By Cat Wyatt

Issue #23 of Batgirl brings us the conclusion to the Strange Loop plotline. In the last issue, we learned that Batgirl was trapped in a series of scenarios occurring inside her own head and if she didn’t figure out a way to free herself things would go very poorly for her.

Fruitbat was the one who helped Barbara realize she was stuck in this mental loop. It’s still unclear if Fruit Bat is there helping Barbara, or if Fruit Bat is the embodiment of Batgirl’s logic. More likely it’s the latter, but without any proof, it’s hard to be certain.

There’s good news and bad news about this revelation. The good news: Barbara is able to reason that if this isn’t real, there shouldn’t be any caps to her abilities and strength. The bad news: while Batgirl may know that the situation she’s in isn’t real, she can’t bring herself to stop doing the right thing.

So, long story short Batgirl successfully takes out the two fighters trying to beat her up, but then she feels compelled to carry them to help. Because she’s Batgirl. It’s hard to blame her here, but at the same time, we know the clock is ticking, and this is likely not helping her get free of the trap.

Thankfully Barbara agrees on that much and heads home to work out a solution. Her first theory is that she should try to meditate. While this sounds funny, her logic is pretty reasonable here. If she could open up her mind enough to create a door, she might be able to slip through and gain her freedom that way.

The problem is meditating that intently is harder than it sounds, even for somebody as talented as Batgirl. So attempt number one of getting free of the trap is a failure, but we all know that Batgirl will come up with another plan. Assuming she doesn’t let this world distract her from the bigger issue at hand.

Unfortunately her mind is very good at creating distractions for her, as evidenced from the phone call with her father. It’s worth noting that her dad would never ask her to risk her neck like this, so very clearly this is the dream world. The pull to save her dad and to do the right thing is just too strong for Barbara to resist, even though she can reason through this the same way we did.

The scenario gets odder and odder as time goes on. Gordon has been kidnapped by a teenager of all people, which is so unbelievable it’s almost funny. The girl knows that Barbara is Batgirl, and vice versa. This is also not terribly believable, but we’ll move on from that point for now.

It’s clear that this whole fantasy world is just an attempt to distract Batgirl. Sure, there’s a chance this is all real, but based on what we’ve seen already that’s pretty unlikely. It’s understandable that the small potential of risk to her father would be enough to make her hesitate, but the truth is if Barbara wants to be free of this trap she needs to start breaking the patterns in her behavior.

Okay, now that we’ve sorted through that mess we can get on with the real plot of the issue, Barbara’s escape. If we reason that her acting normally would keep her in the trap, then we can assume that perhaps acting abnormally would help to free her. At least, that’s the theory that Barbara chooses to run with.

That decision explains how Barbara ends up on Kai’s doorstep. That guy is the epitome of bad for her, as proven by his past actions and decisions. It would appear that Barbara is hoping that by revealing the truth about her identity she can jar herself free from this world. Talk about a high risk high reward scenario. If this works she’ll be free, but if she’s wrong about being stuck inside her own mind then she just revealed her biggest secret to somebody who shouldn’t be trusted babysitting a fake plant. 

Thankfully Barbara actually did seem to be on the right track here, and it only takes a couple more pushes to free herself. That’s not to say that the danger isn’t over, she still has that controlling jerk to deal with once she gets back into the real world. That’ll probably be pretty satisfying though, given what she’s just been through.

This was one of the weaker Batgirl plots in more recent times. While it was two issues long it really could have been condensed into one issue, giving us a quick one-shot story. The intrigue in the first part made it interesting at first, but that wore off with the revelation of what was happening, leaving us to plod along with what was left. Here’s hoping the next plot is a bit more interesting and serious, as this one was just too fluffy to have any real meat to it.

At least the artwork was pretty consistent with the quality one would expect for Batgirl. It was probably difficult to figure out a way to represent the trap being breached in a literal sense, but they did a pretty decent job, all things considered. Having it be fuzzy and soft at first, and then shown as glass breaking was a really interesting choice, but in the end it was probably the strongest part of the issue.

Score: 3/5

Batgirl #23
DC Comics