Chapter By Chapter (usually) features me reading one chapter of the selected book at a time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.

PART 3: KnightsEnd

When we last left our hero Bruce learned that healing is only part of the process when it comes to recovery. You also need to put work into getting yourself back together, something I’m only learning now as I come off years of medical issues, as I also mentioned last time. So how does Batman regain that capacity for violence without becoming psychotic?

The answer is not what you’d expect, but I’ll save that for the right time.

This is one of my favorite parts of the whole story arc, and not just because it’s one of the few comics I have from the event. Remember, this arc is supposed to be about highlighting what would happen if you had a kill-happy Batman like the 1990s wanted to see, as shown through the types of “heroes” and anti-heroes that showed up in this period. The 90s was all about being extreme, and that included being extremely violent. According to Owen Likes Comics, in a video I posted prior to getting to this novel, the point was to show why Batman doesn’t kill, by showing a Batman with no problem killing. So far Jean Paul has killed one guy and otherwise shown himself to be a semi-incompetent jerk, at least as far as the novelization goes.

We’re now in Knightquest: The Crusade, which I believe is Bruce’s recovery and Jean Paul’s further decent. I guessing this as the System’s take on St. Dumas continues to warp Jean Paul’s ideal of what being Batman is. We’ll see because it’s time to start reading.

I wasn’t expecting a nice moment between Bruce and Tim, after last chapter’s argument, to start this chapter but here it is. Bruce needs Tim’s help, and they treat it as a “Tim job”, not a “Robin job”. Tim’s still not sure that he’s ready to return, but he is giving Bruce a chance at fixing the mess he kind of caused. It’s a moment the two characters need. You can have action and still have good character moments.

So what is this job? Help find Sandra Wu-San, or as we know her–Lady Shiva! For those of you who came in late, Shiva is an assassin, and a pretty prominent one in the DC Universe, starting out as an opponent for ignored 70s DC martial arts hero Richard Dragon (or “what if Shang-Chi was a white dude” without the race swap–it was the 1970s and cheap martial arts movies were popular). If you recall the audio drama adaptation of early Tim Drake Robin stories (and if you don’t or haven’t heard it, please do so after reading this because Batman: Legends Of Robin is a great story, making Jim Soriero the Tim Drake in my head and Don Leslie’s Batman needs more attention) Tim has met Lady Shiva before in his own worldwide training session (a rite of passage for most Robins). She’s also the mother of Cassandra Cain, an attempt to create an assassin who can read body language with the cost of not being able to read, write, and talk. This backfired when the dad, David Cain, exposed her to her first kill at I think 5 years old and she could read the victim’s body language as he died, swearing her off killing and leading to her becoming the third Batgirl. (Yeah, forget anything you saw in Margot Robbie’s movie. Cass’s actual backstory is much more interesting than a pickpocket who has issues with her foster family.)

So why go to Lady Shiva for training? Shiva is an assassin. She is disappointed in the Batman’s–the original Batman’s no killing rule. She doesn’t believe in justice. Killing is an art and the clients are paying for her art. It’s actually not a bad choice. If Bruce wants to fast track back into what he was, Shiva is the best instructor. And she is an instructor, although she let David do the bulk of the work in Cassandra’s case. She gives Bruce (wearing a ski mask and at one point nothing else while sitting in the snow) a beating, but also heals his wounds because a hurt man is harder to train. Leading to the next question of why Shiva is willing to retrain a man she knows will never kill, but go on to use it to fight people like her? As they both note, she’d find it interesting. I’m guessing she’s forgiving him for using the truth drug back when Bruce and the Jason Todd Robin were trying to find his mother. Yeah, not one of Bruce’s finest moments there, but it isn’t brought up, only a fight at a pier is used to let her know she’s training Batman to be Batman again.

We get to see some of the early training and she puts him through the ringer. Also, Lady Shiva is smoking hot. Even Bruce has to keep…well, I guess “keep his pants on” doesn’t really work here since being naked in the snow except a stocking mask is part of his training, but you know what I mean. It’s a good explanation of her training, which we also saw Tim go through during his tour, though that was partly to prepare him to fight King Snake. It’s in the audio drama. Snake’s voiced by a Lex Luthor. The only thing really unnecessary in this chapter is when Bruce considers stopping to help a couple in an auto wreck (it’s still winter, Christmas Day when Bruce starts his trek in Philly to find Shiva) but the rescue teams are already there. Doesn’t really seem worth noting.

Overall this is a good chapter and we’ll see where things go from here.