Review by Frank Plowright

Mother drops Cassandra Cain back into the Batgirl role, opening with the prevailing theme supplying the volume title as Cassandra confronts her mother, the assassin Lady Shiva, who claims both of them have become targets for other killers.

Writer Tate Brombal establishes Cassandra lacks trust in her mother, but is able to distinguish truth from lie, and accepts that a ninja cult is hunting them down. By virtue of ingesting a blue flower these ninjas are more powerful and agile, and heal rapidly from injury. On the surface, this just seems like the introduction of cannon fodder, but it’s quickly apparent that Brombal’s interested in shades of grey. Lady Shiva, for instance, may be a deceitful assassin without a conscience, but a spiritual organisation has grown in her name dedicated to performing good works. It’s one of several forms of duality explored as Brombal unites many people Cassandra despises, including some she believed dead.

Takeshi Miyazawa has always been a good artist, but the way Batgirl’s plots develop is a real enabling process. The sample art is the first of his spreads, and good as it is, it’s the least of them. A highlight is two consecutive spreads of characters battling on a train, but those pin-ups are combined with storytelling expertise and believable characters.

Batgirl has previously battled ninjas, but Mother is her first full scale and long term immersion in the world of spiritual cults and their feuding, and Brombal delivers the whole caboodle from secret origins to secret city. The only downside is the threat requiring the downgrading of Lady Shiva to someone who can be beaten, where previously she could only be made to stop via reasoning, but Brombal makes excellent use of her manipulative and self-justifying personality, along with Cassandra’s accompanying assessments.

Mother begins a long form story, continued in Bloodlines, by immersing Batgirl in a new culture away from her comfort zone and allies, and it’s a very promising start.