In this review of Batgirl #21, Batgirl is stuck in her own head, thanks to the work of Dr. Forget-Me-Not!
Batgirl #21 main cover by David Talaski (DC Comics)
BATGIRL #21
Written by TATE BROMBAL
Art by STEPHEN SEGOVIA
Main Cover: DAVID TALASKI
Variant Cover: KYUYONG EOM
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: 7/1/26
This review contains spoilers
As Batgirl #21 begins, Cassandra Cain is trapped in a prison of her own mind, taunted by the hypnotic power of Dr. Forget-Me-Not. Taunted into solving the murder of the young girl found dressed in Cassandra’s clothes as a child, the evil doctor brings Cass’ long-buried memories of her training to the fore, recalling her time with David Cain, Bronze Tiger, the League of Assassins and the girl – Victoria Rose.
Jaya and Tenji hold off the TACOs police squad employed by Commissioner Savage before Bronze Tiger arrives, having overcome his hypnotic triggers. He finds Cass in the throws of a seized coma, and relays that this all goes back to Dr. Forget-Me-Not’s training of her for the League of Assassins years ago. HE finds a secret door leading the three heroes down a stairway towards the place where Cassandra was trained as a child.
Cassandra runs by every recovered memory as a clue, seeing images of her and Victoria training together, being pitted against each other, and even embracing at one moment. Flashes of Victoria in different garb also show an older version of her as an assassin, trained to have implanted memories and hypnotic triggers by Forget-Me-Not. Finally, Cassandra puts all the clues together and determines that she was Victoria’s killer.
Analysis
Brombal’s run has been trudging along with a stretch of bad martial arts lore and fanservice to Cassandra’s old books in ways I haven’t enjoyed long enough, that it’s gotten to the point where I’ve stopped looking forward to this series. Take that in mind when I report that Batgirl #21 was pretty solid. The invocation into learning more about Cass’ training, revealed memories and making Cass out to be a detective for her own past was decent, and although you can see the ending coming from the moment the comic opens up, the storytelling was fine enough that I enjoyed the journey.
I do think Cassandra’s deduction of the images and clues in front of her could have been presented in a bit more of an abstract, artistic way. It’s plainly done by artist Stephen Segovia as image -> dialogue and text. Batgirl #21 moves fast so there’s not much for Cass or the reader to take in and ponder on what the images could mean, making the mystery far more plain and pedestrian than it had to be. Maybe that’s a harsh criticism after the fact, but when it comes to Cassandra Cain, so much of her mystique is predicated upon actions of words. This being the wordiest, talkiest, most verbose series she has ever been in, I can’t help but wonder what could be with a defter hand at relaying her reactions to events without narrating them. At the same time, this is all in her head so one can only criticize so much. What I did enjoy were how the flashes were presented with the bare minimum of dimension. We see Cass eating cereal and even being embraced by Cain as a baby. I’m always for complicating the narrative of Cain’s awful raising of Cass, as their relationship should be complicated and messy, more so that one-dimensionally abusive. This puts Brombal’s understanding of Cain over most writers, which I appreciate.
As I’ve said before, I’m not a fan of messing with a character’s long held origins. It often feels like a cheap way for a writer to etch their name in the character’s history. But for whatever reason this story makes plenty of sense. With everything Cassandra wasn’t taught and how she was manipulated growing up, there’s bound to be some messy memories that could’ve been monkeyed with. The idea that the League of Assassins employed an evil hypnotist to control their child killers is a smart innovation, especially in pitting those kids against each other for supremacy. My one gripe is the implication that all of this took place in Gotham City, as implied when Bronze Tiger reveals a secret staircase in the building Jaya and Tenji are investigating. For years we’ve always had the implication that Cain and Cass were international assassins from far away, and that when Cass met with Oracle during No Man’s Land, that was just a stop on her solo sojourning. The idea that everything that’s informed her took place in Gotham is…problematic for several reasons. It reads likes an overlooked error, so I can let it go for now.
Overall, Batgirl #21 was fine. And fine is good for this book. I’m decently interested to see where the mystery goes and despite everything else am still glad this book is trucking along at twenty-one issues, which is a rarity these days.
