Writer: Jen Van MeterPlot: While struggling with the permanent memory of what the Joker did to her, Barbara Gordon enlists the help of Wayne Manor's butler to hunt down a mugger, sue her father, and pare apples.
Though the feature story of this issue was originally supposed to be a Mr. Zsasz story written by the title's ongoing writer, Devin Grayson, someone decided there was a bit too much blood in it for it to see print in December, as part of the Batman Dies theme.
In its place, we get a wonderful story about Babs, from Jen Van Meter. It's fragmented for the most part, so we find events that take place in various areas of the city, and at various times. Jen makes you work for your story, but not too hard.
The difficulty comes across in the art. Transposing words into art through fragmentation isn't easy to pull off all the time. But it's not even that. Sometimes, you're just wondering what's going on, like when Babs shows up on Alfred's doorstep. He wonders why she's there, then we get a close-up of her eyes which look like they're glazed over on account of having taken drugs, or something. But it's unclear as to what's going on. Is she crying? Did she lose her favourite notebook? Alfred makes tea, all the same.
Despite the events in Birds Of Prey #8, it's clear that Babs continues to be haunted by the Joker, practically to the degree that Bruce is haunted by the scene of his parents' murder every night in his dreams. This story is an insightful character piece on Babs, since we're invited to share her innermost thoughts, and to see how those thoughts manifest themselves into tracking down a serial mugger.
The final panel, a quiet moment between Babs and her father, is all the more emotive, when you realize that Gotham Knights #12 is the final core Bat-book to come out, before the Officer Down storyline begins.
"The Black And White Bandit" by Dave Gibbons
Plot: A colour-deficient painter seeks vengeance on the man whose portrait caused him to lose his own personal rainbow.
It's a Silver Age story done right. These black and white pieces continue to delight, and it's oddly apt that you can read this two-colour piece about a man whose entire world exists only in the same two hues. It's filled with action, comedy, and cross-dressing, and maybe a few too many references to various colours, but they're mostly by the bandit, so they don't annoy you as much as they might annoy Batman, who gets one in himself, joker that he is.
