Barbara Gordon returns from a strange excursion to find weird activity going on in an alley. Nothing unexpected here. This IS Gotham City, after all. When the strange activity turns out to involve a liquid metal that is tied-up in the concerns of a madwoman, Barbara swings into action in Batgirl #45. Writer Cecil Castellucci flings Batgirl into an engrossing adventure brought to the page by artist Carmine DiGiandomenico. The art is given depth and luminosity by Jordie Bellaire. Batgirl’s latest adventure brings her back to satisfying, gritty-earthbound adventure from the strange fantasy fugue that she’d tumbled through in the past couple of issues. 

A woman disappears into arcing splashes of liquid metal. Batgirl is there to help in whatever way she can. Someone has come to collect the woman and the liquid metal that has come to encase her. Things don’t go well. Luckily she’s got a sample. She can get to work analyzing it. Meanwhile, Batgirl’s day job as Barbara Gordon finds her stumbling across alternative energies visionary Dasha Berlova, who is working with the metal in question. Batgirl’s investigation leads her to a rather unexpected encounter with another red-haired Gotham City bat-person. 

Castellucci slides deftly through an issue that involves a hell of a lot of investigation. What could have been a dull procedural episode dives into some entertaining territory as Batgirl juggles business, passion for justice, and a bit of personal life with a heroic level of focus. (The scientific end of Barbara Gordon looks particularly badass in an issue that has her doing some heavy-duty biochemistry work.) The grim, multi-facetted determination of Batgirl keeps the issue engaging from beginning to end. 

Di Giandomenico lends Batgirl’s grim determination an excellent sense of intensity. Sci-fi fantasy in the foreground is anchored into place by architectural renderings in the background that make Gotham City feel grounded in realism. The unbelievable becomes believable. At one point, Batgirl clings to the top of a speeding van while free-handing a nearly perfect circle to cut open the roof of the vehicle. She then reaches in and pulls a perp out of the roof of the van to interrogate him. All of this happens in four concise panels while the van is still speeding away. It’s kind of an absurd sequence if looked at with critical eyes, but Di Giandomenico gives it such a shadowy moodiness that it actually feels totally natural. What he and Bellaire manages to do with the liquid metal and arcs of energy is fairly dazzling as well. Batgirl’s world feels suitably intense with this art team. 

Castellucci tosses around details in the script that both render a story and provide some insight into the personality of Batgirl herself. The art team casts a lot of detail around the edges as well. The story itself might suffer from some lack of originality, but Castellucci and Di Giandomenico give Batgirl’s world such a distinct style and flavor. There’s a new villain. There’s a new threat to Gotham that goes beyond the immediate concerns of the hero. Castellucci is taking the Babs’ life in an interesting direction.

Grade: B