Battle for the Cowl: Oracle - the Cure #3 - DC

I was always a Birds of Prey fan, so . . I was thrilled that this mini came out. I also think that Barbara is a fantastic character. However, this series . . or more specifically, this issue . . left me with some questions, and . . some mixed feelings. Last issue, when Babs was in Hong Kong with her hacker friends, the Calculator came after them through the computer. Luckily, with some quick thinking on Babs part, she went right for the circuit breaker and shut everything down. From there it was pretty easy to back-track him to the Alta Viva RPG. And . . where he was operating from . . Gotham City. As if that were a big surprise. However, while all of this was going on, Larry Rand didn't heed Oracle's warning and tried to go into the game to see what was going on. The Calculator's avatar took him down pretty quickly, and because of the crystals and the anti-life equation, what he affects in the game is also affected in the 'real' world. Larry isn't dead, but . . he's pretty close. So Babs flies back to Gotham and heads to the creator of the game, Corey Wynn. She figures since he created it that he might have some back-doors built in. She hoping to quietly put some code in that'll mess up the Calculator's plans. She does so, and from there it's only a matter of time before she takes the Calculator down. She also put in some nasty stuff to keep him out of the cyber-world for a while . . "Calculator, this whole equation is corrupt . . like you . . and now it's part of you . . or at least the residue is. It's linked to a series of alerts on the web . . they'll trigger the rest of the stuff inside you. You go online anywhere, you so much as send an e-mail and I'll know where you are . . so I'd lie low if I were you." Now some of the things I'm questioning . . when she got to Corey he was pretty helpful, without a whole lot of explanation. He claims it's because he remembers Barbara from when she was a librarian. He used to come into the library, because his mother couldn't afford a computer, and Babs would let him use theirs. But I think there's more to it than that. And I think there's more to Corey . . something we aren't being told yet. Also, with all of this build-up, it seemed like Babs took the Calculator down pretty easily. I also didn't like the way she went to the hospital to confront him. I know it was necessary, he was planning on using the crystals, and the equation, on Wendy . . his daughter. But it just seems like she pretty much confirmed his suspicions that she was Oracle. And, if he hadn't pieced it together, she pretty much told him so herself. It just didn't seem like the right move to make. Also, is Babs going to sympathize with Wendy? Now that she's out of her coma . . she can't feel her legs. "Daddy!! I can't feel my legs!! I can't feel them!! Daddy!!!" Does that remind you of anybody? Like, maybe Babs shortly after the Joker shot her. Anyways, luckily we're going to have an outlet for all of these questions because the next evolution of this character is a new Batgirl series coming out soon. I like what was attempted in this mini-series, the goal for the drama, but . . the execution didn't go down right. It just didn't feel right. It was entertaining, and it set up a lot for the Batgirl series, but . . as a separate entity, I don't think that it was all that good. But that's just my opinion. Kevin Vanhook wrote it and Julian Lopez did the art. Unfortunately, we don't know yet who the creative staff will be on the new book. Hopefully . . we should find out soon. Sorry, I'm back to re-edit . . I just read an article on CBR that said that Bryan Q Miller will be the writer of the Batgirl series. But that's really all it says. He doesn't give us to much information. I just wanted to let you know.