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Pick Your Pickle and Prepare for Puns: Pickleball's Board Game Just Launched. A fast, fun, irreverent board game that celebrates the joy of Pickleball. Fans of silly puns, pickles, and fast-paced games alike have a new game to add to their list of must-haves: HotShot Pickleball. This delightful card-drawing board game is quick to learn and gives a surprising amount of opportunity to lightly strategize as you race to the ball and attempt to hit it back over the net to your opponent. The debut release from indie studio Midnight Trading Co., HotShot Pickleball was made while game designer Robert Gelb was recovering from an Achilles injury sustained, ironically, by playing Pickleball. For those who haven’t heard of pickleball, it's the fastest-growing sport in the world, with over 32 million players last year. HotShot Pickleball is a lively, family-friendly game that combines the fun of the sport with a cast of quirky, pickle-themed characters like Stew Cumber, Kim Chee, and Corni...

Guest Reviews: Batgirl #15 - Collision Part Two: Engagement

Batgirl #15 Review


Batgirl #15 Cover
Will She Say I Do? Original Review by Johnkmccubbin91 at Comic Vine

I haven't read a lot of this Batgirl series until Death of the Family, but since I have gotten the first story arc. What I've read of this series I've enjoyed, and not only the Death of the Family stuff. Gail Simone has done an excellent job on this series, and her removal from this series will be disappointing.

Plot

This issue sees Batgirl placed with an ultimatum of marrying the Joker to save her mother. Also in this issue Alysia Yeoh phones Barbara's brother James Gordon Jr. (who set her up to face the Joker in the first place) and tells him about Barbara being attacked.



Review


A Different Side of Batgirl
This was another brilliant Batgirl issue, and although not quite as good as the previous still very enjoyable. Simone has done a brilliant job in the writing of this series, and besides Scott Snyder on the main Death of the Family story, in Batman, has done the best job writing wise during this crossover. The only thing I didn't like about this issue was how it jumped back and forward between Batgirl, James Gordon Jr., and the Joker set-up story, which didn't make a lot of sense till the end of the issue. Besides that Simone has done an excellent job of showing how Batgirl handles Joker now that he's threatening another member of her family. I also like that despite it being noticeable that Batgirl holds a grudge towards Joker for paralyzing her during Batman: The Killing Joke, she still thinks of others (in this case her mother) first.

Read the rest of Johnkmccubin91's Review on Comic Vine

Engagement Original Review by Batwatch at Comic Vine

Everybody has probably heard the big news already; Gail Simone has been fired off Batgirl. It seems an odd choice because Simone has a huge following, good sales, and a fairly consistent record of quality writing. I could have seen how she might have been let go in the early days of the DCNU since the original run of Batgirl left something to be desired, but it has been on a steady incline ever since, and I loved the last issue. Perplexing as it is, it will be interesting to see what Simone does with her least few issues of Batgirl.

Plot

Simone’s last issue featured Joker proposing marriage to a shocked Batgirl. Does this wedding lead to a happy ever after or is this a marriage made in Hell?

In this issue, readers see a flashback as Joker talks to a counselor about marriage advice, James Jr. goes to “comfort” Alysia, and Batgirl turns the tables on Joker.

Review

Yaaay…Boooo!

Plans
This issue really bugged me because I felt it should have ended in this issue. There was a satisfying conclusion of sorts, and yet the story still continued. It was extremely frustrating to me.


(Spoiler) What bugged me was that Barbara was put in an inescapable trap, and she managed to figure it out by keeping Joker in the blast radius of his own deathtrap. She kicked his butt, and right about the time she could have saved her mom, Joker pulled out an ace he had stuck up his sleeve. There is nothing wrong with this from a narrative standpoint, but I went from being extremely excited to extremely disappointed at whiplash inducing speed.

Read the rest of Batwatch's review on Comic Vine


What I Thought

Cover - 4/5
Art/Colors/Ink - 4/5
Layout/Flow - 4/5
Story - 4/5
Verdict - 4

I appreciate this cover more than the last issues, mainly because it makes sense after reading Batgirl #14 - A Courtship of Razors. I'm really liking where this part of the Death of the Family arc is heading, and unlike some of the other books involved this one fits. We get to see what happens when when somebody with powers breaks and takes things too far. Batgirl has to contend with not only the trauma that Joker put her thru but also the realization that he now has her mother at his mercy. It's nice to see some of the human emotion that we would normally associate with the situation instead of the normal monotone figure that is batman keeping those emotions in check. I can't wait to see how this arc plays out.

Purchase Batgirl #15 on Amazon


John McCubbin is a blogger at http://imaginationcentre.blogspot.co.uk/ and Jeremy Sims is a blogger at https://batwatch.squarespace.com/. Both are comic book reviewers at Comic Vine. The use of their reviews have been authorized by the original authors.

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