Rating: 5/5
This is another fantastic take on Batgirl. It is much different from the previous series led by Gail Simone. The creators use the same background material, but do not rely on it quite as heavily.
To start, Barbara Gordon moves to Gotham's hipster neighborhood, Burnside. This gives the creators an opportunity to change the supporting characters, the locations, and Batgirl herself. I thought this was a great way to modernize the series in some ways. There is a lot more use of real world tech and Barbara is presented more as a young woman than a female version of Batman. Plus, she recreates her costume into something more fitting to the setting.
Batgirl's maturity level might be lower than previously shown. It works well within the story the creators built though. She becomes a celebrity in Burnside and relishes it. That theme of whether she should be in the spotlight and how it affects her performance is carried throughout the book. It even ties into interactions that she has with her friends. The villains are pretty low key, which is fine for the overall plot. They are appropriate based on the big reveal at the end of the arc. I wasn't sure what to think of Hooq, an online dating site that pervades the area, but it actually helps move things along.
Previous comics set in Gotham are much darker in tone and coloring than this one. I thought the shift to something lighter was great. It allowed the creators to go in different directions than other DC stories have done. And it feels like they had a lot of fun creating this book. The absence of a big named villain doesn't lessen the book in any way.
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