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  1. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by frostedemma View Post
    The thing is that Cass was really successful back in the early to mid 2000's, when her batgirl run was starting she was getting a heavy push by dc and guess starting in other popular books like harley's first solo, superboy, young justice and etc. While there was some tension with the other bat brood at first, she had Babs and Bruce seal of approval from the start which helped further cement her position. Dc was actually committed to her. Then Morrison went and created Damien who not only had an eerily similar past and upbringing to Cass, but he was also his biological son, so Cass got pushed aside a bit since she was no longer the new batkid. And then Didio became eic and that was the final nail her in coffin.
    I don't know if Cass got that much of a push. She rarely appeared in any of the other Bat books, and she didn't have much more than a guest spot on those other books. She had excellent writing overall, and frankly I think Dan D is the one who torpedoed Cass, not Grant.

  2. #47
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Cool Thatguy View Post
    I don't know if Cass got that much of a push. She rarely appeared in any of the other Bat books, and she didn't have much more than a guest spot on those other books. She had excellent writing overall, and frankly I think Dan D is the one who torpedoed Cass, not Grant.
    Didio definitely derailed her more than anyone else.

    Though I think she had a decent turn in *some* Bat books stuff - particularly with Robin - given the time period, since it was that weird transition period between Hush and Morrison, where a lot of BatBooks were going through a bad stretch.

    It’s just that eventually, her book got cancelled and Evil!Cass git ordered because Dan Didio was afraid that new readers would be confused if offered a selection between a completely masked Asian Batgirl with a martial arts theme and a tall, red headed lesbian Batwoman.

    *That’s* the moment that truly derailed her, and even after John’s and others tried to fix her, you can tell Didio seemed to think she was a failure because she didn’t work in the whip-lash inducing status quo change he ordered for her.
    Like action, adventure, rogues, and outlaws? Like anti-heroes, femme fatales, mysteries and thrillers?

    I wrote a book with them. Outlaw’s Shadow: A Sherwood Noir. Robin Hood’s evil counterpart, Guy of Gisbourne, is the main character. Feel free to give it a look: https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asi...E2PKBNJFH76GQP

  3. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by godisawesome View Post
    Didio definitely derailed her more than anyone else.

    Though I think she had a decent turn in *some* Bat books stuff - particularly with Robin - given the time period, since it was that weird transition period between Hush and Morrison, where a lot of BatBooks were going through a bad stretch.

    It’s just that eventually, her book got cancelled and Evil!Cass git ordered because Dan Didio was afraid that new readers would be confused if offered a selection between a completely masked Asian Batgirl with a martial arts theme and a tall, red headed lesbian Batwoman.

    *That’s* the moment that truly derailed her, and even after John’s and others tried to fix her, you can tell Didio seemed to think she was a failure because she didn’t work in the whip-lash inducing status quo change he ordered for her.
    Dan D derailed her sure, but how much did she appear prior to that?

    She only really got one obligatory Super-team up with the then Supergirl, and later Superboy. She never joined a super team for a single arc, never had any character focus in Loeb's Superman/Batman series. Tim and Dick had plenty of stories emphasizing their sibling-like relationship, but Cass never got that either of them.

    I think Dan D scuttled Cass simply because he preferred the Batgirl he grew up with, but the why is ultimately pointless. Cass was the Batclan outsider who got the short end of the stick from the beginning.

  4. #49
    Extraordinary Member AmiMizuno's Avatar
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    What do you think about her FS costume

  5. #50
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    She had tie-ins and roles in all the Batfamily events I have read from that era, so I don't think she had absolutely no push.
    Quote Originally Posted by AmiMizuno View Post
    What do you think about her FS costume
    It looks solid.

  6. #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by godisawesome View Post
    Didio definitely derailed her more than anyone else.

    Though I think she had a decent turn in *some* Bat books stuff - particularly with Robin - given the time period, since it was that weird transition period between Hush and Morrison, where a lot of BatBooks were going through a bad stretch.

    It’s just that eventually, her book got cancelled and Evil!Cass git ordered because Dan Didio was afraid that new readers would be confused if offered a selection between a completely masked Asian Batgirl with a martial arts theme and a tall, red headed lesbian Batwoman.

    *That’s* the moment that truly derailed her, and even after John’s and others tried to fix her, you can tell Didio seemed to think she was a failure because she didn’t work in the whip-lash inducing status quo change he ordered for her.
    Besides Gail Simone, I wonder who else pitched a post-Infinite Crisis One Year Later take on Cass? I guess Didio rejected all of them.

    The funny thing, is that the exact same time Didio had Cass turn heel, is when Gail had her mom Lady Shiva turn good and join the Birds of Prey.

  7. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Cool Thatguy View Post
    Dan D derailed her sure, but how much did she appear prior to that?

    She only really got one obligatory Super-team up with the then Supergirl, and later Superboy. She never joined a super team for a single arc, never had any character focus in Loeb's Superman/Batman series. Tim and Dick had plenty of stories emphasizing their sibling-like relationship, but Cass never got that either of them.

    I think Dan D scuttled Cass simply because he preferred the Batgirl he grew up with, but the why is ultimately pointless. Cass was the Batclan outsider who got the short end of the stick from the beginning.
    Joseph Illidge on bringing Cass into the comics:

    When I came in, it was right at the beginning of No Man’s Land, and No Man’s Land was a ground-breaking kind of event. It broke a lot of rules; it took a lot of risks, Denny fought for it to be approved by the higher powers and, eventually, we had to start planning what the Batman Universe was going to look like after No Man’s Land. And one of the things that we did within No Man’s Land was the creation of Cassandra Cain, an Asian Batgirl.

    And I can tell you that upper management was not keen on the idea of a Batgirl who was not white, and Denny fought for that because we all believed in it. So, he fought for Cassandra Cain to be Batgirl, and they did it. That’s the thing, he was the person who fought for ground-breaking stories and groundbreaking ideas. From what I was told, he had to fight for No Man’s Land to happen and, once it got underway, it became such a big event for DC Comics – not only from a content standpoint but from a financial standpoint – that different writers would suddenly start writing us saying “Hey, can we reintroduce this old character to the DC Universe through No Man’s Land?” and other editorial offices said, “Could we have a crossover with No Man’s Land?”

    So, he was the kind of person who had foresight, and people would get to his level of thinking later.
    https://www.cbr.com/joseph-illidge-r...ampaign=CBR-TW

    So Cass was fighting an uphill battle with DC from the beginning.

  8. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by Frontier View Post
    She had tie-ins and roles in all the Batfamily events I have read from that era, so I don't think she had absolutely no push.
    More often than not, Cass was simply just *there* in the Bat family, but had little character role. That's what I'm talking about.

    She never joined an ongoing team, she almost never teamed up with Dick or Tim in their titles, and rarely with Bruce. In Gotham Knights, a series focused on the family, she never got a character arc.

    They never pushed her out until Dan D, but they never pushed her forward either, IMO.

  9. #54
    Extraordinary Member Restingvoice's Avatar
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    "So it's the birthday of CASSANDRA CAIN a.k.a. Best Batgirl Ever, so as one of her earliest editorial uncles who shepherded Cassie's birth, here are some never-revealed secrets about our favorite girl.

    Cassie's first name was suggested to Denny O'Neil by a wonderful, brilliant woman named Bonnie To, who was an intern at either DC in general or the Batman Editorial Group for a brief time. We had the last name of Cain, of course, but not the first name.

    I wanted to edit a short for BATMAN CHRONICLES with Cassie in her early days and THE SHADE from James Robinson's STARMAN. It would have been a DAYS PAST sroty of Shade meeting before BATMAN: NO MAN'S LAND. I missed the opportunity to connect with Robinson to get his blessing.

    Back in 2015, longtime friend and killer writer @bryanedwardhill interviewed me for
    @comicsbeat and we rapped a little about Cassie, whom we both love, as you know from his STELLAR work on BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS.
    https://www.comicsbeat.com/interview...oseph-illidge/
    But that's no secret, so here's 1 more.

    Cassie was not expected by DC's upper management to be the breakout hero of NO MAN'S LAND, but she was. She lived to fight many more days because of all of you, and your love, and the editors and creators who continue to take care of her. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GIRL! We love you to bits

    P.S. SHADOW OF THE BATGIRL by @sarahkuhn and @NicoleGoux
    is, in my humble opinion, the definitive Cassie origin of the 21st century. It has real insight and heart, and I learned things about our girl that I didn't realize before reading the book. Go get it."

    - Joseph P. Illidge
    Last edited by Restingvoice; 01-26-2021 at 06:41 PM.

  10. #55
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Cool Thatguy View Post
    More often than not, Cass was simply just *there* in the Bat family, but had little character role. That's what I'm talking about.

    She never joined an ongoing team, she almost never teamed up with Dick or Tim in their titles, and rarely with Bruce. In Gotham Knights, a series focused on the family, she never got a character arc.

    They never pushed her out until Dan D, but they never pushed her forward either, IMO.
    I mean, again, even if she wasn't on an ongoing team she had roles in family events (where she did interact with Dick, Tim, Bruce, etc.) Like she had a pretty focal role in Murderer/Fugitive.

    It could very well have been a character choice on the part of the writers.

  11. #56
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    She was part of Justice League Elite, wasn’t she? And she had that Blüdhaven crossover with Tim that had the cajones to just make as few pages out of them awkwardly sharing coffee.

    How does her run align with Denny O’Neill leaving his editing job? Because I remember her having a role of some import in Fugitive/Murderer, but then weirdly not making the obligatory cameo in Hush like everyone else, then there’s the mess of War Games, where she *is* involved even though it’s a massive mess for everyone at the time, then she gets the crossover with Tim in Blüdhaven right before Infinite Crisis starts up.

    I think the start of her time as Batgirl had decent push, but that the middle part and end took place in that transition period between O’Neill as the director of the franchise and Morrison kind of occupying the same job (not as an editors, but as the status quo determiner).

    And that’s the period where Tim loses most of his friends and family to “big event” butchery, Dick got tailspinned through Devin Grayson’s least graceful arcs (which soured me on her before I had the good fortune to read her other work and realize that was an outlier compared to her usual output), Steph got killed for stupid reasons, and the entire line was going through some uncertainty.
    Like action, adventure, rogues, and outlaws? Like anti-heroes, femme fatales, mysteries and thrillers?

    I wrote a book with them. Outlaw’s Shadow: A Sherwood Noir. Robin Hood’s evil counterpart, Guy of Gisbourne, is the main character. Feel free to give it a look: https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asi...E2PKBNJFH76GQP

  12. #57
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    Quote Originally Posted by godisawesome View Post
    She was part of Justice League Elite, wasn’t she? And she had that Blüdhaven crossover with Tim that had the cajones to just make as few pages out of them awkwardly sharing coffee.

    How does her run align with Denny O’Neill leaving his editing job? Because I remember her having a role of some import in Fugitive/Murderer, but then weirdly not making the obligatory cameo in Hush like everyone else, then there’s the mess of War Games, where she *is* involved even though it’s a massive mess for everyone at the time, then she gets the crossover with Tim in Blüdhaven right before Infinite Crisis starts up.

    I think the start of her time as Batgirl had decent push, but that the middle part and end took place in that transition period between O’Neill as the director of the franchise and Morrison kind of occupying the same job (not as an editors, but as the status quo determiner).

    And that’s the period where Tim loses most of his friends and family to “big event” butchery, Dick got tailspinned through Devin Grayson’s least graceful arcs (which soured me on her before I had the good fortune to read her other work and realize that was an outlier compared to her usual output), Steph got killed for stupid reasons, and the entire line was going through some uncertainty.
    I stated ongoing for a reason

    Dick was in Titans and Outsiders, Tim in Young Justice and Teen Titans.

    I'm not saying that Cass wasn't there, just that she didn't get any real focus.

    Babs showed up in Nightwing plenty without it being a crossover. Tim and Dick teamed up all the time to, and Nightwing and Robin casually strolled into Bruce's book every other issue. Dick and Tim had an issue emphasizing their brother-like relationship by riding atop a train blindfolded. I'd be rich if I had a nickle for every time Bruce's father status to Dick or Tim was addressed.

    Outside of her own book, what did Cass ever get that even approached that? What character moments did she get? Until her Beechan mini, she barely interacted with Nightwing (yes, I know she acted as muscle against Deathstroke once in his book).

    My point is, what real effort was made to integrate her into the mythos? To develop her relationships outside her own book?

  13. #58

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    Cass had a mentor/student relationship with Babs. She guest starred in Birds of Prey.

    Denny left after No Man's Land wrapped up. After he left DC it seemed like they were quick to undo his stuff; Richard Dragon got a new origin under Dixon, Question got a new one that made him into an urban wizard, we got the dickiest Batman in Nightwing Year One, Bat Dickery went waaaaay up, Cass went evil, Steph was killed, Morrison took over and all the Silver Age stuff that everyone pretended didn't happen was brought back, Tim Drake became more traumatized and deempahsized as Damian got more and more popular, etc, etc.

    While the Bat Books in the 90's did occasionally acknowledge the larger DCU and even crossed over with them, for the most part, they kept to their own little sub universe. I remember Giffen talking about how hard it was to get Batman on the JLI and even Morrison said he created Bat God in order to placate the guys at Bat editorial because they were stingy about featuring outside the Bat books. It lead to a lot of problems like 'why didn't he call the JLA during Knightfall/Contagion/No Mans Land' events but ultimately, I read Batman stories for Batman. There were more and more cross overs as the aughts progressed though, especially once Morrison took over the Bat Books.

    Cass was an important fixture within the Bat Books until OYL hit and she turned evil. It was the early-mid 00's. Generating controversy sold books so that's what they did. They kept riling up the fans to garner attention until most of them just peeled off and left for other books.

  14. #59
    Moderator Frontier's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by godisawesome View Post
    She was part of Justice League Elite, wasn’t she? And she had that Blüdhaven crossover with Tim that had the cajones to just make as few pages out of them awkwardly sharing coffee.

    How does her run align with Denny O’Neill leaving his editing job? Because I remember her having a role of some import in Fugitive/Murderer, but then weirdly not making the obligatory cameo in Hush like everyone else, then there’s the mess of War Games, where she *is* involved even though it’s a massive mess for everyone at the time, then she gets the crossover with Tim in Blüdhaven right before Infinite Crisis starts up.

    I think the start of her time as Batgirl had decent push, but that the middle part and end took place in that transition period between O’Neill as the director of the franchise and Morrison kind of occupying the same job (not as an editors, but as the status quo determiner).

    And that’s the period where Tim loses most of his friends and family to “big event” butchery, Dick got tailspinned through Devin Grayson’s least graceful arcs (which soured me on her before I had the good fortune to read her other work and realize that was an outlier compared to her usual output), Steph got killed for stupid reasons, and the entire line was going through some uncertainty.
    It's weird that the comic version of Hush went out of its way to feature almost everybody except Batgirl. Even the animated version worked Babs' Batgirl into the story (albeit to replace Huntress).

  15. #60
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    Quote Originally Posted by Frontier View Post
    It's weird that the comic version of Hush went out of its way to feature almost everybody except Batgirl. Even the animated version worked Babs' Batgirl into the story (albeit to replace Huntress).
    Not that odd, when you consider that Loeb doesn't like her

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