Happy New Year, all! It’s Crooker here, with issue #3 of Tate Brombal and Takeshi Miyazawa’s Batgirl, starring my favorite character: Cassandra Cain. Great way to start the New Year, no? With New Comic Book Day? As usual this book has me giddy with joy, so please sit back and let me rant about it for a couple hundred words for you today.
I really love the perspective we’re given in this issue. Here, after the brutal fight last time, we’re shown another outside perspective through Cass’s eyes on Shiva via the thoughts of her followers. The multi-faceted and many different characterizations of Shiva over the years being folded together in-universe in a way that has the people who support her make her akin to some sort of higher, divine-like figure. They worship her in every sense of the word, and through her, Cass as well. Cass’s iconic first real showdown with Shiva is directly referenced (Batgirl Vol. 1 #25) and even spoken of as if it was some holy text. All of this makes Cass very uncomfortable. And why wouldn’t it? Shiva, from Cass’s perspective, is a monster. She’s a murderer, a killer for many reasons, but notably often for her own amusement. Not that the reasons matter – Cass is a child of the bat, and has her own deeply personal reasons to abhor killing even separate from that.
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On every level, Cass has strong reasons to resent Shiva. Being shown the good people do in her name, the way others can still be inspired by her, the way Batman and his family inspired her, brought her in and made her part of that family, it bothers her. It’s a hard truth for her to reconcile with her own morals, and it doesn’t help that Shiva is still prodding her, still working with people who continue to murder and slaughter and hunt innocents and people she loves- like the League of Assassins, which is the final straw that sets her off this time. All culminating in the final return… of Nyssa Al Ghul, the less famous of the two Daughters of the Demon, and the final villain Cassandra faced in the climax of her original Batgirl run. Another compromise she’ll have to make? More fuel for the fire? Time will tell.
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I love all of this. It’s such a great issue that plays to the running theme of not being quite able to get a read on Shiva, her many different facets and characterizations over the years making her wholly unpredictable. We as readers are being placed in the same situation as Cass here: do we trust Shiva just because she appears to be sincere this time? We know she’s lied before, gone back on her word before (changed characterizations and writers before), so even with such compelling evidence… why believe it’ll stick now? Why trust her just because outside individuals have deified her when we know her as what she truly is: a grinning, battle hungry murderer?
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But she’s CHARMING, isn’t she? She’s charismatic, and she is so, so very much like Cass. Could she be better, could she do what many others have done and turn over a new leaf? Maybe, but she’s tried to do good before, and it doesn’t last. We cannot be certain of her. She’s Cass’s dark mirror, the Shadow to Cass’s Sonic, the Owl to her Bat, if you will. We want Cass to have good things, we know her, we know how she’s suffered and what she’s overcome, and like Cass, we’d love for her to have had a better life with parents who actually loved her… but that’s not what she got, not until Batman. God, it’s all such crazy compelling stuff. Tate you sly dog, you got me monologuing! I love ya for it.
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Of course the art is knockout too, with Miyazawa bringing us some incredible subtle movements from Cass while she observes people. She’s a character who speaks with her body, with movement, and everything about her body language is so on point. I also love the sincerity of the new character Jayesh, who Cass is of course very suspicious of, using her talents to constantly check if she’s being misled. After all she’s been through, she’s even doubting her ability to trust what she can see, which is very nicely reflected in the visuals, very clever stuff. And man the fight choreography, gorgeous stuff. Cass moves like a half-dancer, half martial arts master, and it is amazing. It’s so fluid that it feels in motion sometimes, and that’s perfect way to translate her unique way of fighting.
So yeah, Batgirl #3 is great. Very rarely can a single issue give me so much meat on the bone to chew on analytically that I barely even have to touch on the plot or cite personal experiences. If I did include everything from my usual checklist of review criteria, this would be twice as long, I swear – it just gave me that much to talk about. I love talking about this character almost as much as I love reading about her, and I am sooooo invested here. I was always in, but I am SO in. Please everybody buy a million copies so this doesn’t end in just six issues, I’ll cry. I swear I will! Don’t think I won’t!
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