Entry tags:

char: batgirl/cassandra cain, creator: adam beechen, medium: webcomic, publisher: dc comics, title: casstoons, title: countdown, title: robin, title: supergirl, title: teen titans

The Best of a Bad Thing: Cass Cain vs. Supergirl, also a video and a Casstoon

As most people who are familar with the situation know, the whole "Cass Cain goes evil" situation was really an utter mess, and I'm not just saying that as an obsessive fan of her's.

It violated a huge chunk of what the character was about, and on the whole I gleefully await the time when it's forgotten...

BUT, this on the other hand, was awesome.

Due to some palaver in Kara's comic involving a superpowered Apokolipian stalker, Dark Angel (Donna's evil alternate clone/Nazi demon-whatsit), fake memories of Kara's dad and one of the Monitors from Countdown/Final Crisis, Cass was hired to try and kill Kara as an attempt to test her... Kara I mean, not Cass.

So in order to do this Cass picked up Captain Boomerang Jr. at a bar, where he was complaining about what a crumby girlfriend Kara is (considering she did things like selling the entirity of Kandor into slavery for her own personal benefit at this point, he got off lightly with her treating him like a pet).

Cass kidnaps him, and due to being drugged into the Evils at the time, ties him to the ceiling and tortures him. *sigh* While this is going on she sends various members of the League of Assassins after Kara to test her defences, though she sends people that crazy machete half-brother of Cass' from the end of her series so she presumably wasn't hoping they'd win.

Anyways, onto the awesome bit.

Kara, obnoxious and self-centred character that she was at the time, eventually works out that Boomerang is missing, and promptly breaks into the Batcave to find out more about Cass. Tim's there, and Kara is very jovial about the whole thing, not really taking the situation very seriously, as she jokes with Tim about his curry breath and him kissing Wonder Girl.

Tim mentions that Cass is dangerous, because she was the only person who'd managed to hurt Bruce, but Kara dismisses this as she just thinks that Cass is a petulant child playing at being the badguy.

And thus, Kara's hubris gets the better of her,

"With karate I kick your ass, from here to right over there..."












And here is when the awesome rapidly leeches from the scene. Cass starts yelling at the woman who hired her to test Kara (Dark Angel), and gets into a position that implies Cass knew what was going to happen or the drugs made her decide to dry hump Kara from behind,












And thus, the only reason why the drugged up and generally less competant version of Cass lost a fight with Supergirl, who is as strong and fast as Superman but without his self-imposed restraints, is a stupid deus ex machina that wasn't hinted at existing anywhere prior to it actually happening.

And for anyone who says that this scene wasn't awesome in comparision to all the other treatments of Cass while she was being doped into evil, here are some other examples of how she did in fights.

Her reintroduction in Robin: Wanted, where Adam Beechen decided that Tim could beat up Cass due to him training for less than a year with Bruce and Dick as they travelled around the world on an extended holiday,


The scene from Titans East when Cass fought Rose Wilson. Hm, judging from the way she's crawling towards Tim there that might explain the dry-humping in the Supergirl issue.














Shortly after this Tim cures her of her mindcontrolliness, though the detox process causes her to stumble about like a drunken clown. With Risk kicking her in the head without her dodging, and with Cass comicly falling over as Slade dodges her attempt at lunging at him.

Oh yeah, Rose also takes the opportunity to smack Cass in the head with the flat of her sword... even though they're on the same side at this point,


Cass also appeared in Robin prior to her reform, though I'm uncertain when in the chronology this took place in regard to Supergirl, Teen Titans etc. I think that after she had been cured she fell into the clutches of her dad who used her to deal drugs that cause superpowers. Oh, and she sniped a businessman that Tim was unable to bring to justice, because Beechen still thought that Cass wanted to jump Tim's bones at this point, I guess.


And that sort of brings up to her appearences as a hero again in the generally excellent Batman and the Outsiders series, which I won't be covering today.

Generally saying, aside from what probably seemed like incoherent rambling, is that although what happens when characters you like go completely off the rails, there is at least one moment amongst the muck that actually is pretty cool, or at least funny.

Or sometimes even Both.



On the subject of Heroes going evil, here's Linkara with Atop the Fourth Wall, where he lists the 15 Worst Cases of Superheroes going Evil,
Though dial-uppers beware, it's kind of long,

Contains Casstoons shout-out, Woot! ^^


And finally,
A continuation of my JSA reaction,
Possible NSFW warning for language,
by me