Next up for the month is a go-around into the DC universe.
For this story, I got two pretty skilled martial artists: Lady Shiva and
Cassandra Cain. Lady Shiva was created by Dennis O’Neill and Ric Estrada. She
first appeared in Richard Dragon, Kung Fu Fighter #5 from 1975. She’s gone
toe-to-toe with the best fighters in the DCU. She’s considered to be one the
best and is even better than Batman. Yes, Batman isn’t the greatest at
everything, folks. I’m getting tired of the whole “I can do anything with prep
time” version of Batman. Even though she’s mostly a villain, she’s even trained
folk like Bruce Wayne and Tim Drake.
As for Cassandra Cain, she first appeared in Batman #567
from 1999. She ended up becoming Batgirl for a few years, then someone decided
to make her a villain for no reason. Anyway, that went away, she had called
herself the Black Bat right before Flashpoint happened. After Flashpoint, all
of that history was gone and she was brought back to square zero. Instead of
becoming Batgirl, she ended up taking the name of Orphan during DC’s Rebirth
phase. In either continuity, Cassandra is a premier top fighter in the DCU.
Even Batman said he can’t beat her.
I think these two are fine characters overall, but I do like
that two women are the best DCU fighters. I know some Batman fans are now
staring darts at me right now. These two have gone to blows in the past. I know
they did in Cassandra’s own book from the 2000’s and somewhat recently in the
story I’ll be covering today. Today, it’s the “League of Shadows” arc from
Detective Comics #950-956. When Rebirth started, Detective Comics essentially
became a “Batman Team” book with other Batman-related characters being on the
team. I’ll list the creative team below.
Detective Comics’ “League of Shadows”
Writer: James Tynion IV
Pencils: Marcio Takara, Christian Duce, Fernando Blanco,
Eddy Barrows
Inks: Marcio Takara, Christian Duce, Fernando Blanco, and others
Colors: Marcelo Maiolo, Alex Sinclair, and Allen Passalaqua
Letters: Sal Cipriano
Editors: Mark Doyle, Chris Conroy, and Dave Wielgosz
SYNOPSIS
The story starts out with a prologue (#950), and it’s just
the team doing their thing. The one who gets the most out of the prologue is
Cassandra as she’s trying her best to fit in. All she knows how to do is to
kill, and trying to find a life of her own has been tough. The others like
Batman, Batwoman, and even Clayface (yeah, he is a team member too) try to help
her. She sometimes spends nights trailing a ballet dancer and tries to mimic
her moves. What Cassandra doesn’t know is that Lady Shiva, her mother (duh duh
duh!), is watching her from afar.
The arc begins properly with Batwoman training the team and
Batman going to meet with the new mayor. Things go for a turn when Batman finds
the mayor dead and the GCPD bust right in on him. Believing he did it, they
open fire on him. He heads back to the Belfry (the team’s headquarters) and he
gets with Batwoman to talk to Jacob Kane: his uncle, Kate’s father, and the
leader of a black-ops group called the Colony. He lets them know that the
League of Shadows (a splinter group of Ras al Ghul’s League of Assassins) are
behind this and they’re being led by Lady Shiva. He says that things will get
worse in the city, and they indeed do as someone unleashes Joker toxin the
city.
The team ends up getting embroiled in a battle with Shadow
members while Orphan ends up fighting Lady Shiva. Shiva beats the crap out her
pretty badly. Batman tries to take her on and also gets taken down. She and the
Shadows retreat and kidnap two members of the Team: Batwing and Azrael (yeah,
he’s back and on this team). Later, Cassandra hears about how bad Shiva is, and
it stresses her out to the point she fights Batman. She later faces down with
Shiva and gets beaten again. She also gets left by the League. The League of
Shadows also attack the Belfry and kidnap the rest of the team. Meanwhile, Batman
ends up being led back to Batcave and finds Ras al Ghul waiting for him.
Batman getting beat up... nice since we don't see that much.
Ras al Ghul tells Batman why he had Shiva lead his Shadows,
and it turns out that he’s been screwing around with Batman as well. He poisons
him to have him be taken by Shiva.
Meanwhile, the Colony come to the Belfry and release Jacob Kane and the
other Colony members so they can fight the League of Shadows as well. While
they try figure out how to invade the League’s headquarters, Orphan (who was
nursed back to health by the ballerina whom she admired) takes on the League.
Meanwhile, the rest of the team
wake up in the League’s headquarters tied up. It turns out that the League have
a bomb that’s set at a fault line under Gotham. If it goes off, it’ll bring
Gotham and most of its county down. Eventually, Orphan beats most of the ninjas
in the League. She’s able to free the team and the final fight is set. The team
takes on Shiva and what’s left of the League of Shadows. Batwing and Azrael are
able to disable the bomb. Cassandra does beat Shiva, but before they have a
heart-to-heart, Ras al Ghul kills Shiva. The League then retreat with Shiva’s
body (I guess they’ll Lazarus Pit her), and the day is more or less saved. The
story ends with things more or less going back to normal, but Batman is as on
edge as ever.
REVIEW
This was a pretty good arc for
this run. From what I’ve read from Tynion’s run of Detective Comics (I’m not
finished yet), it was mostly good. Tynion had handled a lot of these characters
before in previous books like Batman Eternal and Batman and Robin Eternal. He’s
even back on Batman now. He does well
with this team’s dynamic. He gets these characters down pretty well and they
have their own set of rules. Batman’s Batman, Batwoman’s the co-leader, Luke
Fox (Batwing) is the tech dude, and Orphan is the “I can do all things” lady.
It’s a nice make up. Cassandra especially gets a bit to do in this arc since it
mainly focuses around her finding her way. She’s still dealing with her past of
being trained by David Cain, and having Shiva show up doesn’t do her well.
Luckily, she’s able to work through it.
The rest of the team was pretty
good. Clayface especially gets some moments to shine here. Who knew he could be
an interesting character himself? As for our villains, Shiva was pretty cool.
Even though she goes down the usual route of trying to destroy Gotham, she
proved to be a worthy villain for Cassandra and the team. I also liked how Ras
was used here. He didn’t do much except for have Shiva do his job.
The artwork was good for the most
part. While Eddy Barrows (who started the run off) wasn’t on the art much, it
mostly worked for the most part. Duce’s artwork was pretty good and I kinda
wish that he stuck around for more. Marcio Takara handled a lot of the busy
work in the latter half and he did a good job. All of the action sequences were
pretty good.. The quiet moments were nice especially when Cassandra was
involved. Some artwork was a little weak here and there, though. I think it was
around the middle part of the arc where some of the art looked weird. Since the
book was bi-monthly at the time, it make sense that some of the artwork would
be rushed.
As for my negatives in the story,
the stuff involving the Colony was weak. They especially don’t do much towards
the end, though you do get a nice moment involving Jacob Kane decking Ulysses
Armstrong. I really don’t like Armstrong, so I’m glad someone punched out that
dweeb. You did have some contrivances show up here and there. Batman getting
framed for the mayor’s murder was one example since that felt off. Other than
those things and some small stuff, this was a good arc for this run.
In the end, this was good. If you
haven’t read Tynion’s run on Detective Comics, then go out there and do it, man
(or woman)! If you’re a Cassandra or Shiva fan, then definitely check out the
arc and run. It’s just good stories featuring characters who don’t always get
the limelight. Well, I’m off to finish this one show on Netflix. Until then,
Peace, God Bless, and don’t let Ras al Ghul punk you.
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