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Reading this makes me so glad I never cared about any of Batman's sidekicks to start with.

Wha?

Holy exposition, Batman!

I couldn't even be bothered to let more than half of the second page load. How many different people have been writing this character, and have they ever talked...?

But Spoiler's still dead, right?

What are you talking about? I love ridiculously convoluted exposition that reads like a conversation between nerdy junior highers trying to "tie things together" at the end of their own comic.

*migraine*

I couldn’t even be bothered to let more than half of the second page load. How many different people have been writing this character, and have they ever talked…?

I think the best bit was how they were going to use the drug thing to explain why she killed people, but then someone must have noted, “But we had her kill someone AFTER we got her off the drugs!” so then it became, “Uhmm, yeah, but you see, she wasn't FULLY off the drugs yet - just long enough to do that murder - then she was off them totally.”

Talk about handling a character just horribly.

This is should be textbook on how not to do explain a complicated back-story, see Johns, Geoff for a correct methodology.

Makes me long for the brevity of Claremont...

Could someone explain to me what exactly is wrong with these pages? Beechen said he would explain the continuity issues, which is what he did on these pages. Batgirls speech improvement=> she took courses. Batgirl becoming evil=> Slade drugged her. The rest is basically a recap. So what did he do wrong?

Dear...lord...

I don't think we've seen the likes of this since Hawkworld Annual #1. And that was written by a competent writer...

And I nominate "She had League mystics restore Lynx, dead since the Gang War, then killed her again, put her in a Batgirl costume and framed me for her 'murder." as the worst caption of the decade. (And shouldn't those air quotes be around 'her' instead, Robin?)

Wow, that's bad.

And why are random words bolded for emphasis?

Meh, she was much more interesting as a villian anyway.

That was the worse exposition ever. EVER! Not only does it not make any sense at all, ignoring the fact that's it too convoluted and murky, at best, it's just plain stupid. I understand this is comics we're talking about, which gives enormous amounts of leeway to the absurd in its suspension of disbelief, but this is over the top. It sounds like someone failed Plot 101.

Could someone explain to me what exactly is wrong with these pages? Beechen said he would explain the continuity issues, which is what he did on these pages. Batgirls speech improvement=> she took courses. Batgirl becoming evil=> Slade drugged her. The rest is basically a recap. So what did he do wrong?

While Lucas might have been a bit hyperbolic, his explanation is a good one overall.

So see above.

I stopped reading halfway through. That's some truly cringeworthy, ass-backward, after-the-fact exposition.

So so so so so

After all this bull they're tapdancing as fast as Wally West trying to make us NOT NOTICE as they take a character they JUST SAID killed a whole bunch of people and try to welcome her back into the bat-family, headed up by "MISTER No Killing" Batman, who's standing RIGHT THERE helping cover her ass, all on the deranged supposition that everybody cares just too much about Cassandra Cain and she must be redeemed or excused at all cost. All this WITH a Batwoman waiting in the wings so it's not like they would even lose a female bat character.

All the shit he gave Huntress to make her quit being Batgirl because she killed, and now it's okay to let the current Batgirl do all this because they're deeming really bad writing with just regular bad writing.

Redeeming, not deeming, pardon me.

Yeah, I got this yesterday and had a pretty similar reaction to these pages. In all fairness, the rest of the issue isn't this awful. I'll still likely be passing on the rest of the miniseries, though.

These are the times I long for a simple "evil clone" or a no-frills "brainwashing" explanation.

I mean, would it be so hard to simply say "She was brainwashed with mind-altering drugs, but she's better now?" Then just move on to whatever actual story this mini-series has. I mean, Geoff Johns frequently recapped Hawkman's backstory in a page or so during his run on the title, and that takes talent. I think there was less text on most pages of Grant Morrison's Batman prose issue.

The only way to save this scene would be for Alfred to walk in with some drinks and make some pithy remark about how convoluted it all sounds.

If a writer absolutely has to do something like this they can at least give reader a knowing wink to show how ridiculous it all is. It's the dead-pan seriousness of it all that makes it seem so stupid.

Good God. Comic books are retarded.

Wow. That was utterly ridiculous.

I kept hoping Batgirl would butt in with "Hello! Standing right here! You can stop talking about me like I'm in the next room!"

I think the best bit was how they were going to use the drug thing to explain why she killed people, but then someone must have noted, “But we had her kill someone AFTER we got her off the drugs!” so then it became, “Uhmm, yeah, but you see, she wasn't FULLY off the drugs yet - just long enough to do that murder - then she was off them totally.”

The best part about that bit is that those killings happened in a story that came out concurrently with the story where she got off the drugs, so pretty much everyone had accepted by now that that story just happened before she got detoxed. No further explanation was needed. I suppose I have to kind of admire the sheer fanboyish bullheaded determination to make everything fit exactly as it appeared on the pages, though.

The "she brought Lynx back to life, then killed her again" bit was the part that made me crack up, though. And even as a Batgirl fan who enjoyed this book quite a bit more than Batgirl fan orthodoxy allows, these two pages were utterly horrific storytelling, particularly given the major new (lame) revelations about David Cain that were made in it.

That is the most awkward exposition since the Silver Age.

I kept hoping Batgirl would butt in with “Hello! Standing right here! You can stop talking about me like I’m in the next room!”

They could have even added, "Hello! I'm standing right here, using the language skills I picked up in an accelerated course which is why I can talk perfectly now!" That could have saved a paragraph of exposition right there!

So if I tear these two pages out of the book (oh stop it, it was never going to be worth more than cover price anyway), is the rest worth reading?

Not really, no.

But the rest of it IS a lot better than this (how could it not be, right?).

Well, yeah. Too bad they fubared her. It was good to see someone back in the costume.

I kept hoping Batgirl would butt in with “Hello! Standing right here! You can stop talking about me like I’m in the next room!”

I know the feeling well.

Thanks Brian, i love unintentional humor-- its a must buy.

Not only is a wall of text generally bad for a comic book, but it's especially bad for a Batgirl book, since she's all about movement and fluidity and specifically not about static images and lots of writing. Even just replacing the images in those two pages with something that suggested movement would have been a massive improvement.

Superboy Prime punching reality has never looked so attractive.

Wow. They've attempted to "fix" problems created by incompetent writing by throwing a truckload of incompetent writing at the readers. It's like trying to heal 3rd-degree-burn victims by setting their clothes on fire.

I don't even know what to say, except that this is exactly the kind of thing that people who call superhero comics "retarded" and "childish" are talking about. This IS retarded, childish, insulting and ridiculously convoluted. This is a level of writing that I would expect from 10-year-olds: "She brought her enemy back to life, then killed her again, then she learned to talk real fast despite her previously-established total inability to communicate verbally, and now she's good again because it was all a mindcontrol drug!!"

This scene is a textbook example of BAD COMICS: inaction, excessive verbiage, the compulsive need to fit even the most mediocre stories into a continuous timeline, words emphasized randomly along acres of soul-crushing exposition, offensive leaps of logic and stilted characterization. This is the sort of comic book that deserves to be ripped to shreds and burned to ashes.

I've been reading comics for more than thirty years, but this is SO BAD that it actually makes me question my hobby. This sort of worthless pap makes me ashamed to read superhero comics. This, my friends, is the anti-Watchmen.

The anti-Watchmen, that's one of the signs of the apocalypse right?

I didn't read it, because I'm bored with words.

But those are some really bizarre and ineffective camera angles on the second page, there.

Could someone explain to me what exactly is wrong with these pages? Beechen said he would explain the continuity issues, which is what he did on these pages

And that's what Johns said he'd do with Green Lantern Rebirth, but that was actually, surprisingly, entertaining.

None of that Batgirl business was.

Wouldn't it just be better if all this was swept under the rug and completely be forgotten.

Heh. I found it silly enough to be funny, at least.
Reminded me of those stupid scenes in that damn Yu-Gi-Oh cartoon the kids like where the plot grinds to a halt so that the characters can deliver an extended lecture on how their cards (or weapons or whatever) work against each other in which combinations.

Why couldn't she have just made a deal with Mephisto like the other one?

Look at the bright side---it took longer to read the issue than any other standard sized comic book.

Question from one who missed almost all of this ("missed" may be too strong of a word)-- How much more of the art would have been blocked if footnotes were still in common use? (How many different comics did the characters summarize in these 2 painful pages?)

I wouldn't call this the Anti-Watchmen, since it was only two pages. The Anti-Watchmen is actually Wolverine: Evolution, since it's as bad as those two pages but lasts 6 issues.

I want to know what "evil serum" deathstroke used. I'm thinking his own mix of ground up Hitler bones with some basil thrown in for some flavor.

(How many different comics did the characters summarize in these 2 painful pages?)

Comic titles or comic issues? Because it's at least four titles (Batgirl, Robin, Teen Titans, 52 and possibly more), and probably about 50 issues. So no, footnotes wouldn't have helped at all...

At least the art saves the book.... oh no, wait.

So...what...?
Is the comic world's latest catch-word "exposition"?
*ugh*

"Because it’s at least four titles (Batgirl, Robin, Teen Titans, 52 and possibly more), and probably about 50 issues. So no, footnotes wouldn’t have helped at all…"

But it would have been amusing seeing the whole page be nothing but word balloons and footnote boxes...

"So so so so so

After all this bull they’re tapdancing as fast as Wally West trying to make us NOT NOTICE as they take a character they JUST SAID killed a whole bunch of people and try to welcome her back into the bat-family, headed up by “MISTER No Killing” Batman, who’s standing RIGHT THERE helping cover her ass, all on the deranged supposition that everybody cares just too much about Cassandra Cain and she must be redeemed or excused at all cost. All this WITH a Batwoman waiting in the wings so it’s not like they would even lose a female bat character.

All the shit he gave Huntress to make her quit being Batgirl because she killed, and now it’s okay to let the current Batgirl do all this because they’re deeming really bad writing with just regular bad writing."

The difference is, she was brainwashed. Huntress wasn't.

Also, after 52 Batman has been kinder and more forgiving. He isn't as big a dick now as he was when he treated Huntress like crap.

Well, let's see. In roughly chronological order:

A little bit of Batgirl #73
World War III Book Two
Robin #148 - #152
Supergirl #14
Teen Titans #43 - #46
Robin #161 - #162
A probably never-to-be-published Detective Comics fill-in by Chuck Dixon, which was going to cover Batman taking Batgirl in again and offering her a place in the Outsiders. Which may or may not have actually agreed with this version of events.

I don't keep up with the character or the DCU in general, but Batgirl is in the new Outsiders. I got the first 5-6 issues of that but dropped it.

"This scene is a textbook example of BAD COMICS: inaction, excessive verbiage, the compulsive need to fit even the most mediocre stories into a continuous timeline, words emphasized randomly along acres of soul-crushing exposition, offensive leaps of logic and stilted characterization. This is the sort of comic book that deserves to be ripped to shreds and burned to ashes.

I’ve been reading comics for more than thirty years, but this is SO BAD that it actually makes me question my hobby. This sort of worthless pap makes me ashamed to read superhero comics. This, my friends, is the anti-Watchmen."
I'm laughing at this bit. You want bad comics - just read Batgirl 66 or 68 onwards.

Wow. Talk about an info-dump...

Actually, you know who I feel bad for? Jim Calafiore. There's no way in hell to draw that script and make it look good.

Look at the bright side—it took longer to read the issue than any other standard sized comic book.

'The food was terrible... and in such small portions!'

Wait, so the cops knew Internal Affairs were setting them up?

W.....T.....F????

OMG that's just terrible.

Beechen USED TO BE an okay writer. At least, I thought so. I guess I thought wrong.

Better to have just ignored the other stories and let someone else deal with them. Seriously, "Superboy punched it" is a more elegant solution than this load of tripe.

Yes.

He did, indeed, make things even worse.

And the dumbest part? He STILL doesn't really get why Batgirl doesn't kill (when she's not drugged with Magical InstaEvil Drugs). He seems to think its only because she made Batman some kind of promise--cutting out the power of her actual, very essential, very moral, origin story.

It's not even that hard to explain, Mr. Beechen, if you are reading this. The biological daughter of two of the most evil #$&ks in the DC Universe, Cassandra Cain was raised like an animal, by her father Cain, to become the world's best assassin. At age 8, on her first assassination mission, taught to regard it as some kind of game, she watches the man she's killed as he dies, and unseats the entire Nature vs. Nurture debate--because without either favoring her, she's utterly repulsed by what she's done, so she escapes her father's clutches and wanders for years, until she encounters the Bat-Family.

See? Not that hard. And yet now, on your second try, you still don't seem to comprehend it. She's not being held back from killing by a mere promise. She knows killing is evil on an instinctive level--through the power of her own self-realization. This is NOT a small detail--its everything.

And yeah. That exposition info-dump ALSO sucked.

Certainly, it's bad. But I really have to wonder what the alternative would have been.

Ignore it? Certainly it has its attractions and that would probably have been my solution. But the classic example of that solution backfiring was Hawkworld. That was the DC test case for exactly the same screw-continuity-let's-just-go-forward approach so many of you are calling for now, and all that creative team heard for the first year or so of the ongoing was demands for an explanation of the continuity problems. So they finally took a swing at it -- a pretty fair attempt, but it was too little, too late, and just like this one, it ended up just making things worse.

The readers have been training the creators of superhero comics over the last three decades that they DARE NOT ignore this kind of thing. The continuity police make up the core readership now. So they have to address crap like this. Truthfully, it looks like editorial went to Beechen with an attitude of, "You broke it, you fix it."

"They should have let Geoff Johns do it" SOUNDS good, but you know, the guy's not some sort of wizard. I saw exactly this kind of snarking and sneering when Rebirth came out. (I even did some myself, I confess, but that was more about the execution; even a grumpy old coot like me knew that the mess had to be cleaned up somehow if a new Hal Jordan book was to succeed.)

The interesting thing to me is that it looks a little like they're backpedaling off the new Batwoman with all this. I suspect that commercially Cassandra's a better bet -- her book had a respectable run, and the first five years or so of it were very popular with many of my girl students; in fact, they liked the Kelley Puckett stuff almost as much as some of the mangas I had lying around. Offhand I'd guess a young teen Batgirl is a seriously commercial idea in terms of youth appeal, much like the original Robin was.

So you do the fix and get it out of the way and don't look back. It's the only option we give Marvel and DC any more. Granted, it's clumsy, but I think it's kind of kicking a cripple to yell at them for doing what readers demand.

Honestly, if I'd been handed the assignment I don't know that I'd have done better. I probably would have tried to contrive some sort of impostor/clone plot because I can't see Batman forgiving a killing under ANY circumstances. Maybe something jumping off the recent Peter Tomasi arc in Nightwing, riffing on the idea that the League of Assassins is experimenting with genetically engineered clones of the Bat Squad, and Bad Cassandra was one of them. Start the mini with good Cassandra being held captive in some lab somewhere, slowly coming out of her drugged state as she builds up a tolerance, finally breaking out and embarking on a quest to redeem her good name, having to dodge both the Batman and company and Talia and the League, with a big international plot.... on the run, starting from NOTHING, gradually building to a big battle royale with Bad Cassie. Something reminiscent of The Bourne Identity, but with Batgirl. Something like that.

So yeah, it could have been done better... but it's not fair to splutter about why they bothered to do it. They did it because we insist on it. I think that's a given.

OMG. SO BAD.

Although Beechen probably didn't help write it himself, the Wikipedia summary of Countdown's storylines just about tops this for nonsensical 'what the fuh?'-ness. Just like this, it seems to be just words on a page with no meaning connecting them, no matter how many times you go back and read it again.
Seems Batgirl's post One Year Later stuff, just like Countdown, Salvation Run and Amazons Attack, kind of makes you think what was all of that for? where was it going? was the original plan (thats now been bent so out of shape it makes no sense) so bad that you have to serve up THIS?
Bourne Identity Batgirl sounds great Greg, they should have handed you the assignment. And burnt Adam Beechen at the stake...
A bit harsh maybe. I assume he did something worth reading to become such an in-house go-to guy for difficult stories. Unfortunately, I'm only aware of him through stuff like this... Is it some kind of community service hes being forced to perform?

Egads. That gave me a headache. Why didn't they use that most well worn of retcons It was all a dream, or even DC's old standby "This is an imaginary story"

These are the two pages that caused me to put this one back on the shelf.

That's so bad that it's half the fun.

My favorite part is her line at the end. "And then I came home." I don't know why I find it so funny, but I do.

This scene is a textbook example of BAD COMICS.

I agree... with a small caveat.

This scene is a textbook explanation of how to kill a franchise character! And it wasn't just one thing... No! It was a progressive string of bad ideas compounded by even worst ideas!

And to think that the first 50 issues of Batgirl (and their corresponding Trades) were some of the best selling/critically acclaimed bat-books of this era's "earlier years".

Beechen gets paid by the word. SImple as that. He's got the Standard Don McGregor contract!

It really comes down to "How do you make sense of a storyline that made no sense?". The answer is that you can't. No explanation (other than clones or alternate universes) would have worked because the whole thing began with a basic misunderstanding of the character and proceeded with a series of events that can't be undone.

Considering that the ending to the Supergirl story might have been a dream, I'm surprised that encounter was mentioned.

After seeing this, I flipped through the issue itself for curiosity's sake... and THIS MAY NOT EVEN BE THE WORST BIT.

Having Nightwing, who spent the better part of a year's worth of comics trying to reform Ravager, bitch out Batman for basically doing the exact same thing with someone who, let's face it, should have at least earned the benefit of the doubt with the crew is reeeeeallly bad writing.

Geez, remember when we were all "Beechen is kicking ass on JLU, move him onto higher-profile stuff!" Proves that we're not right all the time, I guess.

Worst two pages all year? As long as Didio's running things, DC will top that before 2009. Also, Jeph Loeb has some more books coming out this year, including the revelation issues for two mysteries, the Red Hulk mystery and the mystery of what's going on in Ultimates. Jeph Loeb explanation issues for his mysteries are always pretty horrible and riddled with plot holes (think of his recent Wolverine run). I have faith in Loeb to beat Beechen.

The interesting thing to me is that it looks a little like they’re backpedaling off the new Batwoman with all this. I suspect that commercially Cassandra’s a better bet

As a fan of Cassandra, I'd love to think that's the case, but I don't really think so. This is a nearly completely unhyped mini with a no-name creative team; I doubt it is anything more than an attempt to appease the die-hard fans and maybe test the waters to see if the controversy over all this has produced enough interest to make it worth their time to relaunch a Batgirl ongoing. (Which I doubt will prove to be the case given that this book is a year or more too late to strike when the furor was at its height.)

Batwoman still has the quasi-announced, sure-to-be-hyped ongoing by a popular creative team coming, and Batwoman #1 is almost sure to outsell this by a large margin, even if it also suffers the problem of being far too late to take advantage of her initial hype.

Greg Hatcher,

I agree that something HAD to be done. We've been moaning and screaming about that for a long time.

That said, there are ways to do it where the exposition is more natural, and certainly not this cold. While Cassandra isn't typically the most demonstrative of characters, this would have worked a dozen times better if there'd been a confrontation between her and Dick, she'd gotten upset and marched off, and Robin or Alfred (both even better choices for the task than Batman) had filled in the blanks in a little one-on-one on the side. And instead of being one big dump, the explanation could have been split into pieces. Part we'd hear as Dick got it explained to him, and part would follow Cassandra around as an internal monologue of hers after she left.

But that's all details. There's a point that's been brought up that explaining what happened isn't nearly as important as simply undoing it--once and for all. And insisting that Batgirl's big dilemma now is a broken promise, rather than the actual moral pain we know she should actually feel about knowing she killed, is what's still ruining this.

I couldn't agree more, Spiffy. I think it's silly to call those of us who want the characters to remain true-to-form, or at least change with, and within, good reason "continuity police" and state that our insistence that comics be good is what causes crap like this.

There are at least 239723487 ways this could have been done better. What you see above is either laziness or petulance - or, flatly, the best someone who doesn't comprehend the form can do. This is sequential art; the art should tell at least as much of the story as the writing. When you have too much writing, you have a problem. But that's a bit of a digression, because the problem here is that the writer tried to "just" get the whole thing out of the way and move on - which is why my vote is for petulance.

It reads like the editors told him to fix it and he got mad and decided to do it as in-your-face and fast as possible so he could get it out of the way and get on with the story he wants to tell, which is apparently not one anyone cares to hear. Maybe he does "get" why Batgirl shouldn't kill, he just disagrees with it?

But what a great story examining these feelings could have been! Maybe BG had just gotten older and more jaded, or maybe her time On Dope altered her perception so that she saw the merits in her father's way, or maybe some villain(s) down the line pushed her buttons once too often and she just snapped and realized how good it felt? Any or all of these could have made a great issue or three, or could have continued to filter down, peppered throughout continuing titles and discussions - discussions she doesn't even have to be part of!

This is just plain BAD.

You would think that, with saying all those words, their mouths would at least be open.

At least none of them are in mid-air while saying any of that.

So, where are the two "worst comic pages of the year?" Oh, you man THOSE are it? Where's the rape, brutality, dismemberment and cannibalism? By DC's current standards, these are unbelievably tame.( I only wish I were joking.)

OK, I know the point is making fun of the terrible exposition here. But Batgirl's terribly convoluted recent history isn't this issue's fault, it's the fault of the editors for being unable to get their act together (another sign of wrong things going on in DC these days.) Sure, they could've come up with a more believable explanation (not to mention better dialog) but honestly at this point I don't care. I just said "DC f*ked up Batgirl, just like everything else. Give me a call when it's fixed."

Reading the headline of this post, I totally thought you were going to shit on Calafiore's art, Brian.

Needless to say, I'm terribly disappointed.

"So, where are the two “worst comic pages of the year?” Oh, you man THOSE are it? Where’s the rape, brutality, dismemberment and cannibalism? By DC’s current standards, these are unbelievably tame.( I only wish I were joking.)"

Hey, it's entirely possible to do two pages of rape, brutality, dismemberment, and cannibalism, and make it genuinely good. I can't actually name any examples, but in theory it can work.

I'd say exposition that's badly done is easily worse than sleazy subject matter done well, at least from an aesthetic standpoint.

"A wizard did it?"

[...] so nothing is seriously going to contend with Batgirl’ #1s “Exposition Overload” for bad writing, but wow, the ending of Huntress Year One #6 (issue 6 of 6) puts up a decent [...]