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Shadow of the Batgirl by Sarah Kuhn and Nicole Guox is yet another winner in DC’s original young adult graphic novels.No matter if you have a different favorite Batgirl, or if you’re unfamiliar with this Batgirl, or if you’re a Cassandra Cain fan and are worried this won’t do her justice, you will still love the Cassandra Cain of this story.
Shadow of the Batgirl is a reworking of Cassandra’s comic origin story, that of a young woman raised in a severely restrictive environment to become the ultimate weapon: an assassin with lightning-quick reflexes who can read body language. But Cassandra, raised to follow orders and not question killing, turns her back on that training. To her, life becomes sacred.
Her most powerful tale in regular comics continuity remains the iconic Batgirl #19, in which she declared “Nobody Dies Tonight.”
A side-effect of Cassandra’s abusive upbringing was the lack of language of and social skills. Written speech and its subtleties escape her as do regular interactions with people raised unlike herself. Those elements remain in Shadow of the Batgirl, along with some wonderful additions by Kuhn Goux, including a perfect setting for…
