Hello and welcome to the World of Bats, the Batman Book Club!
This week is sadly the last installment of our deep dive into the character of Cassandra Cain, this week returning to James Tynion IV’s run of Detective Comics #950-956, “League of Shadows,” with art by Eddy Barrows, Christian Duce, and Marcio Takara.
This week’s reading will go from 2021-05-15T05:00:00Z → 2021-05-21T05:00:00Z, but of course, if you’ve been imprisoned by by a group of extralegal vigilanties for trying to defeat a group of killer ninjas, you can always come back and share your thoughts.
And that’s to all of you as well! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about this different yet similar take on Cassandra.
First, I want to shout out a new project I started this week. With it being the 15th Anniversary of the release of the weekly series 52, I decided to start a 52 Book Club, where every week we go through one issue of the acclaimed series, so join us!
Also, the World of Bats is still doing a Casefile on the classic Batman arc “Hush.”
Renegade Robins is continuing its look at the aftermath of Damian Wayne’s death, and the last arc of Jason Todd’s ongoing title.
Harley’s Crew is going back to Harley Quinn’s first ongoing solo title by going into issues #20-29!
And the Birds of Prey Club is continuing its month long look at other Batgirls, including Cassandra Cain.
And if I left out anything else, please let me know!
Every time I read this series, I’m reminded of how much I prefer these characters in a team book rather than a solo series. I wish that this idea had been employed after No Man’s Land. In other words, this is what Batman: Gotham Knights should’ve been.
I especially love seeing Cassandra learning the concept of art through dancing.
This is, I think, an underrated arc. Partly, perhaps, because of how it seems to be setup for other arcs (which I would probably argue happened in Batman and the Outsiders, though I think Tynion still would like to do some of it himself).
That was definitely a neat addition – a body language that doesn’t involve harming anyone, but instead to express yourself. Kind of surprising no one had thought of it before (at least I don’t think they had – I haven’t read all of Cass’ Batgirl solo).
Yeah, there’s been a bit of a habit of Batman not knowing of any secret societies lately, hasn’t there? At least they give a decent explanation – and a way to evoke/use Identity Crisis stuff without actually assassinating the character of Zatanna! Yay!
