InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "oh dear"

runespoor7 (runespoor7) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-05-16 16:41:00

Entry tags:

char: alfred pennyworth, char: batgirl/cassandra cain, char: batman/bruce wayne, char: david cain, creator: damion scott, creator: kelley puckett, publisher: dc comics, title: batgirl

Bruce denial: Cass: Murderer?
This is the beginning of Bruce's denial that Cass might have killed someone as a child. I say beginning because it comes up every time that event/possibility is referred to in her own series.

So cute, so fucked-up.

Batgirl #04

Gratuitous violence really doesn't upset Bruce when he thinks it's deserved. Why hello, explanation of the way Bruce was with Jason.
But, wait! "Perfect". So "perfect" includes "gentle". Which Bruce tacitly admits he's not. Bruce's issues about his own moral lacks rear their ugly head.

Look how happy he is that Alfred talked him out of it. But he's Batman, and so he has to make sure. So he does tests on the film, to see if it was tampered with. Unfortunately, the results he gets aren't enough to confirm anything one way or the other; it could have been faked, but it's an old film, so degradation is to be expected.

So Bruce decides to go to the source.

Batgirl #05:
The same night he receives the tape, Bruce takes a plane for Macau, to investigate the death of the man on the tape. (Being a billionaire making business all over the world does come handy.) He calls Tim from the plane to have more info; Tim tells him all the records and the autopsy disappeared a week after the man died, guesses it's about Batgirl and asks if that's the reason why Bruce isn't asking Oracle about this. Bruce doesn't answer, and when he arrives, heads straight to the man – Faizul's – grave. Then:

[Cass will dig Vesper Fairchild's body up when Bruce is accused of murder. I find it neat that they're doing the same thing.]

Yeah, I call this scene: "Batman thinks David Cain is a LYING LIAR who LIES".

Bruce: not all that good at dealing with the possibility that his protégés might be killers.

(Post a new comment)

	captain_clown 2009-05-16 10:13 am UTC (link)
	Merely a flesh wound ey Bruce. (Reply to this)

	daningram 2009-05-16 10:50 am UTC (link)
	As much as I love these scenes, I really think it's a shame Bruce never accepted the truth, admitted to Cass that he knew and accepted her anyway. Batgirl writers went a little overboard on the Bat dickery. 'Course, the other Bat writers went overboard on excluding Cass from virtually everything. So maybe it balances out. (Reply to this) (Thread)

runespoor7
2009-05-16 04:03 pm UTC (link)

See, while I agree with you that Bruce would probably be a better man if he admitted that Cass could have done it and still be as devoted to the mission as he is, I don't think I'd love him if he did. One of the things I find most touching about Bruce is that when it comes to the people he loves, he can be as wrong as anyone else. And here is the sort of scene that makes it clear how much of an idealist Bruce is. To be fair to Bruce, IIRC, he never spoke to Cass of this at all, so it's not as if she had to be aware of how he thought of her. (I read two very interesting fics on the subject of Cass and Bruce and guilt.)

Otoh, Cass also had Oracle, who came to believe that Cass had done it and didn't think any less of her. Admittedly, there were other issues between Cass and Babs; if I had to draw a chart, I'd say that Bruce was the 'Ideal' end, with the mission and the scary bat god, and Babs was the 'Pragmatic' end, with things like her acceptance of Cass having killed someone and life as more complicated than just the mission (insisting that Cass get a life, and the issue of Cass not knowing how to read - which wasn't Babs' most glorious hour).

And as to what was better for Cass herself, well, I'll just be glad the two of them were there and she had Steph.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

mysteryfan
2009-05-16 11:02 am UTC (link)

LOVE this. Kelley Puckett writes some awesome!

I LOVE the characterization here--of every single character. Thank you for posting!

Things may have gone awry later for Cass (and have) but she really was written as so interesting and strikingly different than any other hero. I miss that and hope somebody can right things with her character. Write her like this is where she came from. Batgirl Cass is a fascinating character, with fascinating possibilities in interacting with the rest of the Bats.

I'd so buy that in a second. I'd be thrilled to buy that. Instead, we're getting a new Batgirl and no Cass. What the hell are they thinking?

They have wasted (with Beechan's series, of course) and are currently wasting opportunities that could be completely spellbinding. Such a loss.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	vignettelante 2009-05-16 03:42 pm UTC (link)
	So very motto. Someone call Bruce Timm, get him to make a Cass feature film or series. Or Nolan, and get him to make "Batgirl Begins". Or something. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	starwolf_oakley 2009-05-16 11:18 am UTC (link)
	They've made it pretty much a lock that Cass killed that man, right? There was even an issue on the anniversary of that event where Cass goes around Gotham City making sure no one dies. Of course, a killer is due to be executed that night, so... (Don't know the exact issue, sorry.) (Reply to this) (Thread)

	xdoop 2009-05-16 02:03 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, it was established in her first appearance that she killed the guy. (Reply to this) (Parent)

parsimonia
2009-05-16 03:26 pm UTC (link)

Yeah, she did kill him. But the point was that because of her ability to "read" body language so well, she could see all the pain he was going through as she killed him, literally saw the life in him die. It was partly guilt, as Cain says here, but I think it was also that she knew in such excruciating detail how horrible murder is, and desperately wanted to prevent anyone else from suffering from that kind of pain.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	runespoor7 2009-05-16 04:08 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, we the readers already know that Cass killed the guy, and it often comes up as a flashback to Cass. But this is the first the Batfamily hears about it, and they never get any more proof than what they have here. It doesn't stop Oracle from coming to the correct conclusion that Cass may/must have done it, but Batman denies it to the last. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	vignettelante 2009-05-16 03:44 pm UTC (link)
	Cass being described as "gentle" is interesting. Bruce not noticing he's bleeding is both in-character and very, very weird. How would he have survived this long if he was so casual about bleeding out? Well, I guess that's what he has Alfred for, but still. Also, his face in the last panel makes me lol. (Reply to this) (Thread)

runespoor7
2009-05-16 04:20 pm UTC (link)

She's a lot less gentle in the next issue - interestingly, after she gained the ability to talk and lost the ability to read body language. There's a man who shoots another guy who was on his side and, well... She beats him viciously and then stops his heart for three beats to give him a taste of what it feels like. Batman is watching the whole scene, but he's too dumbstruck to react. Then he tells her to protect the man they've just rescued from other attacks and tells her to refrain from teaching anyone anymore "lessons" that night.

I've always wondered what we were supposed to get from that exchange. That she's ultra loyal and can't imagine taking down someone on your side? That she can get angry and not lose control? That - like Batman learns - she may have lost her special skill, she's no less in control of her own body? All of the above? There was a lot in that scene.

Bruce has the excuse of the shock of seeing the video. 'Sides, it occasionally comes up that he's not always as mindful of his own safety as he should be, especially in times of emotional duress (lol understatement). And it drives the point home that Bruce needs people around him to help him, otherwise he'd get very dead.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	sianmink 2009-05-16 05:55 pm UTC (link)
	You're LYING. You're a LYING LIAR who LIES. XD (Reply to this) (Thread)

	vignettelante 2009-05-16 11:51 pm UTC (link)
	And you have EVERY REASON to lie! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	aaron_bourque 2009-05-18 08:42 pm UTC (link)
	I always fucking hated this. Batman has to have a better sense of reality than this, or he's not the World's Greatest Detective. (Reply to this)