Not A Lot To Actually Say — Reviewing ‘Barbara Gordon: Breakout’ #3

As Vandal Savage’s grip on Gotham City tightens, Barbara Gordon slips ever deeper into the dangers of his super prison. A target is on her back, as well as others, and she’s no closer to figuring out who might be aiming for that target.

Something is missing as Gordon finds herself slipping in Barbara Gordon: Breakout #3 from Mariko Tamaki, Amancay Nahuelpan, Tamra Bonvillain, and Ariana Maher.

If I’ve said it one time, I’ve said it a million times, writing mysteries in monthly comic book format is not easy. An issue like this shows that as everything kind of reaches a stalling point with some not very decipherable bread crumbs being tossed onto the pile. We’ll come back to that though.

I’ve always loved the style of art that Nahuelpan delivers. It’s so bold and vivid with a fierce sense of proportion, reality, and relatability and just the right dash of whimsical for flavor. All of the set pieces have a sense of scale and feel tangible along with having their own personality, whether it’s the past set Gotham city spaces, or the big massive prison that Gordon currently calls home.

Paneling that eschews norms and gives us something visually tasty is always the best choice. We get a lot of that with Nahuelpan at the helm. There’s a page where the building that Batgirl and others are checking is chopped open to allow each floor to be a panel of them searching and communicating. This is the kind of stuff that modern comics does so well, really utilizing the medium for all that it’s worth.

Bonvillain always follows that sort of mold with her color palette choices. There is some really fun sense of lighting going on in many of the panels, letting vibrant filter style colors take over. In that aforementioned cut up building sequence, each floor has a totally different color going on for each character, from hard red to vivid yellow to a cold blue and then a mellow purple.

Similar elements are through the rest of the pages. Giving each space unique coloring splashes makes the city and characters feel familiar and different. Much of it is very toned down so that the bits that do scale up stand out even more.

With the flashbacks being uncertain whether they are real memories or a dream sequence, the visuals are a spot where play can be had. Maher embraces that, as she always does, to let the lettering really breathe. Bubbles take on some jagged and sharp appearances as characters speak, giving to the harder nature of this particular series and its focus. Colored captions burst onto the scene to give them more power and oomph, and are even color coded for the vigilantes in the flashbacks.

Overall though, not a ton happens in this issue. We see those past bits of them searching a building with something to do with a former Joker case. Then Barbara is in prison still hurting, seeing the death vision, and trying to piece together what she is missing. Whatever she is missing, we the audiences are also really missing it. Tamaki is a writer whose work that I adore, her previous Gotham run being high on my list. Yet, I feel like something isn’t really clicking with this issue.

It’s not bad or off-putting in any way. It just feels like it’s a little more fluffy than I expect from her work and ongoing story telling chops. We do find out someone is watching and claiming to be there to help, so maybe that is the takeaway. Either way, I’m still here for whatever comes next because my trust in Tamaki hasn’t been shaken in this instance. There’s just a question mark above my head like an inquisitive video game character as I journey through this story.

Barbara Gordon: Breakout #3 is now available from DC Comics.