Barbara Gordon: Breakout #5 // Review
There’s a message for The Cop. (They refer to her as The Cop.) The message isn’t much. If she was a cop she might have a network to help her out. As it is, there simply isn’t much for her to go on. Typically she has a great many more resources for investigating criminal activity. Of course...under normal circumstances she wouldn’t be in prison. She’s learning to get along in Barbara Gordon: Breakout #5. Writer Mariko Tamaki continues a compelling series set in a Gotham City prison. Artist Amancay Nahuelpan brings the story to the page with the requisite intensity.
Barbara Gordon isn’t feeling well. There’s another attack. She thought that she might know what it is that’s going on inside the prison, but now she’s not so certain. Being inside prison might be the only way to truly understand what might be killing people in side the prison, but it’s not the best sort of a situation for keeping your head together during an investigation. There’s too much going on inside one of the most totally dangerous prisons in the country. Too much going on to be able to be able to truly help. Nevertheless...Barbara Gordon isn’t exactly known for quitting. She’s going to solve the murders one way or another...
The drama at the center of the intrigue feels well-articulated. Tamaki those are striking the job of delivering it all to the page with intensity. It's drawn into the basic blueprint of the series of there won't be much reference to Barbara's life outside of prison. And so as a result, there isn't a really strong contrast between who she is and who she has been and who she is now. That's the one kind of drawback here. Because there's so much about Barbara Gordon that makes her unique and specific. And the machinery of the plant doesn't really allow much of an opportunity to really assert that.
The action continues in very well rendered interiors that seem to be delivering the darkest simplicity of life inside of prison. There isn't a great overall sensation of exactly what the total image of the prison is, though. There's a lot of tight close-ups. A lot of dramatic moments before individual character between them and other individual characters. Occasionally, the visuals open up a little bit to show a little bit more of what's going on around the edges of the characters. But for the most part, Nahuelpan doesn't admirable job of keeping the intensity moving even has larger concerns of tone, fame, and location may not always be all that present in every single panel.
On a larger scale, a series could be really interesting as a gradual emergence for Barbara Gordon. She could really slowly develop into much more interesting character if this particular storyline has its opportunity to play out. Her experience inside of prison could add to her understanding of the criminal underworld in Gotham. And this could allow her to be a little bit more of a harder adjective crime fighter for the city if she were to make it out and get back under the cowl as Batgirl. For the time being, however, it's just really fun to see her work.
