Batgirl #9

In this review of Batgirl #9, as she searches for the Jade Tiger, Batgirl winds up reuniting with one of Shiva’s old friends and her old master – Bronze Tiger!

BATGIRL #9
Writer: TATE BROMBAL
Artist: TAKESHI MIYAZAWA
Main Cover: DAVID TALASKI
Variant Covers: TIRSO, OTTO SCHMIDT
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: 7/2/25

This review contains spoilers

In Whitefish, Montana, Norbu the Untested touches down, just over a mile away from our hero. Said hero Batgirl arrives at Dragon Ranch, the home of Bronze Tiger, who has seemingly abandoned his life of martial arts. Batgirl informs Tiger that Shiva is dead, but Tiger hardly reacts, saying he never knew Lady Shiva, only Sandra Wu-San. That woman was complicated, and not the person Cassandra saw as her mother.

Batgirl quickly grows impatient, yelling at Tiger to tell her about the Jade Tiger. Calling him a coward, she begins to attack while Tiger hardly fights back, doing just enough to deflect her blows. Before the fight gets worse however, she’s tackled by a young man, revealing himself to be both Bronze Tiger’s son and Tenji Turner – The Jade Tiger himself.

Batgirl takes one look at Tenji and realizes he doesn’t know of his father’s history – that of when he was brainwashed to be an assassin for the League of Assassins. The two get back to fighting, throwing each other house of the house. When Batgirl sees the fighting styles of Bronze Tiger, Richard Dragon and Lady Shiva in Tenji’s style, she screams how he knows of her moves. Tenji realizes that he’s fighting Cassandra Cain and informs her that Shiva was his mother, and that he is her brother. Just then Norbu the Untested arrives to claim Batgirl’s head.

Analysis

I had a hard time with Batgirl #9, and am now fearing that Tate Brombal is writing above his weight.

It’s been commented upon during the Book of Shiva issues that this series stays focused on the legend of Lady Shiva more than Cassandra’s development. While one is intractably tied to the other, we now to the point where I’m tired of Brombal writing about Shiva at all. As I’ve repeatedly made clear with every issue, the way he sees this character is a thinner, less compelling version of who she’s been for most of her existence, and it’s now gotten to where he just isn’t getting any better with her. We spent two issues detailing some of the mopiest, most histrionic interpretation of DC’s deadliest woman I think that’s ever been written. Every aspect of her history was rent asunder with destruction and murder for the sake of pathos so thinly detailed, so banal in its presentation, you might think Shiva saw the humor in it and lost all sense of feeling through the sheer cliche that was her life. I hate to put this harsh a point on it, but it all comes out in how Cass is written. For the first several issues of the run, Batgirl has hated her mother.

At the end of issue #6, she witnesses Shiva seemingly sacrifice herself to save her daughter. We don’t get much of Cassandra’s thoughts about this, because it’s straight to Shiva’s backstory for the next two issues. We see Shiva’s history as Cass sees it, but not how Cass reacts to it. So by this issue, Cassandra is expressing her sense of guilt and loss by lashing out at Bronze Tiger. It’s all psychologically plain, but ultimately unengaging, and near-the-knuckle out of character. Batgirl shouldn’t be trying to insult fighter’s who’ve since retired. Yelling “You were once a great warrior, but now you’re a coward”, that’s not Cass. Even if he’s upset and bothered by Bronze Tiger’s lack of forthrightness, she’s speaking like someone might imagine a martial artist would speak, but not Cassandra Cain. This is a character who is so burdened by guilt, that she never pushes it on anyone else. And even if she might, she knows Bronze Tiger. Well. It’s not clear to new readers, but fans who know their history remember Cassandra and Tiger’s interaction in the last Cass book. And sure, Cassandra still sees herself as an unrepentant killer and says as much, but because Tiger is being irritatingly cagey (because he now has a son which complicates things), we’re left with very old tropes of angry people starting fights for no reason. Do we feel Cass’ sense of grief and outrage? I don’t.

The annoying thing about all this is that it didn’t have to be this way. Brombal did an excellent job jumping into Cass’ psyche in past issues. This isn’t like in the pages of Batman and Robin Year One where I’ve lamented Mark Waid just not ever getting into the head of Dick Grayson. Brombal knows how to pilot this character. But everything is presented at a two-dimensional angle. We get that Bronze Tiger wants to shield his son and that Cassandra wouldn’t understand right now, but there has to be a better way to communicate that than “You’re hiding something from me!” *PUNCH* If Tiger had grabbed Cassandra and forced her to stop and sit with her emotions, we might’ve had a real meaty emotional breakdown scene. But no, the whole issue is beset with needless fights. All which come to an end when we learn that Shiva apparently had a son with Bronze Tiger.

I don’t think there’s any believable way to reconcile with this reveal. Is Brombal gonna write that in Shiva’ grief over Carolyn’s murder she hooked up with Carolyn’s boyfriend (Admittedly, this is such a DC Comics move if you’ve read old issues of Teen Titans)? Is she going to be rendered with that level of hackneyed “I’m so alone, please hold me?” It’s also a repeated concept, the idea that Cassandra has siblings, as evidenced with the Adam Beechen penned Batgirl miniseries. Cassandra has more than enough siblings we care about in the Bat-Family, and Bronze Tiger knows this. What precisely would be the explanation to keep Tenji a secret after so long?

Takeshi Miyazawa is back on art, and doing solid work. I enjoyed seeing Batgirl in full costume from start to finish. Unfortunately Brombal’s writing really bummed me out. It’s been months and months of telling us to feel bad for Shiva because she’s a complicated woman through to use of stock character writing, hardly ever showing off her superiority in martial arts. This book reads as though someone who might be fans of Batgirl and Shiva was hazy on the history but knew a few things, and is trying to piece them together without searching for the meaning in what makes them special. Lady Shiva isn’t interesting because she’s had a hard life, and Batgirl isn’t interesting because her hard life makes her sad. Have we reached a point of fundamental misunderstanding with these two characters. The ship has definitely sailed on one of them. We’ll see how this arc continues, but I’m afraid it isn’t looking good at this point.