Review: Batgirl Vol. 2: Bloodlines trade paperback (DC Comics)

Tate Brombal’s Batgirl Vol. 2: Bloodlines is a transitional volume, moving this series I suspect from what Cassandra Cain’s books have been in the past to what this series will ultimately be now.

Much is suggested here — about Brombal’s writing, about where this series is going — some of it great and some of it not so much. I’m curious now about many things (to be solved as I jump into the third book forthwith), above all where we’re headed in terms of a status quo for this book.

[Review contains spoilers]

Bloodlines kicks off with two issues, drawn by guest artist Isaac Goodhart, in which Cassandra reads her mother Lady Shiva’s diary. It is specifically the secret origin of Lady Shiva, some previously told and some not, and some revising what I understand to be events from Dennis O’Neil’s Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter series. Brombal changing things at least means no one has to go dig up issues of Richard Dragon from the 1970s, though at the same time, when the facts hew closer to “history” — especially as regards Bronze Tiger Ben Turner and his struggles with the League of Assassins and the Suicide Squad — I did find myself confused where what was new did and didn’t coincide with what was old.

[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]

Among the five issues of Bloodlines, two again take place in flashback while Cassandra rides a train, and the other three all occur within the small confines of Turner and the late Richard Dragon’s farm. That is, the sense of Bloodlines as transitional comes from the plot but is reinforced by how “small” the story is relatively — the limited scene space, the emphasis on both Shiva and Turner’s narratives. Even what action sequences there are here tend notably toward the constrained spaces of barns and fenced-in areas.

The upshot is that Cassandra learns she has a brother, the Jade Tiger Tenji Turner, son (for reasons not yet explained) of Lady Shiva and the Bronze Tiger. A book that’s been relatively quiet, by virtue of the taciturn Batgirl, suddenly becomes exceptionally loud by virtue of the motormouth slang-slinging Tenji, and it’s not an auspicious addition.

Brombal means for Jade Tiger to seem overconfident and underprepared, so it is not as though the portrayal is wrong necessarily. But in Tenji’s “cuz”es and “We doing this,” I worry if this is how Brombal thinks an “average” teenager talks, and what among other things that means for his New Titans. As well, Tenji immediately fawns over Cassandra as his long-lost sister in a way Brombal perhaps means to be earnest, but it comes across melodramatic, if not silly. It is as if Batgirl’s silence forced Brombal to mitigate a tendency toward overwriting, and now that Jade Tiger is here, that inclination is no longer curbed.

Time (and subsequent volumes) will tell. There’s also the last-minute introduction of Jaya Jayesh, daughter of one of Batgirl’s allies, who reads more reasonably, and in the final pages, the trio rides out on the next leg of their journey. Maybe Brombal has something workable here — the cool one, Jaya; the naive one, Tenji; and Cassandra in the middle — but it remains to be seen. Equally this nascent supporting cast could be gone as quickly as they arrived, marking the third book as wholly different from the second, which was wholly different from the first.

It could be the days of status quos in superhero comics are past, not unlike secret identities. Superman lives in Metropolis, he works as Clark Kent at the Daily Planet, and when trouble looms in the sky, he flies into action. But not unlike the marvelous competition, often DC series read like long miniseries — Joshua Williamson’s similar three-volume Robin series, for instance, never much had a status quo in favor of Damian Wayne’s protracted tournament on Lazarus Island, and even indeed Wonder Woman’s focus tends to shift with whatever creative team is in charge. So wondering when the Batgirl title might settle in might be folly; it may be that nothing “settles” any more, so much as a writer just tells a story and stops.

Bloodlines is an interesting package overall, but that it falters in the middle to the end reinforces what’s really interesting here — the flashback to the adventures of young Lady Shiva, Bronze Tiger, Richard Dragon, and Shiva’s sister Carolyn. Brombal perhaps writes himself into a corner, given that Shiva at this point carries more momentum than Cassandra and crew but that Shiva is deceased (though I doubt she is). It is an energizing moment when Bronze Tiger watches Batgirl and Jade Tiger and sees the second comings of himself and Dragon, and of Carolyn and Shiva, though still I’m unsure Brombal has written the young heroes with enough base to carry the weight of how well he wrote the older ones.

Tate Brombal’s Batgirl Vol. 1: Mother didn’t read significantly different from Cassandra Cain Batgirl series in the past — Batgirl up against various ninja figures with abilities complementary or in contrast to her own. With Batgirl Vol. 2: Bloodlines, we begin to see the shape of how Brombal might differentiate this outing, Cassandra placed within a legacy of DC’s “kung fu” warriors, complete with her own supporting cast thereof. That’s got potential, though the potential may be all on the side of who the characters are descended from and not on them themselves.

We’re almost 12 issues in and I’m still not sure what this book is about, something that frustrates me to no end but that probably isn’t all that different than any of DC’s well-selling Absolute books, so maybe that’s a “me thing.” I’m enjoying the ride but I wish I could settle in.

[Includes original and variant covers]

Rating 2.25