There has never been a bad Batgirl. Every character that took on the mantle, from Barbara Gordon to Stephanie Brown, inspired and entertained readers all over the world. But Barbara is just as fondly remembered as Oracle, and Stephanie as Robin and Spoiler. Cassandra Cain, however, is the quintessential Batgirl.

In many ways, she embodies all that goes into the character, with Batgirl being less her superhero identity than her true identity. Mainstream audiences will learn about Cain in Birds of Prey, which opens Friday nationwide, but there's a lot to know about this Batgirl.

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CASSANDRA CAIN

Cassandra Cain

Cain is the daughter of David Cain and Lady Shiva. Cain is one of the many people who helped train young Bruce Wayne before he became Batman, but, ultimately, Bruce rejected many of Cain's more lethal techniques. His journey to find perfect disciple led him to the League of Assassins -- the warrior cult lead by Batman's nemesis, Ra's al-Ghul. It's there that he met Sandra Wu-San before she became Lady Shiva. Cain murdered Sandra's sister, forced her to conceive a child with him, then abandoned her.

From there, David trained his daughter, Cassandra, from birth to be the ultimate weapon, superior to Bruce and his numerous other "failures." To understand the full extent to how single-minded this training was, Cain was never taught any language outside the language of combat. Ironically, it's because of this that Cassandra turned away from her father. Her first murder at the age of eight led to Cassandra seeing death first hand. She could read the body language of this businessman she killed, which communicated to her fully the gravity and weight of death.

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She ran away from her father, only to reappear during the event No Man's Land, where Gotham City was leveled in an awful earthquake. She ultimately learned her father was going to kill Commissioner Gordon and foiled her father's assassination attempt, crossing paths with Bruce Wayne in the process. Bruce, recognizing the power she held, takes her in as the new Batgirl. At this point, Barbara Gordon had long retired her cowl to become Oracle.

Cassandra soon is taken in by Barbara, who tries to help her English -- a task so difficult it actually drives Barbara into a state of near-constant frustration. Cassandra's arc in those early issues leads her to dig into her past, putting her in a collision course with the League of Assassins, her father, as her mother, who she ultimately fights to the death, only to resurrect in the culmination of her first solo title. In the process, she'd become the leader of the League of Assassins, being arguably the first to ever divide the group's loyalty from the al-Ghul family.

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WHY CASSANDRA IS SO GREAT

bop-Ella-Jay-Basco-as-Cassandra-Cain

Despite some frankly terrible character writing shortly after where she went from a mute girl with a genuine desire to do good to a monologue-issuing supervillain, Cassandra has remained a mainstay in the Bat-family. She would later emerge in the New 52 as Orphan, her own original title, but even that mantle is only slightly removed from Batgirl in terms of identity.

In many ways, Cassandra represents the ideal of Batman taken to a twisted, horrible degree. Sure, Cassandra's parents aren't dead like Bruce's, but much like Batman, she is trained in nearly every martial art. But while Bruce set out never to kill, Cassandra was bread to do it but chose not to. She is ultimately exactly what Bruce aspired to become, taken to a disturbing extreme. Bruce wanted to learn how to fight, but Cassandra was bread to fight. Bruce often struggles to communicate his feelings, but Cassandra for most of her life is incapable of even voicing what she feels.

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While her family is alive, it's undeniable that she's the only member of the Bat-family to be actively harmed by her parents. Sure, Stephanie Brown's dad is the supervillain Cluemaster, but he didn't cause his daughter the same level of emotional devastation as David Cain did to Cassandra. No matter which way you paint it, no matter how many writers attempt to offer some morality to Cain, what David Cain did to his daughter is abuse.

Seeing Cassandra come to terms with this horror, and seeing her grow beyond it, is in many ways what makes her identity as Batgirl so valuable. The other iterations, while fantastic, aren't great because they became Batgirl. But everything amazing about Cassandra Cain starts when she donned the costume because it was her way of recovering from pure horror and abuse. However, much like Bruce, it's through her adopted family that she comes to understand humanity's inherent value and importance, managing to do good in the world that has caused her so much pain.

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