The Oracle Code - Softcover

Nijkamp, Marieke

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1401290663 ISBN 13: 9781401290665

Publisher: DC Comics, 2020

Synopsis

#1 New York Times bestselling author Marieke Nijkamp 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 below the waist, Barbara Gordon undergoes physical and mental rehabilitation at the Arkham Center for Independence. She must adapt to a new normal, but she cannot shake the feeling that something is dangerously amiss. Strange sounds escape at night while patients start to go missing.

Is this suspicion simply a result of her trauma? Or does Barbara actually hear voices coming from the center's labyrinthine hallways? It's up to her to put the pieces together to solve the mysteries behind the walls.

In The Oracle Code, universal truths cannot be escaped, and Barbara Gordon must battle the phantoms of her past before they consume her future.

About this title

About the Author

Marieke Nijkamp is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of This Is Where It Ends and Before I Let Go and the editor of the YA anthology Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens. She is a storyteller, dreamer, globe-trotter, and geek. She resides in the Netherlands.

Manuel Preitano is an Italian illustrator and graphic designer, and the co-creator of the Destiny, NY series. He has worked on a wide range of toy designs, book covers, illustrations, and comic books, both in the US and in his home country. He resides in Italy with his comic book collection and his beloved drawing tablet.

Reviews

Gr 6 Up—An accident devastates a superhero but can't crush her spirit. Before, Barbara Gordon was an elite hacker. But when an attempt to help her father, police commissioner Gordon, with an armed robbery goes wrong, Babs is shot, leaving her paralyzed below the waist and unsure how to reawaken her curiosity and sense of daring. She enrolls at the Arkham Center for Independence (ACI), where patients with disabilities are rehabilitated. Though Babs finds the ACI ominous and director Dr. Maxwell unsettling, she stays at the behest of her father and finally rekindles her determination as she realizes that students are going missing and her mistrust of the institute may be more than paranoia. In this fast-paced and thoughtfully crafted mystery, Nijkamp gives comic book lovers a refreshing take on Barbara Gordon's journey to becoming Oracle (the persona that in the late 1980s replaced Batgirl as Barbara Gordon's alter ego). While Babs copes with post-traumatic stress disorder, and some doubt her abilities now that she's in a wheelchair, she realizes that though her life looks different, that doesn't mean that the future she envisioned for herself has to change. She's a winning and deeply relatable protagonist, though her friends are more thinly developed and function more as plot devices. Shadowy illustrations evoke film noir and set the perfect tone for Babs's escapades; imagery of puzzle pieces represent her growing understanding of what's really going on at the institute, as well as in her own heart. VERDICT This strong and empowering addition to DC's growing line of origin stories will resonate with superhero fans while also enticing newcomers.—Darla Salva Cruz, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY

Edition details

• Publisher: DC Comics
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1401290663
• ISBN 13: 9781401290665
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Preitano Manuel
• Number of pages: 208