Batgirl #1 review

Posted on by martingray1

Batgirl Cassandra Cain and assassin Lady Shiva have a mother-daughter chat. Murderous martial artists attack.

And that, dear reader, is the capsule version of this debut issue’s story. It doesn’t sound compelling, Batgirl and Lady Shiva have done the dysfunctional dance previously, yet this is one of the best comics I’ve read in ages.

The tone is set on the opening page.

Imperious mother. Defiant daughter. Cassandra using her skills to read her mother’s body language, her every micro-expression. Lady Shiva unconcerned, past encounters having proven she can beat her child in combat.

And Lady Shiva doesn’t hold back when it comes to her words, even as she’s trying to keep Cassandra from being killed by the cult she knows is on their way.

Cassandra decides Lady Shiva is telling the truth, but that doesn’t mean she’s willing to go into team-up mode when the would-be murderers arrive.

What a weird pair. It’s apparent they want a relationship but they can’t get out of their own way, can’t drop the facade that they’re opposites who will never attract. And yet here’s Lady Shiva warning her daughter about an attack that could prove fatal. Here’s Batgirl not even trying to arrest her mother despite her having murdered a security guard before she arrived.

By issue’s end – it closes on a cliffhanger – Cassandra has a good read on Lady Shiva and it may prove a turning point for mother and daughter.

So, well done to writer Tate Brombal for getting me interested in a Batgirl story. I’ve never been a Cass fan – creepy costume, kid assassin schtick, barely any dialogue, it’s not my kind of mix – yet here she’s pretty compelling. It helps that these days she’s a lot more talkative; not exactly chatty, but a long way from the monosyllabic girl she was in her early years. It’s interesting that she keeps her mask on throughout her conversation with Lady Shiva, perhaps that’s because she doesn’t want her mother reading her face.

Artist Takeshi Miyazawa does a good job with the storytelling, keeping the lengthy initial conversation scene visually interesting via a variety of framing and angles. While we don’t see Cassandra’s facial expressions due to the ugly gimp mask, Miyazawa makes it easy for us to read her. Insouciance is ever etched on Lady Shiva’s face, which is about right. The action scenes look good, especially the cultists’s entrance through closed windows – it’s smashing stuff.

There’s a subtle texture in the costumes and faces which adds a naturalistic touch, whether it’s the work of Miyazawa or colourist Mike Spicer I do not know. I suspect the former, while Mike Spicer busies himself with ensuring environment matches script, with background pops of colour for the more intense moments. The Gotham night is outstanding, with light pollution giving way to the dark of space. Tom Napolitano, meanwhile, keeps the lettering sharp, neat and attractive.

David Talaski has produced loads of great comic book covers but I’m not keen on this one, Batgirl looks stumpy and smudgy, like a short weightlifter. He has to have been told to take this approach, hopefully we’ll be allowed a slicker heroine next time. The logo is attractive, but looks like it’s from a medieval Elseworlds book, I’d be happy for the one from her early Noughties book to come back.

I’ll be buying Batgirl #2 to see how the story continues. In future issues I want to see Cassandra get some kind of life away from the rest of the Batman Family, with a unique supporting cast, maybe a relationship. Some enemies who are all her own, who aren’t chop socky types, would be terrific. Impressive as this debut is, I want more than martial arts and family feuding. This creative team is good enough to make me happy.

16 thoughts on “Batgirl #1 review”

  1. I didn’t touch Cass’ first run at all for much the same reasons as you. Her having been horrifically abused as a child added a layer that bothered me too. I preferred Stephanie in her original run as Batgirl, Babs relegated to second place because Oracle was a much better character and role than any Batgirl ever achieved.

    I only read this because you won me over by the second picture. It is a very well done book and weirdly appealing because I still don’t care for Cass and Shiva leaves me cold. (DC’s whole obsession with who is the greatest master of martial arts bored me from the beginning years ago. Personally, I think it’s Black Canary but if they can make a wrongheaded move to permanently tie Dinah to a philandering asshole than they can be wrongheaded about anyone being better than her)

    I’ll try issue two but good writing and good art only take me so far when the characters don’t appeal to me.

    Weird though how Shiva and Ben Turner got their start in that D level book starring Richard Dragon but he never rose to their heights since…

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    1. I’m also totally bored by ‘who’s the best’ and am amazed even Tom King thinks that’s a great idea for a Black Canary book. And yes, it’s odd no one ever seemed find Richard Dragon interesting enough to do much with after his series… I never read Denny O’Neil and Denys Cowan’s Question book but I have a vague feeling I heard he’d turned up there.

      Another reason Cass’s first series never grabbed me is the art… I really did not like her first artist’s work, it was seriously wonky.

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  2. Never been a Cass fan either…nice that it seems this book is good. Steve- I agree completely about Black Canary, she doesn’t belong with Ollie!!

    -Matthew Lloyd

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    1. Ooh, glad this is good! Cass really has grown on my in the recent BOP series. I’ll hold off reading the rest of this review until I can read the book.

      Steve, it looks like Tom King and Ryan Sook will be laying out the case for Dinah in their upcoming Black Canary: Best of the Best limited series.

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      1. Seeing as how King has a habit of giving everyone some form of PTSD and altering characterization to fit his plots, I don’t read his stuff anymore. With luck anything bad enough will be ignored like Sanctuary and that bizarre take on Booster Gold he did almost concurrently with Jurgens’s better use of Booster in a Superman arc.

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      3. Has BoP improved? I gave up after #6 or so, mainly because the story was a mess but also because Kelly Thompson just had everyone being flighty. Also, comic book basics weren’t being followed – six issues in or whatever and she still hadn’t bothered introducing Zealot properly.

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  3. I can’t say BOP has improved from the 6 issues you read. Those (aside from #5, with the guest artist) were my favorite issues of the run so far. It’s stayed on course, but the art’s declined a bit since Romero pulled back to just covers; his fight scenes are a hard act to follow). One man’s flighty is another’s lighthearted adventure, I guess!

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      1. I just read the most recent issue, and let me pull back a little. The art’s still really good! Sami Basri is actually doing much better work than I’ve seen from him before. It’s just that Romero was SO good, I got spoiled.

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    2. I kept going to the end of the multiverse arc, having enjoyed the first few issues (I don’t think I’d read an issue of BoP before that), but between the fashion show issues and then the multiverse arc (which didn’t do anything new with the idea and just felt very empty of anything to say beyond maybe allowing the use of multiple artists when Romero couldn’t keep up?), I gave up. I almost went back for the Basri art and the hope more of the flavour of the first few issues might come back as I liked the world Thompson presented there with the marketplace for magic objects.

      I’m a Zealot fan of old, and enjoyed her treatment here better than other places she’s been used lately (at least in the first few issues), but I can understand Mart’s criticism about her not being well-introduced!

      Stu

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      1. It’s a shame, I was hoping to hear things had improved and it was worth dipping back in. I really wish DC would get some old editors out of retirement to give the younger ones, and writes, some training in how to put a satisfying story together.

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Published by martingray1

Journalist, comic reviewer, theatre critic, film lover, biscuit fan, cat indulger