As Gail Simone kicks off her second arc of Batgirl, the heroine is faced with one new enemy and another "foe" from her past. The result is a fairly uneven but still engaging issue.
Batgirl's previous nemesis, Mirror, was a bit too on the nose in terms of how he reflected Barbara's inner struggles, so it's nice to see that Gretel is a little less predictable. It's too early to get much of a sense of what drives this new villain, but her portrayal is creepy enough to hold the reader's attention.
The return of Babs' mother, Thelma, is a little less engaging. Perhaps it's simply that this plot point comes on the heels of another Gordon family reunion in Scott Snyder's Detective Comics, but it feels somewhat forced and unnecessary at this early stage in the series. It doesn't help that Ardian Syaf fails to distinguish the two characters through his artwork. At times the two could almost pass for sisters, which makes it that much more difficult to follow the flow of their conversation. In general, Syaf's art is somewhat more scratchy and less refined than it was in earlier issues.
On the plus side, issue #5 addresses a number of lingering questions about the book, such as the source of Babs' "miracle" and the current state of the Gordon family tree. Simone also continues to succeed in painting her heroine with the right mix of renewed optimism and youthful uncertainty. The book isn't perfect, but it's certainly engaging.
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