The Movement: Fighting for the Future, Gail Simone, Freddy Williams II, Chris Sotomayor

Volume two of The Movement is a little disappointing in that it’s also the last volume. Some things are wrapped up, but really you’re just left feeling this frustrated sense of how much has been left undone, how much potential exists within this mismatched group of characters. I love the fact that the story itself brings this up, in a way: people warn Virtue that her team doesn’t fit in with how existing superheroes work and think, and she says essentially, well, one day they’ll have to. Change is coming.

Change is coming, and maybe The Movement was a little too soon, a little too blatantly diverse, a little too brazen about being a new sort of superhero team. Maybe it’s just that it’s difficult to launch a new set of superheroes without serious support — some of which the team gets, in Batgirl’s appearance in a couple of issues. Successful as the Young Avengers have been, they don’t have a current comic either, while Cap and Iron Man and all the mainstays are going on (and on, and on).

I love what we did get, though: a complex team made up of people who complement and clash with each other in equal measure. It’s a team of diverse voices, not only in terms of skin colour and country-of-origin and sexuality, but in terms of political ideals too. Katharsis is fairly blatantly not down with some of the more liberal ideas held by other members of the team. Burden comes from a religiously conservative background and is only just opening up to new ideas. It’s not just a liberal hippie love fest.

And on a lighter note: I love that we saw the hinted-at date between Virtue and Rainmaker. Cute.

Rating: 4/5

The Movement: Class Warfare, Gail Simone, Freddie Williams II

It took me so long to get around to reading the second volume of The Movement, I thought I’d better reread the first. Perhaps it was very much of its moment, both in terms of the content and in terms of the effect on me: I wasn’t as taken with it this time round, though there’s still lots to love. The diversity of the characters, in terms of sexuality and gender and even political views. It’s great for the way the characters struggle against each other: they don’t automatically have the same opinions, and some of them clash on fairly fundamental levels (and yet friendship can win out — note to US politicians: try not seeing your opponent as total scum).

The art is still awesome; I love Virtue and Rainmaker in particular. And Tremor. Okay, I just love the art, okay. I do wish at times there was a bit of a brighter colour palette — I can tell I’m reading a DC comic just from the gloomy colouring! Though it is also appropriate to the world that these characters are living in, so it does make sense. (Marvel’s Young Avengers are a much more privileged group, after all.)

Rating: 4/5

Batgirl: Death of the Family, Gail Simone, Daniel Sampere

There’s a lot of individual elements I like in this book — Barbara’s bravery, her struggles with her anger at the people who put her in a wheelchair, her sheer ferocious intelligence (and yet she spends so much time punching her way through problems, sigh), some of the family issues that are brought up… But where it ties in with the other Batfamily books, it feels clumsy. I don’t know what’s going on with Damien, with Nightwing, etc. Nor do I really get chance to care, since it’s all a whirlwind of action.

The art is good, expressive, etc, but ye gods, I forgot how dark DC comics can be. Grit, grit, and more grit.

I do like Alysia’s coming out; I like the casual way Barbara takes it, and yet how important the moment still feels.

Rating: 3/5