Batgirl #29

I read this cover as "the menace Sliver" and didn't even realize I was reading it wrong until I reread my Batgirl #28 Commentary and was reminded that his name is actually Silver. The brain does have a reset button somewhere, right?

My problem with thinking of this antagonist as Sliver instead of Silver stems from thinking of him as both when I first began writing about typos and his name in last issue's commentary. It's like when somebody gives you a bit of information and then they decide they need to tell you the opposite of that information so that you don't get mixed up. But now you've got both pieces of information in your head when you think about it later and you can't figure out which one is correct. Like when someone gives directions and they say, "Take a left at the Gothic Cathedral with the Vampires wandering aimlessly on the front lawn. Be sure you don't take a right at the Gothic Cathedral because that's wrong and not right! Ha ha! Maybe I should have left that out but it came right out of my mouth and left me no choice! Maybe you should write that down? I wonder where I left my pen?" And then you're all, "Vampires? What the fuck?" And then when you're driving by the Gothic Cathedral later and you can't remember if you were supposed to go right or left, you wind up getting an eternal kiss anyway. Suddenly, arriving at your previous destination is the least of your problems.

Last issue, Sliver made his first appearance in the DC Universe. Too bad it was overshadowed by Targa's first appearance! That's his valet or butler or Renfield. Although I suspect Targa is actually the brains behind their vampire hunting outfit. I suspect this because Sliver is nuts! Targa is probably exploiting his schizophrenia to get what she wants. And what I think she wants is some man punished for not leaving his wife for her.

Sorry, no. I'll be calling you Sliver.

Sliver believes that Gotham is ruled by Vampires and that Batman is King of the Vampires. That's a fairly reasonable delusion for a madman. It's not like he believes the rulers of the Earth are all lizard people descended from the blood of Charlemagne. Although that isn't so far removed from reality to be super crazy either! I think David Icke might be on to something! Minus the lizard faces.

Batgirl and Strix have just recently discovered this new Gotham Psychopath while searching for a young, mute girl that has recently disappeared. According to Sliver, she's the Queen of the Vampire People because he saw her sucking down gallons of blood in the transfusion ward of Gotham General Hospital. Are there wards dedicated to transfusions? Maybe I meant the transfusion cubicle.

This should be Batgirl's regular Bat-look! Also she should change her name to Succubus General.

The Gotham Police have broken up a fight between Barbara and Strix and Targa and Sliver. They've drawn their guns and have demanded that everyone get down on the ground when Sliver confuses them all by slicing open his own throat. The Gotham Police have no idea what to do when the criminals begin abusing themselves. Doesn't Sliver have to be in the union to commit brutality on himself during an arrest? Their confusion grows when Sliver's car grows machine guns and begins shooting the shit out of their cars. What the fuck does Sliver's car have against their cars?! Bully.

Everybody escapes while the Gotham Police stand around moaning about how much their job sucks. At least they don't work in Seattle where an archer would outshine them every day.

Later, Batgirl gets more information from her Best Fremesis Forever, Knightfall. Maybe Knightfall will become the new Oracle!

Hey masseuse. Unless this massage is going to end in anal, put a fucking shirt on.

Strix decides she's going to kill Sliver and Targa if the little girl they kidnapped is hurt. That's sensible. But Batgirl won't see reason and declares that nobody will die and that Strix needs to promise that she won't kill. So Strix promises.

TO KILL!

I suppose Strix is in many ways still a child. So this is her way of crossing her fingers behind her back to fool a parent or a sibling. So on the one hand, we have the talon known as The Gotham Butcher that would have simply ripped Batgirl's demanding head off. And on the other, we have Strix that still wants to kill because that's all she was trained to do but now has to justify lying because she's made a friend. What a wussy baby! That's what happens when you make friends! They always demand you do things you don't want to do, forcing you to lie to them so you can keep doing the things you want to do that they don't like you doing! Didn't the Mormon Church have a singing commercial about this kind of friendship?

"My friend told me that I should never be myself!
Because apparently I love Joseph Smith too much!
But a friend that makes demands is not a friend that makes demands because it's really just a jerk that makes demands!

That friend told me I should try some coke!
But I said I'm fine with root beer and sprite!
But that friend kept making demands so now that friend that made demands is just a jerk that mom won't let me see anymore!

So remember never make demands of friends!
Unless that demand might save them from an eternal suffering in Hell!
Then it's okay to make demands when those very same demands along with magic underwear will help your friends!"

This message was brought to you by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Batgirl either needs to bone up on her detektif skills or gain more experience dealing with children so she isn't fooled by this stupid trick next time!

Sliver prepares himself for his nocturnal visitors by drinking a gallon of mercury. Or silver nitrate. Or water with a few calcium carbonate tablets dropped in. And then his guests arrive!

Okay, seriously. Batgirl and Strix's costumes just get better and better. DC should change the title of this comic from Batgirl to Succubus General immediately.

Batgirl and Strix defeat Sliver without anybody getting killed although Batgirl does punch Strix in the face while telling Strix that she gave her no choice. I think Batgirl needs to sit down and watch that Mormon commercial a few more times. Seriously. Strix can only be her friend if she refuses to kill? She's a Talon! It's what she was trained to do! And even if she breaks training, she's still gotta be pretty pissed off at the world. If this is how Batgirl deals with relationships, Ricky had better start running! Or...um...sorry, Ricky. I didn't mean for that to sound insensitive.

Sliver surrenders because the vampires spare his life and he doesn't remember the last time he met a vampire that spared peoples lives. And then little Cissy comes toddling around the corner into the arms of her saviors.

If I had a little girl, she'd be going as Cissy Chastaine this year for Halloween. I'd teach her to say this to everybody handing out candy. She'd be the hit of the neighborhood!

Turns out Sliver's schizophrenia is based, slightly, in reality. The fact that his mother was killed by a vampire and that he actually caught one doesn't erase his frequent delusions that normal people are vampires. He just happened to be correct this time. Once Cissy is shown to be a vampire, and after she takes a bite of Sliver's neck, Andrew Bennett arrives like some thing out of some other thing. Before he can take Cissy back to his Vampire Commune, she bursts into flames because that gallon of piss Sliver drank earlier? Holy water. I suppose he can also whip out his penis and spray vampires to death as a last resort. Bennett says, "Oh, you got me, Sliver!" And Miss Targa goes, "Don't worry about me! I'm fine!" And then everybody but Batgirl and Strix disappear.

Freeze Frame. Audience Laughter.

Batgirl #29 Rating: +1 Ranking. I was happy to see Andrew Bennett back for a moment! And it was nice to see the reversal and find out that Cissy was actually a vampire. That means Miss Targa is on the side of good! Which means she and Alfred might begin dating! Look, I realize she can date a lot of people in Gotham but I'm sure Wayne and his rich cohorts have strict rules about who the help can and can't date. So it's not like I'm being the classhole here! I'd let Alfred date any guy in Gotham he chose! Although now that I'm fond of Miss Targa, I have to hope Alfred is into women as well as men.

Batgirl #28

I understand my flaws. So let me apologize right up front for calling Silver "Sliver" through a good portion of this commentary.

I've never put any real time into researching the common mistakes I make while typing and the reasons for them but I suspect they have to do with certain uppity fingers getting ahead of their slower partners and just not giving any fucks about typing the word correctly. When I type "mantis," it often comes out as "manits" on the first try. This seems to make sense because that "t" key is so fucking far away it might as well be on Mars. When I type "Deathstroke," there's a 50/50 chance it'll come out as "Deathstorke." This might also have to do with that Goddamned "t" key slowing shit down so much that the "o" beats the "r" to the punch. I should be okay with Sliver...well, that mistake just killed where that sentence was going! Typing is hard!

Actually, typing is one of the easiest things I've ever learned how to do. I took a typing class in seventh grade (on actual typewriters (although they were electric so I didn't have to keep banging the mechanism (whatever it's called) back to the starting position)) and then accidentally practiced my skills by playing text adventures on my Apple IIe until I was as good at typing as a sexist stereotype of a 1970s sexually harassed secretary. I had to dream about being sexually harassed though because that wouldn't happen until college. It could have happened earlier with a number of different partners but I was content in the Not Getting Any Trifecta of other interests: Warhammer, Masturbation, and Being Completely Infatuated With a Girl That Didn't Fucking Want Any of This. Perhaps all the masturbation and Warhammer was a turn off? At least I only did one of those things in front of her.

Is Batgirl (oh yeah! I also tend to type "Batgril" instead of "Batgirl" and I don't know what that's about. It could be I'm not concentrating very well because I always think "Batgorilla" before I think "Batgirl") done with all of her crossovers? We got Zero Year and Gothtopia out of the way, right? And the Wanted story arc is over as well, right? So I don't actually need to remember anything too important before reading this issue, correct?

Who the fuck am I talking to?

The issue begins with Mr. Uchida (Lord Google informs me that his name means "inner rice paddy." It must be a metaphor that I'm too thick to see right now. Maybe deeper into the story it will make sense. Or maybe I shouldn't trust that idiot Lord Google?) being bathed by Miss Targa (Lord Google informs me that her name means "shield." Now that name makes sense since she seems to be Uchida's valet and I'm pretty sure the number one job of a valet is to throw their life away to save the life of the person they bathe).

Why doesn't he just get that Bat App that updates Batfamily member locations in real time? I bet Sliver is a Luddite.

Now I'm just typing "Sliver" because I'm thinking of him as Sliver! Where's the button to recalibrate the human brain?

Batgirl is currently just doing the normal night out thing. That isn't going to a movie with her boyfriend and hoping he slides his hand down her inner thigh while she stuffs chocolate into her mouth. A normal night for Batgirl is running around from rooftop to rooftop, swinging from building to building, noticing people stalking her, hunting down college kids in Halloween Masks, and punching her friends in the face. Although when your friend is trying to catch up to you and can't yell "Hey you fucking idiot! Slow down!" because your friend is Strix and she can't talk, these kinds of things sometimes go down. Although if your friend is Strix, she can also take the punch to the face no problem. Although she still acts hurt like a Footballer hamming it up for a Red Card.

Of course she's okay! She's just trying to make you feel good about your weak-ass face punching skills, Babs. You're no Supergirl.

Strix wants Batgirl's help to find a missing 8 year old girl that can't speak. When Batgirl wonders why Strix wants her help, Strix takes out a pen and pad of paper to write down, "you = detektif." I guess Dinah finally cracked the seal on the Birds of Prey Treasury to buy Strix a pad to write on! It's only taken...well, I can't say how many issues it's taken because it took Strix's appearance in Batgirl to get her pad of paper! No more writing her messages on the walls in raccoon feces! Hey, I'm not making that up! I mean, maybe, just maybe, it wasn't actually raccoon feces. It could have been cat feces.

Batgirl's first detektif move is to call her BFF (Best Fremesis Forever) Daybreak aka Squirerise aka Knightfall aka Charise Carnes. She'd rather not call this woman that tried to have her killed multiple times but that's the hard knock life of a true detektif. You have to deal with a black and white world where you think weird shit constantly like "the dame in front of me had a long story but longer gams" and "I could tell by the sound of her voice that she was about to betray me. The cocking of the pistol was a pretty big clue too." And, like Batgirl here, you have to deal with "acquaintances" that usually would rather see you dead than help you out of a tough situation. The cops usually hate your guts too, so Batgirl is truly winning at being a hardboiled detektif.

Charise offers to help with no strings attached because a little girl's life is at stake and Knightfall truly thinks she's helping protect Gotham City. And maybe she is! I think her method is actually a little bit less violent than Batman's!

Meanwhile, Silver reveals that he's schizophrenic. He sees Batgirl and Strix as vampires feasting on the kids that they were tying up for the Gotham Police to find. I wrote a short story back in college about a schizophrenic werewolf hunter and it was basically this same idea. Although I always meant to flesh it out into a larger and more ambiguous story. Is there an actual murderer on the loose killing people with silver bullets or is he actually hunting werewolves which revert back to human form when killed? The main reason I could never get serious about writing the story was that I was too sympathetic to werewolves themselves. They aren't monsters or killers. They're just humans with a disease that makes them act horribly one or two nights a month. Just imagine if we killed everybody that acted like an asshole when they were sick! Barely anybody would make it to adulthood.

Silver might be schizophrenic but Miss Targa must simply be a complete psychopath to help this guy stake people all over Gotham. Unless Silver is the actual vampire and Miss Targa is his thrall. That's probably what's going on. He's just trying to save people from the same kind of torture that he's had to live with after becoming the living undead.

Since vampires have been mentioned, I'll throw in my usual Best Vampire Movie of All Time Plug: Let the Right One In. Holy fuck that movie is subtle in its horror! Part of its beauty over the American remake is, in fact, the subtlety in the way it lets the true horror of what's going on unravel in the mind of the viewer instead of spelling it out onscreen. I fucking hate that Hollywood has basically accepted that movies need to be aimed at the stupidest motherfuckers amongst us.

Later, Babs and Mary (Batgirl and Strix!) dress up like regular folk to go speak with Cissie Chastain the missing girl's mom.

This is Batgirl being a dick and/or trying to be funny. She did not forget. Unless I've forgotten what "eidetic memory" means!

I know, I know! It's just a figure of speech that slipped out before Batgirl thought better of it! Here's the problem with being facetious on the internet: you constantly have to explain that you actually knew better or get inundated with messages telling you how fucking stupid you are. Part of the issue is that most people don't think a person would actually put something out there that makes them sound like an idiot just because they think it is funny. You can imagine how often I get corrected by people! I once said that I was the biggest Alice in Wonderland fan of all time and that I even loved the second book, whatever it's name was. And someone came along and told me the name of the second book. Now, I wasn't trolling anyone! I didn't even expect anybody to take that seriously! I just thought it was a simple joke. But that's what happens when you put something out over the internet. You're going to get every reaction possible to what you've written. I've seen some people write really, really, really long-winded explanations because they try to counter all the ways people might possibly misread what they're saying. But it's just useless! Because you can't foresee the reaction of everyone! So I just say the foolish shit I say and let the dice come up snake eyes for whoever wants the dice to come up snake eyes. Hell, I've even responded to people facetiously thinking they'd understand that I'm not offended, even writing it in so hyperbolic a way that there's no way they can think I'm serious, and, of course, they still think I'm pissed off.

Here's a secret: if you can't tell if I'm joking or not, I'm probably joking. Not serious. Rarely serious here. Sometimes serious. But not often. Hardly ever angry (except at robots. Fuck robots). Total whimsical bitch. Can't take anything seriously. Possibly a medical condition. Don't mind me!

Batgirl's case ties in with Silver's obsession! That's fortuitous! Wait, let me check my dictionary. Yeah! Fortuitous!

The next few pages are the Batgirl versus Sliver pages. You know what? I'm just going to embrace it. His name is Sliver from now on. The next few pages are also the Strix versus Miss Targa pages! I don't want to shortchange Strix when she's been so gracious with her time and agreeing to guest star in this comic book. Besides, I think that's the more interesting fight. It's always the antagonist's right hand man that's the most interesting person anyway. Like Renfield! Or Muttley! Or Judas! Or Dr. Claw's cat!

Or maybe he just has a severe case of Vampire Testicular Rigor Mortis.

The Gotham City Police arrive and break up the fight. But Sliver lets Babs know that it doesn't matter because he has the Vampire Queen and she's rigged to blow at sunrise. Batgirl, being a much better detektif than I am, intuits that the Vampire Queen Sliver is speaking of is in fact Cissie Chastain. I don't know why Sliver thinks she's the Vampire Queen but if he's really schizophrenic, the reason will probably only make sense if I were on LSD. Although Cissie was kidnapped from a hospital so maybe she was getting a blood transfusion which tripped Sliver's skewed perception of reality (or maybe the objective perception of reality? How do I know? Who am I to judge which reality is least subjective?) and he believed he saw her feeding or giving her blood to infect others. Hell, maybe it's just as simple as Miss Targa having been in love with Cissie's dad but he rejected her because he was married. So Miss Targa found a crazy person to do her dirty work for her, telling him Cissie's dad was a vampire that needed to be killed and that Cissie was the Queen.

Batgirl #28 Rating: +2 Ranking. I hope next issue continues this story and not Batgirl: Forever Evil or Batgirl Meets Scooby Doo. I wish Gail Simone had chosen Condor as the guest star so she could have him killed. Man, I hate that guy. I really hate him! I'm not being whimsical or facetious here! If I met Condor on the street, I would shank his bitch ass without a thought! Seriously!