What I Bought 6/6/2025

Of course, as soon as I mention wanting to review movies I've had for a while, I visit my dad for a weekend and we watch a bunch of new (to me) movies. Maybe I'll start in July. Today, one book from last week.

Batgirl #8, by Tate Brombal (writer), Isaac Goodhart (artist), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - It's like the words came to life, and bled all over the pages.

Continuing with Shiva's backstory, she and her sister (now going by Sandra and Carolyn Wu-San) are living in Detroit's Chinatown, earning a living winning 2-on-2 fights against all challengers. Which includes a young Ben Turner and Richard Drakunovski, aka Bronze Tiger and Richard Dragon.

The boys lose the fight, but gain a couple of friends. Well, one friend anyway. Sandra might be better described as an ally. Sandra's still intent on finding their uncle and killing him to avenge their parents, but Carolyn thinks using their skills to help people, like Richard and Ben, sounds like a good idea. So we get a couple pages of them fighting a giant, talking praying mantis, or bad guys on snowshoes and ice skates. Ben and Carolyn hit it off, but Richard's fumbling attempts with Sandra are rebuffed. Maybe not even "rebuffed", because I'm not sure she even realizes he's trying to ask her out.

Sandra's still driven by anger, and amid that, David Cain enters the picture, with an offer. Brombal writes Cain as, a) a guy who thinks of himself as a planner, and b) super-creepy. He's all "blah blah, holding your self back, blah blah in your sister's shadow, blah blah birth my perfect weapon blah blah." You know his deal. Loser shit. But to help his "plan" along, he killed Carolyn.

Which I do not think was previously established in canon and, if I'm right, is a weird direction for Brombal to go. Shiva conceived a child with the guy who killed her sister? The sister she's nearly deified in these journal entries? I mean, it got us Cass, so that's great from my perspective, but seems odd from hers. Why not just kill the guy and find someone else to make you a perfect weapon? Why assume he's the only one who could pull that off? Assuming that turns out to have anything to do with her thought process, but it sure as hell seems like it does.