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Cassandra Cain

Character Overview

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Cassandra Cain

Personas

Raised in horrifying conditions by her father, David Cain, Cassandra became one of the deadliest fighters in the world—at the expense of her ability to speak or read. Instead, she was taught to read movement and communicate through martial arts. Yet despite David's best efforts to transform his daughter from human to weapon, he was not able to crush Cassandra's innate empathy and compassion. So, when he forced her to commit murder as a test of her abilities, she realized what she had done and fled.

Seeking to hide from her father, Cassandra ran to Gotham City immediately after it had been declared a No Man's Land by the government and cut off from the outside world. She infiltrated the city limits and began working as a force for order amid the chaos—something that quickly gained the attention of Oracle (Barbara Gordon), who’d been monitoring the city's upsurge in gang activity from her base, the Clock Tower.

Looking for more operatives she could trust, Barbara took Cassandra in and eventually passed the Batgirl mantle on to her. Once the No Man's Land sanctions had been lifted, Cassandra became a member of the Batman Family.

Cassandra Cain was given the mantle of Batgirl by Barbara Gordon (then acting as Oracle after her paralysis by the Joker) during No Man's Land. As the new Batgirl, Cassandra was brought into the fold of the Batman Family and taught to work as a superhero on a team under the supervision of Batman and Oracle. Under Barbara's care, and with some telepathic doctoring, Cassandra's brain was made capable of understanding and producing speech, though her communication skills remained limited at best. After she proved herself by fighting a metahuman, Batman allowed Cassandra to face off against some of the more prominent Super-Villains in Gotham City.

Over time, Cassandra's past surfaced, as her father worked to track her down. David attempted to destroy Cassandra's relationship with Batman by sending him footage of her as a child, killing a man. But the plan backfired and made Batman even more certain he’d made the right choice in helping to rehabilitate her. Eventually, Cassandra learned her mother was Lady Shiva, one of the deadliest assassins in the world. Shiva herself came to Gotham to offer her daughter further training, under one stipulation: twelve months later, Shiva and Cassandra would fight to the death.

When the day came, Cassandra won, becoming one of the only fighters to beat Lady Shiva in combat. But she spared her mother's life, prompting Lady Shiva to swear vengeance on her daughter the next time they met

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Character History

CREATORS: Damion Scott & Kelley Puckett

FIRST POST-CRISIS APPEARANCE: Batman Vol. 1 #567 (1999)

FIRST POST-FLASHPOINT APPEARANCE: Batman & Robin Eternal #1 (2015)