What I Bought 9/2/2026 - Part 2

I have the day off! But it's still really hot outside! So I'm not going anywhere! Fortunately, we have comics to review! Two of them! I kinda like getting all my DC stuff for the month in one go! Exclamation point!

Batgirl #23, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - The plants would like a turn crouching dramatically.

Batgirl has brought Jaya and Tenji to the restaurant she hung out at sometimes before everything went to hell at the beginning of this volume. Very surprised that family survived the attack by the Unburied, considering Shiva's insistence that anyone Cass got involved would be in danger. Cass herself is lost in thought, maybe about whether being in this toxic city brings out the worst in her.

As Police Commissioner Vandal Savage - that is still one of the dumbest ideas - makes some TV spot advertising a reward if people narc on any of the Bats, the entire city is overrun by strange plants. Plants which will make the city hostile to human life. Cass can't get through to Batman to receive any specific orders, which really frustrates her. But there's a restaurant full of people to protect, and keep calm, and watch out for.

The kid wants that reward to save his sick mother, and Cass was distracted trying to convince people not freak out because she ran outside to save a guy being attacked by the plants and brought him inside, but still. Not a great start for Batgirl on this crisis. And one of the customer's kids sniffed the flowers and now she's poisoned. Cass vows to get the kid to a hospital, despite the stab wound, and trusts Jaya and Tenji to protect everyone else. Which at least will give Tenji that chance he wanted to make a name for himself as a hero.

I like this. It's not (so far) another exercise in unearthing new, never-before-seen secrets of Cassandra's past. The past history is there, and clearly weighing on her, but the immediate threat is something new. Miyazawa is back on the art. He gets a little rougher with his lines in the moments of panic, when plants start bursting through the floor, then smooths things out again in the quiet, tense moments. Batgirl's brief fight to save that man is drawn as quick and efficient, each move in the span of a few panels.

Is this event tie-in going to be my favorite story in this run so far? What a horrifying thought. 

The Deadman #4, by W. Maxwell Prince (writer), Martin Morazzo (artist), Chris O'Halloran (colorist), Good Old Neon (letterer) - Based on the escalator, Heaven is either a mall or an airport. I'm hoping for the former, but only as long as they have a place that sells big, soft, gooey cookies.

Deadman has a bit of a meltdown about what he learned last issue, until Billy snarls at him to shut up, turning demonic in the process. Boston doesn't get any answers as to what that's about, instead heading for Heaven to try and confab with God about the situation. Billy follows.

While Billy gets some distressing news about himself from Zatanna's dad, which I guess explains his weird behavior when he snapped at Deadman, the Custodian of Souls spends most of the issue in God's waiting room, chatting with his secretary. Who is probably actually God, but whatever. The main point is for Deadman to decide that, even if he knew the souls he thought he helped wound up in Hell, he still would have tried to get them sent on to Heaven. Because it's worthwhile to try and help someone, even if it doesn't work.

So he leaves. I note that he didn't gain any insight into the creatures eating souls or who is manipulating them (which is some mysterious figure with either a cube or a book for a head), and therefore seems no closer to dealing with the problem than he was at the end of issue 1. And then he got pushed off the escalator by a panicked Billy, and lands in the clutches of some Cyber-Swamp Thing. Which is kind of a weird shift.

Until the point Deadman - or is he Aliveman now? - lands in that situation, the entire book is 9-panel grids. 18 solid pages of 9-panel grids. Not much change or in perspective or style within the panels. Monotonous. Quite the change from the previous issue, which offered so much variety. It's all the same, all very rigid and constrained. Sterile. The most pizzazz are the panels with Zatara, where's he got a smoke machine and a stage backdrop. A showman. That's two panels. Bleak commentary on Heaven, unless the idea is it gives you the time and space to find answers yourself.