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BATGIRL #25
Highly Recommended (9/10)
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DC Comics
Writer: Kelley Puckett
Pencils: Damion Scott
Inks: Robert Campanella
Colors: Jason Wright & Digital Chameleon
Letters: John Costanza
Editor: Michael Wright
Price: $3.25 US/$5.50 CAN |
Once again, Puckett dives into the unusual humanity of a girl trained to kill who doesn't kill. There is a myriad of reasons why the title character shouldn't attract my attention, but there's one why she should: Puckett's ability to expose the layers of her almost alien mind. Combined with the moody and kinetic art of Scott and Campanella, it makes for a fascinating and engaging comic-book experience.
The time has come. Batgirl is to face off against the unsurpassed martial-arts skills of Lady Shiva in a battle to the death. The young heroine has a deathwish, in fact, as she yearns to atone for a murder she committed years ago. Oracle tries to show her that no matter what she believes now, she was not responsible for that death.
As always, Scott captures the title character's youth, intensity and inner turmoil wonderfully. He and Campanella really bring Cassandra to life. Their action sequences are thrilling, and they convey a Hong Kong action-flick feel nicely. Wright bathes key scenes in haunting, muted colors, reinforcing the cinematic look of the art. There's a refreshing Asian influence at play here, but it doesn't really come off as manga either.
There's a disturbing but somehow alluring intimacy to the conflict between Shiva and Batgirl. The pair shares so much in common, chief among them, loneliness, it would seem. Cassandra is a mirror reflection of Shiva, and this story makes it seem as though there's a symbiotic relationship between them. Despite the violence in the climactic scene, there's an odd serenity to the action as well.
When this series began, I figured there was no way that Puckett could transform a teenage, mute assassin into a human character I would enjoy reading about on a monthly basis. I was obviously wrong. Two years later, Puckett pulls off another coup: he instills some humanity in the thoroughly callous and deadly Lady Shiva. There's a vulnerability to the character in the concluding scene. Suddenly, she's no longer a one-dimensional, curvacious plot device, but a human being.
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