CREDITS: Written by Kelley Puckett; art by Mike Parobeck and Rick Burchett.
REVIEW: Not a great cover, but a great little story, as often happens when Robin and Batgirl get together. Still unaware of their secret identities, they're rivals in the classroom (alphabetically thrown together, nice bit), but partners in fighting crime. That neat dynamic is well presented when, first, their criminology professor presents them with a non-crime, and then as heroes, with a closed room mystery. Both they backgrounds pleasantly come into play, Robin the circus performer and his familiarity with carny deception, and Batgirl her father's daughter, doing the legwork and the deductions.
This isn't a simple mystery, it's also one more step on her journey to become the Barbara Gordon we know from the comics. Though crime-solving is a passion, she realizes she likes research more than she does police work, coming across graphic crime photo along the way, and so abandons dreams of going to the Academy and following directly in her father's footsteps. The story also has fun comedic elements, including the interplay between the two leads, but the best bit is surely Montoya's "corrections" to Bullock's police report. Actually, his original text is probably the funniest bit. Left here for your pleasure:
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