Cassandra Cain

Black Bat Cassandra Cain in Red Robin v1 #25.

Cassandra Cain is a female comic superhero who features in DC Comics.

Biography

Origin

Batgirl Cassandra Cain in Batgirl v1 #1.

Cassandra Cain was the black haired daughter of noted assassins David Cain and Lady Shiva. Her birth was the product of a breeding program that started as a theory by the assassin David Cain. At the time, Ra's al Ghul was not satisfied with the fickle loyalty of most mercenaries and wanted a new generation of assassins for his League of Assassins. With the Demon Head's blessing, Cain sought the training of a large number of young children but this was a catastrophe as most died in infancy and the one survivor was insane forcing an Ubu to be dispatched to put the child down. As a result, Cain re-thought the theory and sought a single child that was to be trained by the entire League. A few of the early ones died in this manner with David deciding that genetics was the key. (Batgirl v1 #67) To that end, he sought a mate and found one in Sandra Woosan where he killed her sister to motivate her rage to find him. He then defeated her when she reached the League of Assassin's stronghold and gave her an offer to be the greatest fighter with the two sleeping together in order to produce a child. The child born was Cassandra Cain and an hour after she was born Woosan took the mantle of Lady Shiva as she left her daughter in the care of David Cain. (Batgirl v1 #73) Among the young girls instructors was the fierce warrior Bronze Tiger. (Batgirl v1 #67)

Around 10 years ago, her father took her to a target named Faizul who was to be her first kill and she came to murder the man using her hands alone. However, the experience caused her to fall apart at having taken her first life and haunted her for the future. David Cain came to film the event and hid the records of the man's cause of death but regretted having put Cassandra through her first kill at such a young age. (Batgirl v1 #5)

She attended a language session with Barbara Gordon where she left after they were done for the day. Whilst out, she came to sight her father and followed him without drawing his attention. She saw him finding a spot at an abandoned building where he used the upper floor as a sniper spot where he attempted to murder Commissioner James Gordon. Upon learning of this, she went into the path of the sniper sight to prevent David Cain from making his kill and thus saving Gordon's life. Afterwards, she was questioned by Barbara Gordon where she came to reveal that she was the daughter of David Cain. (Batman v1 #567)

Batgirl

Batman later asked her to infiltrate the newly formed Justice League Elite in order to watch over its members. For that role, she adopted the guise of a masked assassin named Kasumi with her using disguise to hide her true appearance behind fake scar tissue. (Justice League Elite v1 #9)

She was later invited by Batman to join the latest incarnation of the Outsiders that served under him. (Batman and the Outsiders v2 #2)

When Batman disappeared, the Outsiders were looking for clues to his whereabouts and received a message from him that included an encrypted code to his location. Green Arrow had a gut instinct that this message was not from Batman but Cassandra believed that they could safely analyse the code for clues on her mentor's whereabouts. After being downloaded into ReMAC, the machine ran amok where he attacked the Outsiders before detonating with the incident leading to the death Salah Miandad and seemingly of Metamorpho with Anissa Pierce being left in a coma. This caused the Outsiders to disband with Grace Choi blaming Batgirl for the damage. In the aftermath, Cain came to learn that the Black Glove was responsible for the attack on the Outsiders with Batgirl vowing to create a new team to stop the criminal organization. (Batman and the Outsiders v2 #12) This saw her recruiting people to be part of her Network with these including the Vigilante and Riddler. This brought a disagreement between her and Nightwing until their fight was stopped by Alfred whereupon the two decided to reconcile with Grayson heading this new team. (Batman and the Outsiders v2 #14)

Black Bat

She then arrived in Cairo to track down Red Robin who was went there to track down the Covenant of Ka. This led to him being captured by one of the Daughters of Acheron who intended to bear his child as part of a ritual of life over death. Black Bat arrived just in time where she helped defeat the Daughter of Acheron and Promise but then seemingly stabbed Tim Drake in the back with her leaving his corpse on the ground. This registered the kill as part of the Assassination Tournament where Black Bat entered into the inner sanctum where she was congratulated by someone over the speakers. However, Cassandra had deceived the voice as Drake was alive and they had staged his death in order to try to meet the head of the tournament. The voice though triggered a self-destruct sequence though Black Bat and Red Robin managed to escape. After thanking her, Drake was asked by Cassandra to help her in taking down a supervillain operating in Hong Kong. This was the 10 year old white haired assassin known as the Cricket due to the chirping sound he made whilst fighting. Despite their skill, the two vigilantes were easily defeated by the young boy due to his incredible speed where he left Tim Drake with a broken arm whilst leaving Cassandra a promise that next time they fought he would not hold back. (Red Robin v1 #25)

During the rise of Batman Incorporated, Black Bat conducted a mission against Triad Neo-Heroin operations at Hong Kong. (Batman Incorporated v1 #6) She discovered a person selling large quantities of Semtex in Hong Kong but failed to stop the sale with the explosives being shipped to Gotham. They were used to destroy one of the Gates of Gotham with Cassandra arriving in the city at that point to assist the Batfamily in stopping the criminal responsible for the act. (Batman: Gates of Gotham v1 #1)

Post-Flashpoint

Cassandra Cain in Gotham in Batman and Robin Eternal v1 #3.

Following the Flashpoint, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events. Cassandra Cain was the daughter of the highly skilled assassin named David Cain who served the mysterious woman known as Mother. David operated as her chief enforcer and was given the name Orphan as he aided Mother in her operations. A secret experiment he conducted himself was bringing about the birth of Cassandra and he began a period of training his daughter. At the time, Mother had been seeking to mold children through the use of psychedelics such as the Fear Toxin in order to create perfect soldiers. However, David believed in the older methods and kept his daughter hidden from Mother. During that time, he kept her at the Nursery where he did not teach her to speak and instead forced her to rely on discerning body movements as he taught Cassandra that words were used as lies by her enemies. He then made her witness to numerous deaths he had conducted before forcing her to engage in combat with other fighters. The ultimate goal of David Cain was to showcase Cassandra to Mother as being proof that the older ways were superior. When he presented her to Mother, she was displeased that David had disobeyed him and though she allowed him to keep his daughter he commanded that she never be brought to her again. David Cain, however, believed that if only needed an opportunity to show that Cassandra Cain was superior to the other child warriors that Mother had created. (Batman and Robin Eternal v1 #11)

As part of an assignment, Cassandra Cain was sent to murder Marcus Row and Miranda Row whereupon their daughter Harper Row was to be brought to Mother. This was so that he would be trained to be a child soldier and then given over to Batman who was looking for a new Robin. (Batman and Robin Eternal v1 #18)

With Mother returning, Cassandra went to Gotham City and approached Dick Grayson in order to give him a thumb drive containing files from Batman about this hidden enemy from his past. (Batman and Robin Eternal v1 #1)

She was operating as Orphan and fought crime in the Cauldron when Batman and Batwoman Kate Kane recruited her for a new Gotham-based team. They were joined by Red Robin Tim Drake, Spoiler, and Clayface Basil Karlo. (Detective Comics v1 #934)

Afterwards, she came to learn that Duke Thomas was badly injured after being targeted by a masked supervillain called Karma with Cassandra looking to help. She later found herself to be a target of the same villain who was looking to eliminate Batman's allies. (Detective Comics v1 #983)

Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown were later in costume in Bludhaven when they heard that Gotham was under a city-wide attack from the Joker and those working for him bringing about the Joker War. This saw the two rushing to the scene where they fought the Hench Master and his minions where the two looked to help in fighting the crime as the two began to both operate as Batgirl. (Batman: The Joker War Zone v1 #1)

Overview

Personality and attributes

Upon operating as a vigilante, she came to take the mantle of Batgirl. (Legends of the Dark Knight v1 #120) Whilst operating undercover as an assassin, she once took the name Kasumi where she hid her face from others to mask her true identity. (Justice League Elite v1 #9) After leaving the name Batgirl behind, she began to operate under the name of the Black Bat. (Batman, Inc. v1 #6) She came to take the name Orphan in honour of her father after his death. (Batman & Robin Eternal v1 #26)

It was said that she was brave, an incredible fighter and would take a bullet for a stranger without hesitation. (Batgirl v1 #3) Guilt was said to be responsible for driving her on the path to being a heroic vigilante. Her first murder came to haunt her and led to her eventually running away from her father as she realised that killing was wrong. (Batgirl v1 #5)

She was noted for being the daughter of the famed assassin David Cain. (Batman v1 #567) Despite being hurt by her father a lot, Cassandra was said to still care for David Cain. (Batman v #607)

Powers and abilities

The Orphan in Detective Comics v1 #955.

It was said that the language centers of her brain were all over both hemispheres and not centralised like most people. This was responsible for her struggle in reading and writing as her brain did not know how to keep it cohesive. (Batgirl v1 #67) Afterwards, a psychic came to implant in her the capacity of understanding words and speech though initially this began to affect her ability to fight. (Batgirl v1 #5)

The more she fought the easier the fights became as she could see hundreds of ways to kill her enemies by using her eyes to trace the pressure points. However, such was her fighting skill was that she had to exert a high level of control over her actions as slightest mistake could lead to even more harm caused by her. As such, she had to focus on choosing the strikes that would not kill her foes. (Detective Comics v1 #950)

Cassandra fighting skill was said to be perfect and that she was a remarkable woman. (Batgirl v1 #4)

From a young age, her father taught her to reassemble a gun as part of her training. (Batgirl v1 #3)

Notes

• Cassandra Cain was created by Kelley Puckett and Damion Scott where she made her first appearance in Batman v1 #567 (July, 1999).
• The character was introduced as Cassandra in Batman v1 #567 (July 1999) but debuted as Batgirl in Legends of the Dark Knight v1 #120 (August 1999) and as Black Bat in Batman, Inc. v1 #6 (May 2011).
• Cain was re-introduced into the post-Flaspoint universe in Batman and Robin Eternal v1 (2015) though a character resembling her did feature in the Batgirl tie-in to Future's End v1 (2014).

In other media

Television

• In Young Justice, Orphan appeared in a non-voiced role in the animated television series. This version was shown as having operate in her superhero identity where she was part of the Batman Inc. faction within the Justice League.

Films

• In Birds of Prey, Cassandra Cain appeared in the 2020 live-action film setting where she was portrayed by actor Ella Jay Basco. This version had a vast different backstory and role where she was shown as being a young orphan who was in foster care. She was shown as being a pickpocket and a thief who was skilled in sleight of hand.

Video games

• In Batman: Dark Tomorrow, Cassandra Cain was the Batgirl in the videogame storyline. She and Robin rendezvoused with Batman after he defeated both Black Mask and the Ventriloquist who were in the midst of a gang war. During this time, the inmates at Arkham had taken over the asylum and Commissioner Gordon had been kidnapped. Batman dispatched Cassandra to patrol the warehouse district as they sought to rescue Gordon.
• In DC Universe Online, Cassandra Cain appeared as Batgirl in the MMORPG where she was voiced by actress by Mindy Raymond. She was shown as one of the vendors for better equipment on the Watchtower.
• In Injustice: Gods Among Us, Cassandra Cain appeared as an alternate costume for Batgirl unlocked through an online challenge in the mobile version of the fighting video game.

Appearances

• Batman v1: (1999)
• Batgirl v1:
• Justice League Elite v1:
• Batman and the Outsiders v2:
• Batman Incorporated v1:
• Batman: Gates of Gotham:
• Red Robin v1:
• Batman and Robin Eternal v1:
• Detective Comics v1:
• Batman and the Outsiders:
• Batman: The Joker War Zone v1: (2020)

External Links

• DC Comics.com Profile Entry
• DC Database Entry
• Comicvine Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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