Barbara Gordon is in recovery. Again. She’s been a victim of an assault that has left her crippled. Again. Babs is resilient. She’s been through this all before. This time it’s different, though. (It’s always different.) Batgirl #48 echoes themes that have been bouncing around Babs’ life for decades now. This time the echo has the distinct resonance of writer Cecil Castellucci. The writer’s distinct take on Batgirl’s themes slides somewhat gracefully across the page courtesy of artist Robbi Rodriguez. The red hair of three different Gordons and an unfortunate stranger manifests in shadow and drama on the page courtesy of colorist Jordie Bellaire. Castellucci casts a recovering Batgirl into the peril of a particularly dark Gotham City in another satisfyingly dark walk with Babs. 

Babs wakes-up in a hospital. The fact that she was out of costume when she was attacked by the Joker makes keeping the secret identity a little easier. The fact that it was her criminally twisted brother James is there when she wakes-up makes things that much more difficult. She’s paralyzed. Luckily, the tech that allowed her to walk is still on the roof of her apartment building. She contacts an old friend to re-install the tech at the base of her spine. What with everything else that’s going on, Babs is relieved to have a friendly face and compatible intellect to work with. 

Castellucci thrusts Batgirl’s recovery into the challenging family dynamic between her and her father and her brother. Simple recovery is complicated in an interesting way that doesn’t detract from the hell of how she came to be paralyzed again. Though Babs is clearly an action hero, Castellucci does a brilliant job keeping her in rehabilitation for almost the whole issue without making the recovery seem like a dull and tedious process. Castellucci has so much going on that it’s easy to forget that there hasn’t really been a single panel of outright physical action until the stinger hits at the issue-ending splash page.

Rodriguez’s art is enshrouded in heavy shadows as Babs pulls herself out of a hospital bed and into an alleyway to see a vision of her own death. A lot happens in between, and it’s all drama, intrigue, investigation, and suspicion. The moody shadows of Rodriguez’s art keep the pages turning while providing Bellaire’s crucial colors, a place to resonate. The final panel in a cutaway scene has a woman who looks a LOT like Babs suddenly assaulted. Her widened blue eyes are staged with a very naturalistic sense of mystery and drama.  

Cecil Castellucci seems to be inadvertently borrowing Chris Claremont’s beautiful red-headed doppelgänger element for Batgirl’s latest mystery. Though it clouds the triumph of Batgirl’s recovery a bit, the mystery DOES propel the issue in a new direction that should prove to be every bit as fun as what Babs has been tumbling through throughout the rest of Castellucci’s run thus far.

Grade: B+