Cassandra Cain has infiltrated the underground schemings of your most gentrifying hipster looking cult with… mixed results. The rest of her team are unsure of her whereabouts and a mouthful of knockout gas has our small bat waking up in unfamiliar cages surrounded by Amazon warriors being exploited for… reasons? Will Cass find out what’s going on and save the mighty Amazon warriors? Will she get rescued by her team and flee this horrible scene? This issue might not answer every question but it provides some great scenes in between so let’s dive in!
  
When it comes to Kelly Thompson’s writing in this issue I really wanna focus on the way that characters are expanded upon. How their personalities and team dynamics allow the story to carry emotional weight. The reason I wanna focus on this is because it sheds a light on what I think is really effective in Thompson’s writing as well as what could still be improved on. Thompson is juggling a lot of characters and adding some new people to the roster on top of that is extra challenging.

Let’s start off with the positives. I had my fair share of criticisms about Dinah’s internal monologue. I used to say that it was pretty annoying to see her thoughts make it onto the page because it added nothing to the story and was very impersonal. Well I’m happy to see that Thompson has really improved and almost every piece of internal monologue was appropriate and impactful to the story. She feels conflicted for reasons that are understandable, you feel her stress at key moments and the sacrifices she has to make to be the level headed leader tie into the action super smoothly. It ain’t perfect and Thompson does have Dinah saying something pretty corny and irrelevant when she arrives at the lab. While you could brush that line off it’s still a blast from the past when it comes to the weaker writing wrenched right out of her previous issues and Thompson can’t completely let go of her instinct to water down her own characters.

Which is why it’s really nice to see some over the top characters that just refuse to get watered down. I gotta admit, the obnoxious evilness of the whitest yogi you’ve ever met is pretty funny and lord knows I’d never pick a fight with Big Barda with the artists really accentuating her rage and heartfelt resolve to save Cassandra. To accompany these bombastic booms from Barda you have little details that really set the scene in subtle ways. Dinah waking up when they finally receive a crucial message shows the devotion she has to her team without her saying something corny like “I’ve been staying up all night!”. It shows Thompson confidently handling the highs and lows of her story with finesse and plenty of heart like a somersaulting Cassandra Cain.

Cassandra Cain is handled pretty horribly at the beginning though. Which brings me to my negative feelings about the comic. We end the previous issue on a note of danger and Bella is this big baddie barely visible with her most frightening aspect being the mystery of her true form and power. Well that immediately gets undercut. Like… immediately. And then we see the fight that Bella and Cass have against others where the people they beat up are barely touched. Trying not to spoil here so sorry for the vagueness. But the point is there’s no risk to any of this! The cliffhanger of the previous issue feels like a cliff dive into mediocrity and we got another cliffhanger at the end of this issue that makes me wonder if we can stoop any lower. It’s cheap thrills that you see past in a second and chew up precious time you could be spending with characters you actually care about.

Take Bella and Cass’ skirmish and compare it to the amazing and short exchange between Cass and the guy who’s probably causing the shortage of Ayahuasca because he needs to feel enlightened when he taps into the newest market trends in China. Him saying that his victim “was a ballet dancer” and Cassandra saying she “still is” makes a powerfully emotional point about how the villains objectify their victims as play things and the heroes hold onto their humanity as they fight back.

We’re at issue number sixteen and I’m a bit tired of seeing this comic never getting a chance to shine in the amazing ways it had done in so many of its early issues. The cover I saw by Leonardo Romero brought me back to a time when this comic was mind warping and bold and then I turned to the robust and competent art of Sami Basrit and it just left me wanting. There are good scenes. The panel composition sometimes gets a little jagged to accentuate action which is nice. I would honestly be impressed in a vacuum and unlike a vacuum this art certainly doesn’t suck, especially the character designs. But then there’s stuff like Sin being gathered in the background with the others only to not show up at all right after? The previous issues talk about this but visually that was so confusing to see play out.

The inks by Vicente Cifuentes are also nothing to write home about. I find the art in this issue to be really solid but also there’s nothing that makes me stop and really admire what I’m looking at. A couple of the characters like Dinah, Bella and Barda have a panel, exactly one each, where I’m genuinely jazzed by what I’m seeing but even then it’s small and part of a larger group of panels assembled onto a decent but unexceptional page.

The colors by Adriano Lucas give a great impression of Jordie Bellaire and at least allow these issues to feel cohesive without actually making the look of the comic the same amazing nostalgic and soft hues I’ve become used to. I’m not seeing the same quality as before but at least I’m not confused or wondering what comic I’m reading.

Clayton Cowles on lettering. Phew! So happy to see we at least got one artist to stay on board! Cowles has never ceased to impress me when it comes to the lettering of the comics they’ve worked on. That panel where Barda is at her most frightening wouldn’t work nearly as well without the incredible lettering and her words take up the same amount of space as the fear that takes a hold of my heart as I imagine Barda’s wrath. Even the lengthy exposition of the villain’s plan is placed in a very easy way to follow and not get overwhelmed by with a small clap back by Cassandra that, like I said before, mixes the writing and lettering for a great showcase of the characters in this comic. I love that there are so many different styles used for all these different effects and characters and most of the time I feel like I’m witnessing the best choices being handled perfectly.

One tiny exception would be the “KRCHK–whrrrr” which I feel to be a bit inappropriate for the panel and world it’s trying to inhabit. Like yes, the metallic colors and midway change of font are great ideas but the execution is hurt by the fact the letters are a bit too fluffy and loose. The panel is dark, muscles rippling, danger incoming and we just don’t have that matched by the light colored letters almost bouncing in glee at how round they are. Apart from literally that one choice I could go on forever in praise of the lettering but I gotta stop somewhere.

Recommended if

• Incredible character design is your favorite
• There’s been nothing to complain about so far
• You love great lettering

Overall

I’m very middle of the road when it comes to this comic. I don’t feel like it’s wasting my time and there’s always some elements here and there I know will keep me coming back for more but it’s just not wowing me page after page like it once did. I’ve become a happy go lucky reader who can spend a couple hours in a month reading and unpacking this comic so I never forget what’s been happening and I’m ready to pick up where I left off when the next issue gets released.

Score: 5.5/10

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