Batgirl: Kicking Assassins TPB (2005)

This collection is named aptly as well as pun-tastically. The story opens with Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) taking on Onyx as a training partner - a woman who, like Cass, is a trained assassin, and who, like Cass, is now using her skills to try and save lives instead of take them. The story ends with Cass taking on Ravager, a girl who, like Cass, has been trained by her father to kill - and who desperately needs her father's approval, just as Cass once did. In between, Cass has to face down not only the Brotherhood of Evil, but also Ravager's father, Deathstroke...

So, yes, this is an action-packed volume, but what really makes Cass an intriguing hero isn't so much the physical as the mental. Batgirl has recently proven herself against none other than Lady Shiva, so we know she can fight - but Cassandra is still struggling in her every day life, and in Batgirl: Kicking Assassins we get a gloriously wide window into just what those struggles mean for her.

Cass' difficulties with speech, reading and writing, have been approached differently by almost every writer; here, the right note seems to have been struck. Her oral communication skills are getting stronger, even if she speaks in short, direct sentences, and stumbles over the occasional unfamiliar or difficult word. She seems to be both puzzled and amused by language, as she tests sentences to find the right preposition and wonders whether she is "volving". She still can't read, or only very little, and we're shown that while that's not a handicap while she works, it can be during her civilian life - she can't read the menu in her local cafe, which makes the simple act of ordering food not really all that simple.

Luckily, there's help at hand, in the form of the cafe's owner. Despite her obvious belief that Cass' late nights and bruises are a result of sex work, Ms Miller - no first name given - is very understanding of Cass' illiteracy; Cass, in return, helps her out in the form of a Wayne Foundation Grant, and Ms Miller, although unaware of Cass' involvement, insists she comes to the celebrations. And that's really what lies at the heart of this story - Cass, starting to make connections with the people around her. A ghostly visit from Stephanie Brown reminds the reader that not that long ago Cass lost her very best friend in the world - and yet we see her now, still missing Steph but starting to make new friends, and forge a new life for herself in Bludhaven.

Overall, an excellent TPB that not only shows us Cass as Batgirl, in all her ass(assin) kicking badassery, but also Cass the girl - branching out on her own, still growing, always trying to do better. Let's just hope that with Cass' return to comics as Blackbat that this is the hero she is still allowed to be.

Batman | 128pg. | Color | Softcover | US$14.99 | ISBN 1401204392