Review by Karl Verhoven

Stephanie Brown didn’t follow the usual path to being a superhero. Her father was a minor nuisance for Batman as Cluemaster, and Stephanie was instrumental in ending one of his schemes having become a crimefighter calling herself Spoiler. She spent some time as Robin, supposedly died, and was in the right place at the right time when Cassandra Cain decided she no longer wished to be Batgirl. That’s the point reached as Batgirl Rising begins with Stephanie rather clumsily ending an urban drag race contest with Batman wondering who she is.

Stephanie isn’t the only one needing some form of redemption and release. The original Batgirl Barbara Gordon is confined to a wheelchair and frustrated she’s no longer able to do what she once did with ease, and she’s taking it out on Stephanie by hanging the ultimate threat of telling her mother she’s using a costume again. “You’re such a bad example that I used your autopsy photos to stop the last girl who wanted to be Batgirl” is a particularly below the belt example.

Brian Q. Miller writes these scenes really well, convincingly conveying the emotional weight and Stephanie wanting to do the right thing, but the action plot he runs alongside over the opening chapters never thrills. University students are being sold drugs endangering their lives. It takes three chapters to reach the source, a regular Batman villain, but there’s never any sense of the action elements being anything other than a peg onto which Miller hangs the narrative captions.

To a great extent the deficiencies are disguised because whether it’s Batgirl in action or everyday scenes, Lee Garbett makes everything look so attractive. He’s an instinctive storyteller who ensures variety and while there should be an expectation for a superhero graphic novel that Batgirl in action looks great, it’s the civilian scenes that mark Garbett as excellent.

Once Barbara has settled down an accord is reached, she aids Stephanie via radio link and after a sprightly separating chapter Miller begins his second three-part story. By now the settling in awkwardness has been worked through, and it’s a thriller from start to finish with an excellent role for the Damian Wayne Robin. Batman’s involvement is also well conceived, seeing as Batgirl Rising is set during the period when Bruce Wayne was absent and Dick Grayson wore the pointy ears. Individual chapters end with a couple of notable cliffhangers, Garbett designs a great car/bike for Stephanie and this more than compensates for the the opening three-parter not succeeding.

In 2025 this content was merged with much of The Flood as Batgirl: Stephanie Brown Volume 1.