Sometimes I’ll find a comic in my stack that gives me a pleasant surprise, and entertains me far more than I expected it to. Batgirl 2 is one of those issues.

I couldn’t decide whether or not to buy the first issue of this book, and by the time I had made up my mind to give it a try, the damn thing was sold out pretty much everywhere anyway. So I took the plunge and decided to buy issue 1 digitally (my first digital comic!) so that I could see for myself what all the fuss was about.

And I was really disappointed.

I don’t know whether this was due to any lack of quality in the book itself, or whether it was just because I found the digital reading experience was not to my taste. Whatever the case (and I suspect now, having read this issue in good old-fashioned print form, that my opinion may be more to do with the digital delivery), I was unsure whether Batgirl was a book I could stick with. At the end of the day, the decision came down to one thing more than any other- the gorgeous Adam Hughes cover. I figured issue 2 was worth a punt on the strength of the cover alone, and I’m really glad I did, ’cause this issue was a little gem! Having loved Gail Simone’s first run on Birds of Prey, I’m glad to have her writing a newly enabled Barbara Gordon, and her affection for the character started to come through much more clearly in this issue. The art team are new to me, I must confess, but I have to say once again that their work in this issue was great, solid superhero fare, with a definite flair for the dynamic action sequences.

On the strength of this issue, I’m happy to keep on buying this title, and I’m now really looking forward to next issue’s Nightwing appearance-those are two characters who really belong together!