Cassandra Cain vs. Damian Wayne

[Winter]

Given her theoretical involvement in tomorrows accouterments for the upcoming Batman WB Montreal game and the recent end of the DC Animated Movie Universe and his massive involvement in it, I wanted to go compare Cassandra Cain to Damian Wayne.

First off let me just say that I HATE Damian and a big chunk of that is because he's a Mary Sue. This is most notable in the DCAMU where he's practically perfect at everything he does, even things he's never done before (like his dance-off with Beast Boy in the first Teen Titans Movie). The Universe keeps bending over backwards to make sure he always wins in someway, he's a better fighter then everyone he goes up against.

The single biggest issue with Damian that's another issue with Mary Sue's in general is that other characters have to be dragged down in order prompt said Sue up. Nightwing, Beast Boy, Blue Beetle and even Batman all have to be dumbed down or shown that they are somehow inferior to Damian. The only thing that's lacking to make him a full blown Sue is that he's not liked by everyone, in fact the characters seem to dislike him just as much as most of the audience does.

By contrast, Cassandra Cain, aka Cassie aka Batgirl II aka Orphan is one of my all time favorite characters. While she is one of the best fighters in the DC Universe she's shown several times that she's not invisible and has lost or has been fought to a draw by fighters who have more experience then her. Sometimes that's due to bad writing, like when she turned evil, but most times it's down to her going up against someone who's just been fighting a lot longer then her and knows how to work around her unique ability to read body language.

She's also not that skilled at that much else outside of combat, she can read body language but not social cues and, most notably for me, she also has issues reading. I've suffered all my life with Dyslexia so seeing a character who likewise also has trouble reading and working to overcome it was something that I really related to. I've also had to deal with people who've got annoyed at me for not just reading like I was just pretending I had issues even when most of them knew better then that and I felt for Cassie when other treated her the same way when they knew better. Sadly, one or two characters were turned into rather unreasonable jerks at times but nothing to serious, at least none that I can remember.

Not to be completely unfair to Damian I've heard in the comics he's grown out of his more annoying character traits and one of my favorite scenes from the Court of Owls arc was about Damian begging Gorden to fix the Bat-Signal because it was the only hope he had to see his father again. This was a well written moment that showed that under all his @$$hole behavior he was still just a kid and at that moment just a son who wanted his father back.

And Cassie had that whole turning evil arc in the comics and her first Big screen debut in Harley Quinn movie featuring the Birds of Prey so utterly butchered her character that it dragged an otherwise fun movie down LOT for me.

But still, first impressions matter and for me, Damian had a rather terrible start while Cassie's solo series is, IMO, one of the most underrated series in DC History.

[GreyICE]

Okay, you've noted the exact issue of a Mary Sue - it's not a character problem, it's a plot problem. A Mary Sue is very specifically a plot issue, where the plot warps around the writer's chosen one to make it so they're always the most critical, cool, important thing that everyone should be looking at.

Cassandra Cain is anything but. In her series, she is told by Batman very early on "no masks". She doesn't fight any of the big name villains. She doesn't show up and suddenly body Killer Croc in a fight, she doesn't outwit the Riddler, she doesn't beat the Joker at his own game. The first time she runs up against a meta Batman has to rescue her because she didn't expect it and wasn't prepared for someone who was tough enough to ignore bullets and could punch through concrete - Batman isn't a Mary Sue either, he made a mistake and didn't think there'd be Metas there, and Cassandra nearly died for his error. And the Meta? He' just a thug with a bandana. Throughout, with one extremely notable exception, it maintains the "no masks" rule. And when Cassandra finally does get to fight and beat a named villain, it is superbly, fantastically earned (and I won't say who). It's the culmination of the entire series, and her next step as a character.

Can DC handle this well? FUCK NO! Fuck to the fucking fuck no. Look what they did to Cassandra with One Year Later. They turned her into a fucking assassin. An assassin! She was fucking murdering people! She then ends up as one of Deathstroke's henchmen!

The character walked off into the sunset in 2005, heading towards a world outside DC comics. All that we've ever had since then is a joke of a character with the same name.

It's so fucking bad that I hear they are literally rebooting her origin to try to get away from what DC did to her. And I don't even blame them. Not that I give a fuck, because DC is pure ass cancer. Oracle was fantastic, Cassandra was fantastic, but no, we have to have Barbara Gordon running around kicking people in the face with a terrible backstory and a terrible origin, and lose two interesting characters. Barbara openly admits she did more good as Oracle than she did as Batgirl, by far! And she also admits Cassandra is a better fucking Batgirl! But we can't have fucking Batgirl being fucking Asian, no, we can't have that can we?

[King Green]

This problem would have been sorted if the directors would simply listen to the audience and the comics. But noooo...we must keep our pride before our work orders so we can earn our reputation for best DC comics adaptation.

Grow up Michael! Grow up Dickson! Grow up head editor Joe "Greed-bags" Lymm! Just what the hell have you done to gain such arrogance for simply piling up criticism for Bat-Woman: First Night, one of the best origin stories for Cassandra Cain with modifications?

Internet Culture isn't this corruptful, no its because your choosing to be an asshole jealous of anti-hero and villian writing.

All our current culture will be offensive if we got judged by aliens/gods/tulpas/ect.

I think its time a small but immortal region of Youtubers create a better show than this. Clever to avoid copyright abuse and company attemptive assassinations.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

He gets captured by Nightwing when the two first meet in Son of Batman. It was arguably a bad decision for Damian to follow Deathstroke's orders.

In Batman vs Robin I find it a crucial struggle for him to choose the life of principle instead of entitlement as he was taught by the Assassins. The plot involving him as a chosen replacement for head Talon puts him a bit on a pedestal, but he understandably falls to a decision path that exposes Batman as Wayne.