Tate Brombal is still in the writer’s chair for Batgirl #7, this time joined by penciler Isaac Goodhart (incredible name) for this new arc focused on the revised origins of Lady Shiva… again! This happens to her a lot, I feel. Anyway, let’s dig into it.
I like the framing device of this story, especially with how we have Shiva quite literally narrating her life and journal via audiobook for Cass, which is a nice touch and reminder of Cass’ reading limitations. You love to see her disabilities being accounted for in-story like that. Cass’ dialogue at the start is pitch perfect too, sounding exactly like she should – curt, to the point, blatantly honest. All standard fare for how Brombal’s been handling it so far and I’m still quite happy with it.
Now we get into the meat of this issue, Shiva’s new origin… or is it? Well, it seems to me it’s a new interpretation of her classic Silver Age one as penned by her creator, the legendary Denny O’Neil, with some aspects of her post-crisis one thrown in for flavor (like the hint toward David Cain at the end… or does she mean Batman? Hm. Probably David in this context, but either way).
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The biggest and most noteworthy change is the names for Shiva and her sister, previously believed to be Sandra and Carolyn Wu-San, respectively. Now they have the much more authentically Chinese names of Ming-Yue and Mei-Xing, though I think it’s entirely possible that their classic canon names will be given to them at some point before this story is over. Still, this might be controversial to some, or perhaps it’s an improvement; it depends on how invested in Shiva’s consistency you are. Which, to be fair, she’s never entirely been from the onset anyway. I think, generally, this is a well intended change, but I’m not Chinese, so I’m not the right person to speak up on if this lands well or not. What I do like is the story at play, again a bit of a mix on Shiva’s classic tale from the Silver Age, but with some more details to chew on. The extent of which I’m sure we’ll be exploring in the issues to come, but I like what we have so far.
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I really enjoy Goodhart’s art on this book – it’s got a good energy and sense of style that feels like a natural lateral movement from the previous story arc’s sensibilities, without losing the strong sense of visual identity and depiction of Cassandra’s body language. Mike Spicer’s fantastic colors also help give it a lot of life, with this issue feeling a lot closer to his work from Skybound or Marvel than the previous issues, which I don’t see as a bad thing at all (his books for them are all gorgeous too!).
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Batgirl #7 is one for the history books, at least as far as Lady Shiva is concerned. It attempts to do what Brombal has so far done really well in previous issues: streamline the character’s many disparate characterizations into a congruent whole that doesn’t feel like it has any intention to invalidate what came before. This Shiva builds upon not only previous versions of her story, but tries to forge a new interpretation that honors them without just reprinting those stories wholesale. I’m very interested to see how this new take will attempt to tie Cassandra’s story to her mother’s in the coming months… or maybe how it won’t. That could be equally interesting!
We’ll wait and see. Good comic.
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