In the new young adult DC Comics Universe series, The Oracle Code takes us to Gotham City to see a younger Barbara Gordan as the Oracle. I am not too familiar with all of the characters and timeline in this universe, and the good thing about this book is that you don’t have to be!
After an unfortunate shooting and fall, a partially paralysed Barbara (or Babs, as she prefers to be known) is taken to the Arkham Center for Independence. It’s not somewhere she wants to be and she has a hard time adjusting. She just wants to be back home hacking with her friend Benjamin. She’s an excellent hacker, skilled at solving puzzles, and cracking codes. It’s these skills she has to remember and use to try and solve the situation she finds herself in. As she struggles through therapy, she eventually makes friends. One of these is Jenna, who keeps her up at night as she tells her stories of her old life and about previous patients. After Jenna disappears, it gives Babs a puzzle to solve and a purpose. She is told that Jenna has just left the facility, but Babs knows in her gut that something is not right. Babs has to learn to follow her instincts again, as well as learn to trust others if she is to get to the bottom of the mystery.
The mystery felt quite sinister in places, and kept me glued to the pages, I read the whole novel in one sitting. I thought it was a pretty chunky book for a graphic novel though, so you could break your reading down into smaller pieces if you wanted to. That is, if you can pull yourself away!
As with any graphic novel, a mention has to go to the artwork. I think its really skilled in capturing Babs’s facial expressions well. This makes her easy to read and understand how she’s feeling. The rest of the illustrations are good as well. There is a repetition of puzzle pieces in the artwork, which I think is there to symbolise how Babs’s mind works as she puts things together. As a hacker, she visualises things as puzzles to solve. There is a nice balance of light and dark scenes, as some take place in the day and some at night. The darker scenes work well to portray a creepy atmosphere. Sometimes, characters or background is faded out to focus on who is talking, or to show what Babs’s is thinking about. Another thing I like was that when Jenna tells her short stories, they are done in a different style of art that I find a great balance of sweet, but ghoulish.
There is great representation for disability and disabled characters in The Oracle Code. Their depiction is handled well and with honesty. The message is that the characters do not need to be “fixed” and their disabilities do not make them any less whole. We see the characters struggle, and we see them sad, or experience their frustration at times, but we also get to see them be positive too. There needs to be more disabled representation in books, and I love that The Oracle Code doesn’t just include disabled characters, but makes them the main characters and the heroes too.
The Oracle Code is good for a wide range of audiences. I would recommend to DC Fans, comic book fans, and anyone who loves a good origin story. However, this is a really powerful book for teens, and disabled teens, regardless of whether they are well versed with DC Universe or not.
The Oracle Code is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
Will you be picking up The Oracle Code? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
The #1 New York Times bestselling author Marieke Nijkamp (This Is Where It Ends) and artist Manuel Preitano unveil a graphic novel that explores the dark corridors of Barbara Gordon’s first mystery: herself.
After a gunshot leaves her paralyzed, Barbara Gordon enters the Arkham Center for Independence, where Gotham’s teens undergo physical and mental rehabilitation. Now using a wheelchair, Barbara must adapt to a new normal, but she cannot shake the feeling that something is dangerously amiss. Within these walls, strange sounds escape at night; patients go missing; and Barbara begins to put together pieces of what she believes to be a larger puzzle.
But is this suspicion simply a result of her trauma? Fellow patients try to connect with Barbara, but she pushes them away, and she’d rather spend time with ghost stories than participate in her daily exercises. Even Barbara’s own judgment is in question.
In The Oracle Code, universal truths cannot be escaped, and Barbara Gordon must battle the phantoms of her past before they swarm her future.
