Comic Book Review: Batgirl #12

In this review of Batgirl #12, Batgirl and her allies travel to Samara, to meet with Nyssa Al Ghul in talks of joining her crusade against the Unburied!

BATGIRL #12
Written by TATE BROMBAL
Art by TAKESHI MIYAZAWA
Main Cover: DAVID TALASKI
Variant Cover: RIAN GONZALES
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: 10/1/25

This review contains spoilers

Batgirl #12 begins as Cassandra Cain, Tenji Turner and Jaya Jayesh travel the globe to hold court with Nyssa Al Ghul, now the leader of the League of Shadows. The journey takes time, resulting in the occasional battle with assassins sent to stop them. Over time, Cass trains Tenji to improve his fighting skills, while Jaya trains both of them in the art of healing. And in the evening, Cassandra rarely answers Oracle and Stephanie Brown’s radio signals for her to come home, and suffers from old nightmares of her first kill.

Eventually the three reach Samsara, a Himalayan haven for lost souls and a paradise for those who want to live in peace. Cass encounters Aruna Shende, a shapeshifter whom she encountered with Batman way back in Batgirl Annual #1 (2000). As Aruna explains how she arrived to improve her skills and techniques, Nyssa appears and gives her pitch for her and Batgirl to join forces. Her plan is to steal and destroy the Unburied’s poppy garden, robbing them of their power. Cass agrees but Tenji is uninterested in teaming up with villains.

Just then, Chodak the Unbowed escapes the clutches of the League’s capture. He attacks and injures Nyssa, but Batgirl – sword in hand – takes him down immediately, swearing that she’ll defeat the Unburied once and for all as Batgirl #12 comes to an end.

Analysis

The three part Dragon Ranch arc is behind us, and we’re all the better for it. After three months of irritating melodrama, we’re back to a forward moving plot and decent character work with our main girl. Batgirl #12 isn’t brilliant by any means, but it’s decently enjoyable on its own merits and a definite step above what we’ve been given in this series over the summer.

Starting with the negatives, Batgirl #12 is a textbook example of telling over showing. The first several pages are Cassandra’s recorded mission logs with scant scenes of what’s been happening for…what really is an undetermined amount of time. Have they been traveling for weeks? days? A month? It’s been long enough that Babs and Steph are worried about her, but we’re just not told how long this has been. Later we’re taken to Samara, a haven which serves as a heavenly spiritual oasis for needy souls. A typical action/anime story trope, soon to be destroyed any issue now – but whatever. Just before we get into what Cassandra might think of such a place (the implication briefly begins just before she asks about Nyssa), we are reintroduced to a character so deep cut even I had to stop and try to remember where she came from.

Aruna Shende isn’t simply from an old Batgirl annual from 25 years ago. She’s specifically from the Planet DC event that DC attempted to introduce new characters from across the globe. Aruna is Indian, and had encountered both Batgirl and Batman while they were investigating a kidnapping. To my knowledge she hadn’t been seen since, so I wish Brombal and Miyazaki would’ve given us an actual flashback page as opposed to a minimized editor’s note.

This brings me to a point I’m concerned about for this book. Tate Brombal’s very clearly a fan, and is reintroducing classic events and themes from Batgirl’s past adventures. But it’s done very quickly with little context surrounding it. For instance, Cassandra dreams of her first kill – which was foundational in the first two years of her last series. Might there have been a better way to illustrate what exactly she was dreaming about? I may be overthinking it, and the event is obvious, but taken in concert with bringing back Aruna and later referencing Cass under Deathstroke’s brainwashing (Slade isn’t even specifically mentioned, just that Cass was brainwashed in the pages of Robin and nearly killed Nyssa), I worry that this series might become too inside baseball for new fans. I mega-appreciate all the history and continuity, but I don’t want any of that to turn new fans off, especially when they’re being invoked to drive Cass’ character development.

But overall I liked Batgirl #12. I liked that we got Babs (in her now classic James Tynion era Oracle fit) and Stephanie worried about her, and Cassandra’s shutting them out speaks to how personally she’s been taking these adventures. Recall that in the first two issues, she was ready to go to Batman right away. The scene where she hangs up on Oracle after Babs says she’s returning to old habits is a solid one, speaking quite a bit on how she’s been changing, and maybe not for the better. I also, despite my nitpicks, liked the appearances of Aruna and Nyssa in this. We saw Nyssa earlier in the run, but her taking more of a headstrong role now that Shiva’s out of the picture worked well. I didn’t care too much for Tenji Turner being an impudent loudmouth, but there was enough self-awareness for that to be commented on by the other characters. I liked Nyssa’s line about the Dollar-Store Bronze Tiger calling the shots.

I am still eager for this Unburied arc to end, because it really isn’t compelling, but this was a good issue for Cass’ development and to take inventory on how she’s been dealing with all these revelations and adventures. The cover to Batgirl #12 has exactly nothing to do with the story, except that we are back on track for Cass being the star of the book.