Shadow War Zone #1 Review: Talia al Ghul wants to explore her family’s roots

Modified May 19, 2022 09:10 IST

Shadow War Zone #1 (Image via DC Comics)

Shadow War Zone #1 gave us some essential details about the ongoing Shadow War series. While it held four different intriguing parts of the story, fans seemed to be more interested in getting to know Talia's side of it.

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In the last issue, we saw Respawn dying in Deathstroke's arms while Batman and Robin try to find Deathstroke's impostor, responsible for killing Ra's al Ghul. They figured out that the assassination attempted to strike a war between Talia and Deathstroke. The next issue: Deathstroke Incorporated #9, will release this Tuesday. We will get our answers soon.

What happened in the Shadow War Zone #1?

The issue started with Black Canary trying to find Deathstroke as she thought he was the one who killed Ra's al Ghul. She was seen blaming herself for thinking that he was turning to the good side. She was then interrupted by Angelbreaker, who was instructed to kill every associate of Deathstroke on sight by Talia al Ghul.

Regardless, she offered Canary a chance to side with her. She asks her to join her mission to kill Deathstroke, but Canary refuses and points out that the criminal needs to be brought to the justice system. Angelbreaker then fights Canary with all her might, but she's called to Nepal by Talia immediately, so she spares her, telling her that she's lucky.

In the next arc, a flashback showcased a young Talia looking for answers, answers behind the Lazarus pit, and answers behind her family's history. She is seen jumping off a cliff to prove her training in front of her friend, Amal, who's in charge of her security, and hurts herself. Amal gets fired, and Talia is grounded in her chamber (yes, even Talia gets grounded).

Talia then escapes and finds her grandmother while searching for the answers, but like Ra's, she also refuses to help. We then see, in the flashback arc, Talia finding a demon in the Lazarus pit in her grandmother's place, where he tells her that her surname isn't a coincidence and that every member of the Ghul family is a demon.

The issue revealed a demon inside every member of the Ghul family, and Talia's inner monster may be responsible for more than we know.

We move on to the Ghostmaker's arc next, where he and Clownhunter were protecting Black Spider, another associate of Deathstroke, from assassins. Ghostmaker steps aside to see Clownhunter fight the assassins to examine his protégé's training. In the last Shadow War issue, Batman made Ghostmaker the leader of the mission for Batman Incorporated. In this issue, we see how flawlessly he handles the role.

In just three months, the man trained Clownhunter to defeat assassins who had trained their whole lives. We then see Ghostmaker leaving Clownhunter in charge of keeping Black Spider safe as he departs to help the rest of the team.

Harley Quinn's arc is next. She was seen trying to escape from ninjas; and a fight sequence culminating in the ninjas' defeat. Two people are then seen in the background arguing about the decision to involve her in the team. These two people are none other than Luke Fox and Lashina. While it's unclear if they're a part of Batman Incorporated or not, their involvement in the following issues will be massive.

This issue gave deeper insight into the trimmer elements of the Shadow War comic series. We see a lot of important characters in the story define their emotions and actions, which makes it wholesome and well-written.

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What do you think of this issue? Tell us in the comments.

Edited by Suchitra