Any dialog in regards to the biggest martial artists within the DC Universe inevitably turns to the mistress of martial arts: Sandra Woosan, the unconquerable Woman Shiva. Batman and Oracle’s recordsdata alike have listed Shiva as a possible risk greatest prevented if attainable, as her abilities in single fight surpass even the Darkish Knight’s personal. Based mostly on this, one may think that Woman Shiva could possibly be counted amongst Batman’s biggest villains, however the fact is rather more difficult—it could be simply as incorrect to name Woman Shiva a villain as it could be to name her a hero.
Because the Seventies, Shiva has labored alongside a few of the biggest heroes and villains on Earth, from the Birds of Prey to the League of Assassins. As a determine who doesn’t fall throughout the conventional spectrum of excellent and evil, Shiva has at all times been a tough character to outline in typical DC phrases. Woman Shiva will not be motivated to guard or subjugate others, however by a solitary quest of self-betterment. Wherever Shiva can discover a new journey or expertise, wherever she will be able to discover a new ability to additional her twin pursuits in creation and destruction, that’s the place you’ll discover her—irrespective of whether or not Batman or Ra’s al Ghul is pulling the strings.
Shiva has been many issues below many writers, however regardless of what you might have heard, her most vital trait will not be that she will be able to defeat even the best fighters with one finger. It’s the expertise of being humbled by an insurmountable foe and the attitude gained from that loss. Shiva is a lady on a neverending quest for self-definition. And, in that course of, these whose lives she enters acquire a greater understanding of themselves.
Woman Shiva was initially created to fill a emptiness. Within the Seventies, Denny O’Neil and Jim Berry authored a pulp novel borrowing closely from the tropes of latest kung fu movies of the day known as Richard Dragon, Kung Fu Fighter. As a author for DC, O’Neil and Berry tailored their brief novel into the primary 4 problems with a martial arts comedian of the identical title. The one drawback was that by the tip of situation #4, they had been out of story and down a number one woman. The hero Richard Dragon’s love curiosity, Carolyn Woosan, had been killed by the tip of the e book.
Now alone on the title, Denny moved the story ahead by introducing Carolyn’s sister—the avenging Sandra Woosan, who positioned the blame for Carolyn’s loss of life on Richard himself. By the tip of her first look in Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter #5, Shiva and Richard had hashed out their variations and a genial character got here out that was fully in contrast to her reserved and bookish sister. The Woman Shiva of the Seventies was a daredevil thrillseeker, becoming a member of Richard and their good friend Ben Turner (who would later grow to be Bronze Tiger) on a global mission of spycraft and journey only for the enjoyable of being there. She known as herself Woman Shiva after the Hindu god of destruction and creation, and was at all times fast with a wry, ironic joke about her female frailty earlier than beating anybody idiot sufficient to oppose her to a uncooked pulp.
When Richard Dragon resulted in 1977, Shiva vanished together with him for a full decade. She wouldn’t return till a brand new collection written by Denny O’Neil in 1987, DC’s model new tackle a faceless hero that they had simply acquired from Charlton Comics, The Query.
Within the years which had handed since Kung Fu Fighter, O’Neil had turned from a superficial curiosity in Chinese language motion films to a deeper craving to discover Japanese philosophy, and the non secular quest to grow to be a greater man. Earlier than O’Neil’s work with the Query, Vic Sage was an ideologically inflexible emblem of the beliefs and politics of his creator, Steve Ditko, who insisted on the existence of goal morality. In Ditko’s world, the distinction between good and evil was easy to grasp. And should you pretended it wasn’t, that simply meant you had been most likely attempting to get away with one thing you understand you shouldn’t be.
In The Query #1, Denny reintroduced a extra mature Woman Shiva into the Query’s world as an nearly mystic emblem of a world he couldn’t even comprehend. She was there, ostensibly, to hunt new challenges and adventures as a mercenary for rent. However in her first encounter with a bona fide superhero, Shiva discovered one thing extra attention-grabbing: somebody she might construct, maybe sometime, into a correct rival. All she needed to do first was increase his thoughts.
She started with a two-step course of. First, she destroyed him, in each physique and ego, in a single battle. Then, utilizing an unequalled (and admittedly, underutilized) ability within the therapeutic arts, she returned him to life, leaving him within the care of her outdated good friend Richard Dragon. Offered with a foe who wouldn’t solely slay him and not using a second thought, however resurrect him with all the things he wanted to appreciate a greater life, Vic understood for what could have been the primary time that individuals had been extra difficult than he had ever imagined. Below Richard and Shiva’s watch, the Query grew right into a extra advanced hero than he had ever been earlier than.
It wouldn’t be the final time Shiva would change a hero’s life.
On the similar time Denny O’Neil was writing The Query, he was additionally turning into the Group Editor for DC’s Batman titles. When Shiva crosses Batman’s path in A Dying within the Household as a possible candidate for Jason Todd’s start mom, she fights Batman to a standstill for the primary time. From this level on, comics would acknowledge Shiva as not merely an awesome fighter, however the most effective—a legend which might solely develop with time.
As all distinguished non-powered DC characters finally do, Shiva was folded into Batman’s orbit. When the Darkish Knight was damaged by Bane in Knightfall, it was solely Shiva who might retrain him again to his prime. When Batman lastly acquiesced to Tim Drake’s insistence that he wanted a Robin in his life, it was Woman Shiva who bought the brand new Boy Marvel prepared for the challenges to come back. Shiva would even, for a short time, be a part of Oracle’s Birds of Prey, with an analogous eye on Black Canary as a pupil and rival as she as soon as had for the Query, and Richard Dragon earlier than him. However her most vital connection, and the connection which has come to outline her for the previous twenty years greater than another, was to Cassandra Cain, heir of the Batgirl mantle.
At first, Woman Shiva’s curiosity in Cassandra was seemingly no totally different than her curiosity in different gifted martial artists in whom she noticed potential. By difficult Cassandra in her abilities and beliefs, Shiva introduced out the perfect hero she had ever been—as soon as once more, as she had achieved with the Query, via destruction and resurrection. Ultimately, their familial bond rose to the forefront, as Shiva was revealed to be the start mom to one in every of Batman’s adopted kids in spite of everything.
From this level onward, the query of who Shiva was, the place she got here from, and what she represented grew to become a matter of debate. Gail Simone wrote of a younger Sandra in Birds of Prey from a small Chinese language village, raised in a convention of violence to say the title of Shiva as a title of her ferocity. In Batgirl, Andersen Gabrych developed the image of a deeply disturbed Shiva whose thrillseeking drive for harmful challenges and rivals worthy of her ability coated an all-encompassing deathwish. Starting round Batman: Hush, and persevering with till fairly just lately, Woman Shiva was deployed as a Heavy for the League of Assassins, little greater than a risk to punctuate an motion scene which might increase the stakes for many who remembered the significance her presence as soon as carried.
This development could be bucked in 2019’s Batman and the Outsiders, when Shiva is as soon as extra apparently below management of Ra’s al Ghul, solely to defect on the first alternative and be a part of her personal daughter on Batman’s black ops staff. With out dulling Shiva’s edges, author Bryan Hill used this story to carry Shiva a little bit nearer to her roots as an ally to the likes of Richard Dragon and Ben Turner, and as a chance to bridge the gulf between Cassandra and her mom. In contrast to Cassandra’s father, the true Shiva, as understood by O’Neil on The Query within the ‘80s, felt no have to see her daughter grow to be the final word weapon—solely her greatest, absolutely idealized self. And in her firm, Shiva was proud to find that her daughter had practically grow to be exactly that. All that was left to Cassandra was a alternative: both embrace the id she craved as Batgirl or discover a new goal away from Batman’s pull. It was Shiva’s insistence, and her pleasure, which helped Cassandra make her resolution. And positive sufficient, yow will discover Shiva’s daughter proper now because the star participant of Batgirls.
The true legacy of Woman Shiva isn’t the folks she defeats, however the folks whose lives she alters via their defeat. Richard Dragon, the Query and Cassandra Cain would by no means have achieved true information of themselves if that they had not been confronted with an impediment they might not surmount—and who, of their destruction, would offer the instruments to construct themselves again into one thing extra. As James Tynion IV wrote of Shiva in Detective Comics, she solely serves any group for so long as she requires to study what she wants. After which, she strikes on.
Shiva is a seeker of information, going to any lengths to enhance upon the abilities for destruction and creation, that cycle of change and rebirth, which retains the world transferring. So, no. Woman Shiva will not be a Batman villain. Neither is she a hero. Woman Shiva is a destroyer. A healer. A pupil and a trainer of life.
She’s additionally the baddest mom to ever stroll the earth. Watch your self do you have to cross her path, or she simply may beat your ass so arduous that it adjustments your total worldview. And as soon as your bones lastly reset and your muscle groups reknit, mark these phrases—you’ll thank her.
Alex Jaffe is the creator of our month-to-month “Ask the Query” column and writes about TV, films, comics and superhero historical past for DCComics.com. Comply with him on Twitter at @AlexJaffe and discover him within the DC Group as HubCityQuestion.
NOTE: The views and opinions expressed on this function are solely these of Alex Jaffe and don’t essentially replicate these of DC Leisure or Warner Bros.
