By Bill Willingham, Andersen Gabrych, Damion Scott, Alé Garza & Jesse Delperdang (DC Comics)
ISBN: 987-1-84576-200-1
Batman has gathered young allies about him since the second year of his crusade: adopting waif and strays and training them to be the best that they can be, all for the greater good of his beloved Gotham City.
When Gotham City was devastated by an earthquake and abandoned by the US government (Batman: Cataclysm and Batman: No Man’s Land volumes 1-3), a few heroes stayed to protect the innocent. One of these was a new, mute incarnation of Batgirl.
The crisis ended and a semblance of normality returned to the battered metropolis. The new heroine, named Cassandra Cain, was brought under the wing of Barbara Gordon, wheelchair-bound crime-fighter Oracle (and the previous Batgirl) who now ran her own crew of women heroes – the Birds of Prey.
Cassandra, mute, unable to communicate in any manner yet fluent in reading gesture, posture and body-language, was raised as an experiment by her father, super-assassin David Cain. The hired killer had over-ridden her language centres to make combat her only method of expression. An apparent runaway, she was adopted by Batman as a weapon in his never-ending battle, but the more humane Oracle had become her guardian and teacher.
Cassandra’s brain and learning disabilities were subsequently alleviated by a telepath and the unbeatable martial artist was just beginning to carve out her own life when the War Games crisis made Gotham too hot for heroes…
Tim Drake was the third Robin, a child prodigy who deduced Batman’s secret identity and his impending guilt-fuelled nervous breakdown following the murder of Jason Todd – Robin #2. Drake attempted to manipulate Dick Grayson – the first boy hero to be dubbed “Boy Wonder†– into returning as the Dark Knight’s partner before grudgingly accepting the position himself (see Batman: A Death in the Family and Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying).
After a long period of training and acclimation Batman offered Tim the job instead, and this interpretation took fans by storm, securing a series of increasingly impressive solo mini-series (see Robin: A Hero Reborn) and eventually his own long-running comic book.
Being trained by Batman is clearly an arduous and agonising undertaking. During the terrifying Batman: Wargames saga Drake in his turn became estranged from his moody mentor and forcibly retired from the fights ‘n’ tights game. Batman replaced Tim with Stephanie Brown, daughter of the criminal Cluemaster, who became the vigilante Spoiler to compensate for her father’s depredations. Don’t get too excited though, since she only starred as the fourth Robin for a fraction over six pages…
Soon Tim was back – ‘though you won’t see how or why here – setting up on his own as defender of the nearby city of Blüdhaven – a mini-Metropolis that made Gotham look like paradise…
The slim volume collects monthly issues #132-133 of Robin and #58-59 of Batgirl, a canny crossover concoction entitled Fresh Blood that saw both newly emancipated and independent street warriors striking out on their own in the very heart of urban darkness. The drama opened with ‘Too Many Ghosts’ as Tim, still recovering from Stephanie’s death, cautiously planned his first anti-crime campaign.
With faithful family Butler Alfred in tow as mentor and quartermaster he had moved to Blüdhaven planning to methodically dismantle the city’s mob hierarchy, but had no inkling that deceased criminal-mastermind Blockbuster was seemingly returned from the dead. Whilst on his first reconnaissance run Robin was ambushed and almost killed by super-assassin Shrike until an unexpected ally stepped in…
‘Following Footsteps’ revealed how Cassandra Cain also set up in Blüdhaven to go it alone. Soon however she was working with Tim; her combat skills meshing perfectly with his strategic flair and deductive abilities. Establishing clandestine links with two of the few honest cops in town they planned to take down the returned Blockbuster, but discover a shocking secret in ‘The Auction’ and end up tackling one of Batman’s greatest and most insidious foes instead: a deadly and spectacular clash that they cannot possibly survive…
Na-aah, just kidding – of course they do: but the concluding chapter ‘Settling Up’ is probably one of the best and most satisfying fight-fests of that era, with assorted thugs, wise-guys and meta-threats Brutale and the Trigger Twins adding to the panorama of exotic carnage before the new kids in town triumph and carve up the territory between them: their incompatible approaches pulling them apart before they could really get together….
Where does the time go? It seems like only yesterday that these nifty little thrillers were the acme of the Batman franchise, but the pace of change in comics is relentlessly rapid and remorselessly unforgiving, so engaging little gems like this come and go like wisps of mist caught in a million candlepower bat-signal beam…
Nevertheless, the edgy, fresh scripting of Bill Willingham and Andersen Gabrych married to the unconventional but superbly effective art of Damion Scott, Alé Garza & Jesse Delperdang prove to be a heady and irresistible brew that delivers as much kick now as it ever did. This is a Bat-bunfight no fan could possibly bear to miss…
© 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.