Cassandra Cain (Batgirl, Black Bat) Appreciation

[Blight]

Oh a heads up for those who love this art. Dustin Nguyen has this all in his sketch book. So worth the price. It also has this great little mini-comic too:

[Blight]

Since I seriously doubt that DC will give Cass her own solo book anytime soon (unfortunately), I propose another possibility. A Black Bat and Spoiler team-up book. Come on, Cass and Steph work great as friends and they'd balance each other out well. Plus, you could combine the fanbases and thus boost sales. Heck, throw Bluebird and Carrie Kelly in there and make it "Birds of Prey-teen edition."

Cass, Steph, and Barbara plus thrown in Bette or Helena. Bam the book would be golden as this from Marcus To:




http://fav.me/d41xx97

Though I'd kill for Damion Scott, Marcus To, or Dustin Nguyen to draw the book. They'd blow the book out of the water.

[wyze2099]

Oh a heads up for those who love this art. Dustin Nguyen has this all in his sketch book. So worth the price. It also has this great little mini-comic too:

So THAT's where they've been all this time!

[Blight]

psuedofolio

[wyze2099]

Y'know, I really like that character design of Cassandra with the unruly hair that has two points sticking straight up like Batman's cowl. I may have to borrow that for my Batgirl fanfic series.

[Blight]

Y'know, I really like that character design of Cassandra with the unruly hair that has two points sticking straight up like Batman's cowl. I may have to borrow that for my Batgirl fanfic series.

It's a fun look and I like that the artist has mastered her regular and done this version now and again:




Psuedofolio

[Mecegirl]

I just don't get how so much awesome can be left in limbo.
Anywho posting a few of my favorite fanarts.

[mera]

So I'm really curious about Cassandra Cain. Seeing that I'm daily new to DC comics, could someone point me towards key issues of her? Where is her origin story? I ordered Batgirl 1-5 both Vol 1&2. Do I need other issues to learn more? Please help me. haha

[Tim Drake]

So I'm really curious about Cassandra Cain. Seeing that I'm daily new to DC comics, could someone point me towards key issues of her? Where is her origin story? I ordered Batgirl 1-5 both Vol 1&2. Do I need other issues to learn more? Please help me. haha

Well, other than her solo title which you have already ordered you could read No Man's Land which is where Cassandra was introduced. This is where you see her as Batgirl for the first time and it was what first made me like the character. If you are looking for the most recent issues with her, Gates of Gotham was pretty amazing too. And I may be biased on this one considering my username but I loved Robin/Batgirl: Fresh Blood solely for focusing on Tim and Cassandra's friendship which is one of my favorite friendships of the Bat-Family. But for me all of my top moments were in her solo title so if just read that and nothing else you will still get to read the very best of Cassandra.

My memory is so shoddy, I hope I didn't forget anything important with Cassandra in it.

[heyevaxx]

Cassandra Cain's first appearance was in Batman (1940) #567 Mark of Cain, Part One 1999-07 which is part of the Batman No Man's Land crossover. You can get this in trade form:
Batman No Man's Land Vol. 3 http://www.dccomics.com/graphic-nove...ans-land-vol-3

Here's a bunch of Cass Cain reading ordered lists. I think the Cassandra Cain Mainframe list is most complete and accurate. The ComicBookDB lists are nice because her TPB appearances are listed.

Cassandra Cain Mainframe http://casscain.wikia.com/wiki/DC_Un...rth_Chronology

Cassandra Cain Chronological http://comicbookdb.com/character_chron.php?ID=5349
Batgirl (Cain) Chronological http://comicbookdb.com/character_chron.php?ID=1747
Black Bat Chronological http://comicbookdb.com/character_chron.php?ID=55976

Cassandra Cain Chronology http://www.dcuwiki.net/w/Black_Bat_%...%29_Chronology

Cassandra Cain Reading Order http://fyeahcassandracain.tumblr.com/reading%20order

One last new reader comment: Cass experiences a major character shift starting with Robin Volume 2 #148 2006-05. I mention this in case you jump around her chronology and wonder "WTF, this isn't Cass!?!?." This Robin issue was her first appearance after the One Year Later event and she had gone through some major, err, changes. Suffice to say, Cass fans were generally very upset and vocal about it. Eventually, DC Comics eased Cass back into a form that her fans knew and loved. But she didn't get her title back (despite it having decent sales at it's end) and she's still not on the radar for a New 52 return (despite her being one of the most popular female DC characters).

After you enjoy some Cass titles and you read some of her post One Year Later stuff, maybe check out CassToons at http://comicbookdb.com/character_chron.php?ID=1747 which was started after Cass's One Year Later change in protest and to blow off fandom steam.

Casstoons took on a life of their own and ended up covering all comics, not just Cass. But she's the star! A lot of these little strips have made me LOL big time and they're all hard core Cass fans like us. If you try out Casstoons starting with the oldest (my link above), you'll note the art is pretty basic. It improves quite a bit over time and the main artist Espanolbot is quite good for these sort of fan strips. Also, this Who's Who in Casstoons is really handy for keeping track of everyone: http://editthis.info/Superdickery/Casstoons

[Lorendiac]

I've got a question and I'm posting this scan to illustrate it. This is from Cassandra's first published appearance in 1999, when the poor girl didn't even have a name yet (as far as we readers knew); she was just this not-very-talkative Asian-looking girl who was working for Oracle in "No Man's Land" and suddenly threw herself in front of Jim Gordon to protect him from David Cain's sniper fire. In this scanned image, we get some good looks at her facial features.

Now, I've never visited any portion of the Eastern Hemisphere, so I definitely don't know my way around Asia. My question is: Does Cassandra's face, in this page, strike anyone as looking particularly like what you'd expect to see in a certain country in or near the region of the globe that is sometimes called "East Asia"? For instance, would your first guess be that she had lots of Japanese ancestry, or Korean, or Tibetan, or what? I'm just suddenly curious about what the artist (Damion Scott) was originally going for. (This was long before it was suggested that her biological father was actually David Cain, and even after that came out, more years went by before anyone suggested Lady Shiva might be her long-lost mother.)

Here's what she looked like:

Cassandra debut.jpg

[godisawesome]

I think the overall idea was to just make her look mysterious and vaguely Asian. Though there might have been some inspiration from Lady Shiva's original Cambodian heritage (I remember reading that somewhere, but I could be wrong.) Of course, aside from the vague heritage of the character, her being athletic and emotive was her main identifying trait.

[Zainu]

I dunno, a lot of Asian groups tend to look alike. I'm three-quarters Taiwanese Hakka, but other Taiwanese people mistake me as a Korean exchange student sometimes.

I like to think of Sandra and Carolyn Wu as being Chinese-Americans from Detroit, since Wu is a Chinese surname. The -san part of Wu-san might have been I-Ching using honorifics(Japanese '-san') with their name. I-Ching was a Japanese soldier to decided to take on the legacy of Chinese martial arts/tradition as repentance for what he did in China during WW2, so it's plausible.

Edit: Also, I think that Gail Simone tried to retcon Sandra as Vietnamese(while upping BoP's martial arts level at Shiva's expense and ushering in Sin for Dinah to adopt)...but I'm going to ignore that, since her Shiva was nothing but a two-dimensional jobber and it would make more sense for her to be Chinese, otherwise, it would weaken her God daughter connection to I-Ching.

[Blight]

So I'm really curious about Cassandra Cain. Seeing that I'm daily new to DC comics, could someone point me towards key issues of her? Where is her origin story? I ordered Batgirl 1-5 both Vol 1&2. Do I need other issues to learn more? Please help me. haha

Even with this list there's still so much to go through and there is stuff not listed. But it's a good guide nonetheless.

[Arnoldoaad]

I want to put this here as well as it is pretty much my favorite character moment of her

027-Batgirl050Rembrandt-DCP.jpg