If you’re a Cassandra Cain fan, the one thing you can always count on is that she’ll never outrun the guilt she feels about her past. I want to be frustrated with Batgirl #20 for leaning so heavily into maybe the most documented era of Batgirl’s life, but the execution is simply too entertaining despite the feeling that she’ll never move past her original trauma. It feels a little familiar, especially after last month’s adventure in the Spirit World, but it also feels more important than that issue, so it’s easy to forgive it and let the retroactive lore roll over you.
Given a case to solve by Batman, Batgirl along with her half-brother, Tenji, and former League of Shadows member, Jaya, are operating on a pretty short clock. This is their first real adventure together in Gotham proper and they’re already feeling the effects of a Vandal Savage run GCPD, giving their mysterious case a pretty quick turnaround.
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Once they find the body, that of a young girl under the age of 10, Cassandra Cain immediately starts suffering from intense flashbacks; she knows that dress the victim is wearing, hell, she’s worn that dress. Too many parts of the case are adding up too quickly for her, including the placement of a flower, a forget-me-not.
Even mentioning that phrase sends Batgirl into a seizure, made all the worse when TUCOs, Tactical Urban Combat Officers, special officers made to hunt down bats arrive on the scene. Tenji feels the pressure, and calls his dad, Bronze Tiger, who happens to be in Gotham for gig of his own. When Tenji mentions the forget-me-nots, Bronze Tiger seizes up too.
Without mentioning much more about the story because I don’t want to spoil things, This issue sets up a pivotal part of Cass’s past that has been forgotten because of these damn flowers, and, again, despite retreading familiar territory of her past, the mystery is so intriguing I don’t even mind.
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There’s so much done well here. Even the opening, where Batman gives the assignment to Cass—she gets it because a note for Batgirl was written in the ink of a fungus called coprinus comatus, C.C., for Cassandra Cain. Having Gordon be the officer that Cass deals with while she immediately takes on the presence of her mentor is fun to watch. The extended family being such an important part of her career but filling in familiar roles like Tenji as Robin and Jaya like herself all those years ago, there’s just little details that consistently build on top of each other and make it entertaining.
And that’s without mentioning the final page reveal, which promises something cool, new, and uniquely Cass, which at the end of the day is all I really want when I’m reading a Batgirl comic.
One of the best parts about the way Brombal writes Batgirl is the way narration works, while in character for Cassandra, also gets out of the way of the art. It’s calm and straightforward before the mention of forget-me-nots, and hectic and dramatic after, capturing the feeling of the story and making you feel the chaos. I also want to shout out the flashback sequences, which feel like they could’ve been deleted panels from the Damion Scott-penciled era from 2000.
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Batgirl #20 does my least favorite thing so well I don’t even mind. It brings up the past in a way that feels fresh and intentional. Rather than mining her past, it’s adding to it by putting more toys in the toy box than were there before. The mystery is intriguing, the threat to her allies is significant, and the promise of what this means for Batgirl going forward is too exciting to do anything but patiently wait for more answers next month.
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