Post by Noctis on Oct 26, 2010 6:04:41 GMT -5
Well, for better or worse, here it is. My extra-size review for Batgirl Vol. 1, Iss. #1. Please forgive any spelling and grammatical errors, and I ask that if you find any, please PM me and I'll fix it right away.
Batgirl #1
Released April 2000
Writers: Scott Peterson, Kelley Puckett
Pencils: Damian Scott
Inks: Robert Campanella
Cover Price: $2.50
Walkthrough:
We start off at the dojo of Master Assassin David Cain with a 7 or 8 year old Cassandra facing off against five confused mercenaries and Cain setting up a pro-grade high speed film camera. The mercs’ task seems simple enough; Cass sticks a knife on the floor below her and the mercs are instructed to pick up the knife and cut her. The mercs (who look amused and are probably thinking Cain is out of his mind) decline. We then cut to a panel with the first merc on the floor with a brutally busted jaw and desperately reaching out for the knife that was offered earlier. Alas, Merc #1’s efforts go to waste as Cassandra walks over and snaps his arm with a resounding kick to the elbow. We end the scene with Cassandra proceeding with her kick-assery on the other mercs as Cain smirkingly offers them another knife.
Flash-forward to the present and we’re at Oracle’s Clock Tower with Babs beating Cass in escrima, the Filipino martial art of stick-fighting, much to Cassandra’s surprise.
“Well, don’t look so surprised—you weren’t even looking at me!” said Babs with a wide grin plastered on her face. “I have been doing this for years, you know.”
With that said, Babs declined Cass’ silent rematch request and wheeled away to her computer. After a moment of pondering, she renamed her “BATGIRL” file to “ORIGINAL BATGIRL” then created a new “BATGIRL” file dedicated to Cass and proceeded to record the little info and details she has on Gotham’s new female caped crusader of the night.
We then flashback about 9 years (around the time when Cassandra ran away from Cain) to a dark backstreet alley of what I’m pretty sure is Tibet where good ol’ Merc #1 is fighting with a homeless-looking local for a bottle of booze. After wrestling the bottle away and then slamming the poor guy’s face against a wall with his boot, yelling “Shut Up!” over the victimized guy’s cries, Merc #1 spots a young homeless-looking Cassandra watching nearby. After recognizing Cass, and probably by pure instinct, the shocked and surprised merc smashes the end of the booze making a bottleneck blade. But even with his newly, crudely made weapon, Cass sees the pure fear in the man’s eyes and runs away. Merc #1 laughs at his lucky break, but then realizes that he had just lost all of his booze and crumples down in disappointment and despair.
Another flash-forward takes us to a dark backstreet alley in present-day Gotham where we see Batgirl saving a young woman from being raped from a very chatty run-of-the-mill thug (with Batman watching nearby in the shadows). Much to Batman’s annoyance, the chatty thug, who was being subdued by Cass, continued to verbally harass the poor victimized woman. Looking like he had heard enough, the B-Man landed a swift right hook on the thug’s jaw and then proceeded to slam the guy’s head to a wall telling him to say sorry. The victimized woman then runs out of the alley, while Cassandra stands by and watches in shock and surprise as the thug screams his apologies and begs Batman to not hit again.
The next day, Babs takes Cass, who had a look of sad loneliness and confusion, out to a park and tries to coax her in letting her emotions out and sharing what she is feeling and going through. However, Babs neglected to remember that, even if she really wanted to, Cassandra could not tell her how she felt or what she was going through because she just didn’t know how. Babs realized her mistake and apologized but it was too late; Cass had already upped and ran off looking both sad and hurt.
We then cut to nightfall. Babs and Batman are outside Cassandra room watching as she tosses and turns angrily in her bed.
“Nightmares.” said Babs. “It’s the same every night.”
Babs then tries to discuss with Bruce whether they’re pushing Cass too much and too fast for someone her age, but Bruce cuts her off midsentence.
“Who does she remind you of?” asked Bruce as he looks out the window to a dark, shadowy Gotham. “Out of everyone you know, who does she seem the most like.”
Babs replied with a stern look in her eyes, “Well, maybe it’s just her way with words but…actually…you.”
Batman then turned to face Babs.
“Then trust me, she’s one strong moment away from making sense of it all. Who she was. Who she is.”
We then spend the next couple panel with Batman explaining to Babs about the things Cain did to Cass; how he trained her, how he deprived her of human speech so that the language center of her brain would interpret body movements as a language instead of words.
Babs remarked that she sensed Cass’ ability to understand and read her body language during their earlier escrima sparring match. She thought that Cass’ abilities (her skill, speed) was attributed to her being trained by Cain at a young age. However, Batman told Babs that wasn’t the case.
“Cain’s an assassin, Barbara,” said Batman with a wide grin on his face. “He never taught her stick fighting. I did. Last week, took five minutes.”
“Oh, you have gotta be kidding me….”
The next two pages show Batman and Batgirl in full costume sparring in hand-to-hand combat inside an abandoned warehouse. Batman then stops, rips off Cass’ mask and tells her to not hold backwhen sparring with him and to show him “what you can really do.”
The next couple panels show Batgirl buckled over with Batman standing tall in front of her saying that she’s out of shape. Cass then swings back up and stares defiantly when Batman coughs up blood onto his closed hand as he starts saying his next sentence. The two share a smile as Bruce looks at the blood on his fingers. Their moment is short-lived, however, when they hear an armed robbery in progress.
We then see Batman chasing after a perp while Batgirl stands by an open armed truck looking down at a dead guard, who I presume is the truck driver.
Off in a brightly lit room, we see a perp filling up a bag with wads of cash. After filling his bag to his heart’s content the guy busts out of the building (with its oh so brightly lit interior) and enters a backstreet alley. A bright yellow light pours out of the open door behind him. Directly outside the door, he is caught dead in his tracks by Batgirl. The perp raises is handgun toward Batgirl, but she easily swats it away, then grips him by the collar of his shirt and slams him against the wall behind her. And look who it is; it’s Merc #1!
After recognizing who the perp was, Cass immediately jumps back with a shocked and surprised look on her face. Seizing the opportunity, Merc #1 runs off empty-handed. With her back now facing the brightly lit open doorway, Cass looks up at her tall shadow casted on the wall where she had just slammed Merc #1.
Her shadow looked like Batman's.
Just before Merc #1 exited the alley, Batgirl grabs him from behind, holds him up by the neck, slams him against the wall, smacks him to the ground, and then smashes his face to wall with her boot. Helpless and confused, Merc #1 looked up at Batgirl asking “Who?—What?" With her boot still pressing down on Mr. Merc’s face, Batgirl leans over real close, looked at the man beneath her foot and said “SHUTUP”. She then lifts her foot off the guy and steps back.
The merc turned and looked up at Batgirl with a look of either absolute fear or absolute disbelief (or both) in his eyes.
"You."
Batgirl responds with a loud KRAK’ing punt kick to his head.
We cut to Batman and Batgirl standing on a ledge overlooking the Gotham city nightscape.
“One rule,” said Batman with his index finger standing rigid. “No costumed criminals. Oracle will tell you what that means. As for the rest…” Batman then waves his arms out towards the city. “…it’s all yours.”
Batgirl grips the bottom of her cape and looks down at the city.
“Remember, on those streets you…are me.”
Batgirl then reaches out to Bruce, touches his cheek with her hand, and pulls in close to his face.
“Uh…that’s…really not necessary….” said Bruce with a startled and surprised look on his face.
And with that said, Batgirl throws out a line and goes swinging into the night.
We end the book with an aging David Cain loading and starting up an an old movie reel projector, and then kicking back with a bottle of vodka watching the footage taken from that fateful day in his dojo when a young Cassandra faced off against a group of five mercenaries all by herself.
-------
*Note: All the scenes with direct dialogues were my personal favorites of the issue.
The sensational first issue of Batgirl Vol. 1! All I have to say is this issue is just chock full of EPIC WIN! What I enjoyed the most was the writing. Bar none, this is a style of writing that I love! The competent usage of symbolic parallelism reflecting throughout the entire book flowed with a clean grace. The flashbacks and flash-forwards set up pretty neat transitional tie-ins that helped give great depths for Cassandra’s persona as a crime fighter and as a person overall. All this was achieved with Cassandra saying just two words in the entire book. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Cassandra resonated on every single panel and page in this whole issue.
The interactions between Babs and Bruce over Cassandra were just stellar. They remind me of a young couple who had just adopted a young, teenage girl as their first child and are constantly bickering over who knows what is truly best for their kid. The same analogy applies to Cass, who resembles a newly adopted teenage girl who doesn’t know what her place really is yet and if she can truly fit into this new family of hers.
The art was nice and quite consistent. Its usage of contrasting bright colors and dark shades gave the book that shadowy feeling that is iconic to the Batman titles and legacy. Unlike other artists in the past, the artist here made no attempts to hide Cassandra’s mixed ethnicity. This is evident by him giving her slight yet still identifiable Asian-features. However, I was bothered by several panels where Cassandra looked overly muscular in her Batgirl costume.
Rating: 5/5
Batgirl #1
Released April 2000
Writers: Scott Peterson, Kelley Puckett
Pencils: Damian Scott
Inks: Robert Campanella
Cover Price: $2.50
Walkthrough:
We start off at the dojo of Master Assassin David Cain with a 7 or 8 year old Cassandra facing off against five confused mercenaries and Cain setting up a pro-grade high speed film camera. The mercs’ task seems simple enough; Cass sticks a knife on the floor below her and the mercs are instructed to pick up the knife and cut her. The mercs (who look amused and are probably thinking Cain is out of his mind) decline. We then cut to a panel with the first merc on the floor with a brutally busted jaw and desperately reaching out for the knife that was offered earlier. Alas, Merc #1’s efforts go to waste as Cassandra walks over and snaps his arm with a resounding kick to the elbow. We end the scene with Cassandra proceeding with her kick-assery on the other mercs as Cain smirkingly offers them another knife.
Flash-forward to the present and we’re at Oracle’s Clock Tower with Babs beating Cass in escrima, the Filipino martial art of stick-fighting, much to Cassandra’s surprise.
“Well, don’t look so surprised—you weren’t even looking at me!” said Babs with a wide grin plastered on her face. “I have been doing this for years, you know.”
With that said, Babs declined Cass’ silent rematch request and wheeled away to her computer. After a moment of pondering, she renamed her “BATGIRL” file to “ORIGINAL BATGIRL” then created a new “BATGIRL” file dedicated to Cass and proceeded to record the little info and details she has on Gotham’s new female caped crusader of the night.
We then flashback about 9 years (around the time when Cassandra ran away from Cain) to a dark backstreet alley of what I’m pretty sure is Tibet where good ol’ Merc #1 is fighting with a homeless-looking local for a bottle of booze. After wrestling the bottle away and then slamming the poor guy’s face against a wall with his boot, yelling “Shut Up!” over the victimized guy’s cries, Merc #1 spots a young homeless-looking Cassandra watching nearby. After recognizing Cass, and probably by pure instinct, the shocked and surprised merc smashes the end of the booze making a bottleneck blade. But even with his newly, crudely made weapon, Cass sees the pure fear in the man’s eyes and runs away. Merc #1 laughs at his lucky break, but then realizes that he had just lost all of his booze and crumples down in disappointment and despair.
Another flash-forward takes us to a dark backstreet alley in present-day Gotham where we see Batgirl saving a young woman from being raped from a very chatty run-of-the-mill thug (with Batman watching nearby in the shadows). Much to Batman’s annoyance, the chatty thug, who was being subdued by Cass, continued to verbally harass the poor victimized woman. Looking like he had heard enough, the B-Man landed a swift right hook on the thug’s jaw and then proceeded to slam the guy’s head to a wall telling him to say sorry. The victimized woman then runs out of the alley, while Cassandra stands by and watches in shock and surprise as the thug screams his apologies and begs Batman to not hit again.
The next day, Babs takes Cass, who had a look of sad loneliness and confusion, out to a park and tries to coax her in letting her emotions out and sharing what she is feeling and going through. However, Babs neglected to remember that, even if she really wanted to, Cassandra could not tell her how she felt or what she was going through because she just didn’t know how. Babs realized her mistake and apologized but it was too late; Cass had already upped and ran off looking both sad and hurt.
We then cut to nightfall. Babs and Batman are outside Cassandra room watching as she tosses and turns angrily in her bed.
“Nightmares.” said Babs. “It’s the same every night.”
Babs then tries to discuss with Bruce whether they’re pushing Cass too much and too fast for someone her age, but Bruce cuts her off midsentence.
“Who does she remind you of?” asked Bruce as he looks out the window to a dark, shadowy Gotham. “Out of everyone you know, who does she seem the most like.”
Babs replied with a stern look in her eyes, “Well, maybe it’s just her way with words but…actually…you.”
Batman then turned to face Babs.
“Then trust me, she’s one strong moment away from making sense of it all. Who she was. Who she is.”
We then spend the next couple panel with Batman explaining to Babs about the things Cain did to Cass; how he trained her, how he deprived her of human speech so that the language center of her brain would interpret body movements as a language instead of words.
Babs remarked that she sensed Cass’ ability to understand and read her body language during their earlier escrima sparring match. She thought that Cass’ abilities (her skill, speed) was attributed to her being trained by Cain at a young age. However, Batman told Babs that wasn’t the case.
“Cain’s an assassin, Barbara,” said Batman with a wide grin on his face. “He never taught her stick fighting. I did. Last week, took five minutes.”
“Oh, you have gotta be kidding me….”
The next two pages show Batman and Batgirl in full costume sparring in hand-to-hand combat inside an abandoned warehouse. Batman then stops, rips off Cass’ mask and tells her to not hold backwhen sparring with him and to show him “what you can really do.”
The next couple panels show Batgirl buckled over with Batman standing tall in front of her saying that she’s out of shape. Cass then swings back up and stares defiantly when Batman coughs up blood onto his closed hand as he starts saying his next sentence. The two share a smile as Bruce looks at the blood on his fingers. Their moment is short-lived, however, when they hear an armed robbery in progress.
We then see Batman chasing after a perp while Batgirl stands by an open armed truck looking down at a dead guard, who I presume is the truck driver.
Off in a brightly lit room, we see a perp filling up a bag with wads of cash. After filling his bag to his heart’s content the guy busts out of the building (with its oh so brightly lit interior) and enters a backstreet alley. A bright yellow light pours out of the open door behind him. Directly outside the door, he is caught dead in his tracks by Batgirl. The perp raises is handgun toward Batgirl, but she easily swats it away, then grips him by the collar of his shirt and slams him against the wall behind her. And look who it is; it’s Merc #1!
After recognizing who the perp was, Cass immediately jumps back with a shocked and surprised look on her face. Seizing the opportunity, Merc #1 runs off empty-handed. With her back now facing the brightly lit open doorway, Cass looks up at her tall shadow casted on the wall where she had just slammed Merc #1.
Her shadow looked like Batman's.
Just before Merc #1 exited the alley, Batgirl grabs him from behind, holds him up by the neck, slams him against the wall, smacks him to the ground, and then smashes his face to wall with her boot. Helpless and confused, Merc #1 looked up at Batgirl asking “Who?—What?" With her boot still pressing down on Mr. Merc’s face, Batgirl leans over real close, looked at the man beneath her foot and said “SHUTUP”. She then lifts her foot off the guy and steps back.
The merc turned and looked up at Batgirl with a look of either absolute fear or absolute disbelief (or both) in his eyes.
"You."
Batgirl responds with a loud KRAK’ing punt kick to his head.
We cut to Batman and Batgirl standing on a ledge overlooking the Gotham city nightscape.
“One rule,” said Batman with his index finger standing rigid. “No costumed criminals. Oracle will tell you what that means. As for the rest…” Batman then waves his arms out towards the city. “…it’s all yours.”
Batgirl grips the bottom of her cape and looks down at the city.
“Remember, on those streets you…are me.”
Batgirl then reaches out to Bruce, touches his cheek with her hand, and pulls in close to his face.
“Uh…that’s…really not necessary….” said Bruce with a startled and surprised look on his face.
And with that said, Batgirl throws out a line and goes swinging into the night.
We end the book with an aging David Cain loading and starting up an an old movie reel projector, and then kicking back with a bottle of vodka watching the footage taken from that fateful day in his dojo when a young Cassandra faced off against a group of five mercenaries all by herself.
-------
*Note: All the scenes with direct dialogues were my personal favorites of the issue.
The sensational first issue of Batgirl Vol. 1! All I have to say is this issue is just chock full of EPIC WIN! What I enjoyed the most was the writing. Bar none, this is a style of writing that I love! The competent usage of symbolic parallelism reflecting throughout the entire book flowed with a clean grace. The flashbacks and flash-forwards set up pretty neat transitional tie-ins that helped give great depths for Cassandra’s persona as a crime fighter and as a person overall. All this was achieved with Cassandra saying just two words in the entire book. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Cassandra resonated on every single panel and page in this whole issue.
The interactions between Babs and Bruce over Cassandra were just stellar. They remind me of a young couple who had just adopted a young, teenage girl as their first child and are constantly bickering over who knows what is truly best for their kid. The same analogy applies to Cass, who resembles a newly adopted teenage girl who doesn’t know what her place really is yet and if she can truly fit into this new family of hers.
The art was nice and quite consistent. Its usage of contrasting bright colors and dark shades gave the book that shadowy feeling that is iconic to the Batman titles and legacy. Unlike other artists in the past, the artist here made no attempts to hide Cassandra’s mixed ethnicity. This is evident by him giving her slight yet still identifiable Asian-features. However, I was bothered by several panels where Cassandra looked overly muscular in her Batgirl costume.
Rating: 5/5
