Don’t Go Gently Into The Night — Reviewing ‘Batgirl’ #5

Notoriously, Cassandra Cain is one for few words. Not many are needed as Batgirl is not on the hunt. Silent, deadly, and dead set on retrieving her mother, Lady Shiva, even though their mother-daughter relationship is — to be generous — rocky.

Oh what an absolute joy Tate Brombal, Takeshi Miyazawa, Wayne Faucher, Mike Spicer, and Tom Napolitano have crafted. Action, intrigue, silence, and so much more wrapped in a cover. They sure know how to spend a story arc’s penultimate chapter.

There was an issue of the 2002 Batgirls (the fourteenth issue to be exact) that was completely silent — an artistic choice various creators and publishers have played with in the past. Not a lick of dialogue as the art completely sells what goes down. It was an issue that I really loved.

All that similar energy, and more, is captured here.

I’ve loved what Brombal has done with the mother-daughter relationship here. Nothing is solved or forgiven. Instead, Cassandra sees just who her mother is and what that means to her. She finds a peace when it comes to their similarities, their differences, and the fact that this is her mother. While Cass has a perfectly good family to belong to, a realization about what her mother means is a solid one.

The dream sequence aspect to reach her realizations was so good. Out of all the Bat-family, Cass is closest to Stephanie Brown. They might not be in the same spot together in reality, but seeing Cassandra dream up her best friend for a conversation brought a smile to my face. It is very reminiscent of the first Batgirl series, when she was near-death and saw the (falsely believed) dead Stephanie.

There is no doubt that Miyazawa was the perfect choice for this series.

Whimsical with solidity and a sharp edge, able to take the moments of action and movement and elevate them to an even higher level. The continued use of visual doubles to showcase movement tickles all the fancies. Faucher’s inking assistance gives the artwork an even heftier feeling throughout.

Everything with the character moving and fighting feels so fluid. It really speaks to how Cassandra exists as a person and how she should feel in this medium (and beyond). The right touch of levity allows for that particular fluid effect, letting the character’s emotions and presence — as well as others — pop as they should.

Naturally, the color tones affect this as well. Spicer brings a lot of the cooler and heavier, dark color palette choices to play here. They are in some dark, dank cave settings after all! Plenty of flashier colors still find their place in boosting certain moments, such as the complete shift in the dream sequence with darkness mostly washed away. Only that which stands around the characters themselves can be found in the very white and colorless space.

As noted above, there are many sequences that rely on the more silent approach. There are fewer instances of dialogue and captions this time around. No matter the amount or style of the lettering, Napolitano makes every bit of it count, still leaning into shifted bubbles and fonts to create intriguingly different voice patterns for villain and heroes alike. Just look at the voices of the three main Unburied, with their big medium and smaller feelings as the way the bubbles shift.

There is no mistaking any of their words for another characters in this moment. As it should be.

Batgirl #5 is now available from DC Comics.