the day. As she moves in to protect the victims, the man hits her with some kind of an electrical blast from some fancy weapon. Batgirl has a hard time moving after that, but she overcomes it and takes her opponent out. She goes home and gets some rest.
The next day she goes to the farmer’s market with Frankie, her roommate. They run into Kai, her love interest from her trip to Asia. Kai seems to have gotten himself together and Babs agrees to go out to dinner with him. The two catch up and it looks like things might be good between them.
The next day, after class Babs decides that she needs to get back into MMA and stops by a gym. There she runs into May Hao, who she also met on her trip. May asks Barbara to spar with her. While they are getting ready, Babs notices that May is a lot more muscular than she used to be. May tells her that she has been working out hard with her new job. May had lost her gym that she owned because someone got hurt and she sold it to pay for damages. She now works for a new MMA organization in Burnside. Babs also notices that May has an implant in her arm. When she asks May about it, she says it is birth control. May ends up snapping at Barbara and they don’t spar.
Later, as Batgirl, she tracks down the MMA organization that May works for. She breaks in and finds more of the implants. It seems to be some kind of performance-enhancing drug. She hears screams and rushes to find May fighting in some kind of underground fight club. Batgirl ends up having to fight May who is totally under the influence of the performance enhancers. Her plan is to avoid May’s hits until May wears herself out. Unfortunately, May scores a hit and knocks Batgirl silly.
Batgirl is then visited by Fruit Bat. She realizes that this is in her head. Fruit Bat goes on to tell her that nothing since she got hit by the electrical blast, has been real. She is still in the apartment and she never took down the man. Fruit Bat tells her if she doesn’t wake up that she will die.
What Just Happened:
Babs just found out she was stuck in a mind loop. This is the first of the arc. That was a nice cliffhanger to end the issue with. Larson’s longer arcs are almost always better than the one issue stories. I enjoyed Jung’s art this issue and it fits in with the general art style for the series even though the book switches artists often.
Rating: 8/10
Final Thoughts: This was a strong, well-executed issue. The art was good and the writing was on point, with it connecting to earlier arcs in the series.