You are going to see a disclaimer on the backside of this text that the opinions acknowledged listed here are solely my very own, and don’t essentially characterize these of Warner Bros. and its subsidiaries, however consider me anyway after I say this: Cassandra Cain is the best hero within the historical past of DC Comics. The definition of a hero is somebody who makes use of all the things they should stand up, encourage and shield these round them. As a woman skilled from her beginning to be the final word murderer, no person had larger to rise than Cass. Denied language, id or perhaps a identify, Cassandra bought to outline herself by escaping the life she was made to guide and changing into the particular person of her personal selecting. One who makes use of all the talents she was given to make it possible for nobody has to die once more.
Those that know Cassandra, love Cassandra. She was the primary Batgirl to have her personal comedian collection, which ran for practically 75 points. She received a number of “Greatest Heroine” awards in main publications years in a row for that whole run. However after a sure level, Cassandra began going by radical modifications. Lapses into supervillainy. Underneath thoughts management. Shipped away to Hong Kong. Erased from continuity completely, solely to creep again in with out the bat image which as soon as meant a lot to her.
In her cinematic debut, Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), all the things about her character apart from her identify and ethnicity was modified in translation. It nearly appears as if, for a time, and regardless of her large recognition within the early 2000s, that folks have been afraid to put in writing Cassandra as she was.
In the present day, a really true-to-heart Cassandra shares the Batgirls highlight along with her chosen household of Barbara Gordon and Stephanie Brown. However for over a decade, this once-celebrated Batgirl was tough to search out anyplace. So, this AAPI Heritage month, a 12 months after Cassandra graced the duvet of the Asian superhero anthology, DC Competition of Heroes, it’s applicable to have a look inward and ask ourselves: what’s the issue with Cassandra Cain?
Cassandra was skilled by her father, the murderer David Cain, to dedicate her whole being to the artwork of combating. She was denied even the prospect to study language, with the idea that the language of violence could be the one one she would ever know. This constructed Cassandra’s repute in her first few appearances as an imposing determine who might tackle anybody in any room, however was practically incapable of greeting those self same individuals.
For Asian readers, this was a scenario which was all too acquainted. It wasn’t the primary time you noticed such a personality in fiction and media. Or the tenth. Or the hundredth. Or the thousandth.
The concept of the “mysterious, incomprehensible Asian” is a stereotype as previous as European merchants’ first encounters with East Asian society, who handled the language and cultural obstacles between their individuals as in the event that they have been a separate class of human being. In time, the concepts unfold amongst Western cultures that Asians might be sensible and stoic, however “they weren’t like us.”
Within the centuries since, these concepts have crept into our media, usually treating Asian girls as symbols of horror or sexuality, however hardly ever as a person. From Miss Saigon and Full Steel Jacket to Kill Invoice, Western media has usually exhibited a significant issue in depicting Asian girls as set dressing and sacrificial dolls with little solution to specific themselves. With all of this cultural baggage, the concept we might introduce our first main Asian hero in Gotham Metropolis as a younger lady actually with out the power to verbally specific herself is not only stunning, however reprehensible.
And it might be, if that was the place Cassandra’s story ended. Everybody who’s ever needed to delete this Batgirl from the canon, or considerably change her, could be appropriate. However this denial of communication isn’t the place Cassandra’s story ends. The truth is, it’s solely chapter one. As a result of what makes Cassandra the most effective hero within the historical past of DC Comics is that she has by no means as soon as been a static character. Via the story of her first solo title, and within the twenty years since, Cassandra Cain is that rarest of characters in superhero media: a hero who’s allowed to alter, and allowed to develop.
Once we first meet Cassandra in “Batman: No Man’s Land,” we see a motherly Barbara Gordon working diligently along with her new ward to assist her study language. Collectively, they obtain a breakthrough as phrases begin slowly coming to her. However within the fifth subject of Batgirl, one thing surprising occurs: Cassandra encounters a telepath, who by chance unscrambles her thoughts in order that she will be able to suppose in full sentences for the primary time. Language turns into one thing she will be able to comprehend, though it comes with the unlearning of her unequalled combating talents, which she solely regains by the conditional tutelage of Woman Shiva. Turn out to be the most effective as soon as once more, and struggle Shiva to the loss of life in a single 12 months, or stay merely enough for the remainder of her life. For Cassandra, it was no alternative in any respect.
Years later, we’d study this wasn’t only a narrative system to outline Cassandra’s values. Editor Joseph P. Illidge lately wrote about how even on the time, considerations about how Cassandra’s fierce and silent background drew parallels to a deeply rooted stereotype have been raised—a reality which had been so ingrained in our tradition that the creators had not even acknowledged it till it was identified. It was then that the psychic detangling was plotted to advance her character a bit extra quickly, however the intent was all the time the identical: Cassandra Cain, just like the function of the Asian lady in media itself, was constructed to stick to at least one particular excellent, as a device in her father’s story. From the very starting, Cassandra’s energy got here from refusing to be that device.
Cassandra Cain’s narrative arc is actually a few lady denied a voice discovering the power to talk—to find love from associates and chosen household, a ardour for tales and literature and most of all, an emblem of heroism to stay as much as. As a result of greater than anybody since Bruce himself, Cassandra Cain understands the drive to rise from your personal darkness and be the hero you want existed once you have been helpless. The Asian stereotype of the silent different will all the time be part of Cassandra’s story, as a result of that very image has develop into the factor which Cassandra exists to outgrow.
AAPI Heritage Month itself is about exhibiting how this neighborhood of many cultures can acknowledge and rejoice a shared expertise, however can’t be outlined by the bins by which widespread media and othering conceptions confine them. Denial and erasure of this troubling historical past could be a disservice to the obstacles which Asian People have needed to overcome and over which there stays plenty of progress to make. However whether or not it’s Barbara, Cassandra or Stephanie, the mantle of Batgirl has all the time meant one factor above anything: nobody however you will get to let you know who you get to be.
Alex Jaffe is the creator of our month-to-month “Ask the Query” column and writes about TV, motion pictures, comics and superhero historical past for DCComics.com. Comply with him on Twitter at @AlexJaffe and discover him within the DC Group as HubCityQuestion.
NOTE: The views and opinions expressed on this characteristic are solely these of Alex Jaffe and don’t essentially replicate these of DC Leisure or Warner Bros.
