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Watch This Space: Is Birds of Prey's Cassandra Cain Different from the Comics?


So Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is out currently in cinemas and it's a pretty fun film. It looks great, the actions scenes are spectacular, the music's great and it has some pretty great performances of fan favourite characters like Huntress, Renee Montoya, Black Canary, Black Mask and Cassandra Cain. Now the last one is a very controversial topic about the film. The film version or the DCEU version of Cassandra Cain is vastly different from the comic version. I honestly have mixed feelings on this, but I feel like this is an interesting topic to write about. But first who is Cassandra Cain?


THE SECRET ORIGINS OF CASSANDRA CAIN


Cassandra Cain is a character with a long history, and being a DC character there are several versions. If you want a more detailed and in-depth look at the character check out Linkara's retrospective here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T6Oft-uQek). Pretty great series if you ask me. But here's the abridged version. Cassandra Cain first appeared in Batman #567 in 1999, created by writer Kelley Puckett and artist Damion Scott. Her first major appearance was in the famous No Man's Land storyline which had Gotham levelled by an earthquake and being left behind by the US government turning Gotham City into a no man's land. Cassandra Cain would later become Batgirl and be the first one to have her own ongoing series. It was in that series where we learn her origins, her father was an assassin named David Cain who fathered a child with Lady Shiva, one of the DC universe's best assassins and fighters. Cain taught her how to fight, but not to read or write, making her mute, but being able to read body language, but after seeing someone dying and reading the body language, she left that life to become an ally to Batman. She's Batgirl for a couple of years, grows a familial relationship with the Bat Family, became a villain during the One Year Later storyline, became good again, joined the Titans East, joins the Outsiders and later changes from Batgirl, to Black Bat, but then the New 52 happened and she was never seen again. She had a few appearances in out of continuity comics like Lil' Gotham, DC Comics Bombshells, a version of Batgirl in a tie-in to Future's End (read my tie-in comic post while your here by the way) and appeared in the Stephanie Brown tie-in for the Convergence event. Until 2015 when she appeared in the weekly series Batman and Robin Eternal.


Batman and Robin Eternal was a weekly series to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Robin, much like the earlier series Batman Eternal, and just like that book we reintroduced fan favourite character Stephanie Brown back into continuity, Cassandra Cain was introduced in this one with a new origins. This time David Cain was called Orphan, the second-in-command to a Human trafficker called Mother who creates perfect assassins by using trauma. In this one Cassandra killed Miranda Row, mother of Batman supporting character Harper Row AKA Bluebird. She turned on her father and Mother and became Orphan appearing in the Rebirth Detective Comics run and is currently a member of the Outsiders with Black Lightning.


She has very few appearances in media despite her popularity, she had a cameo in the Justice League episode The Savage Time, she had a couple sporadic appearances in a few video games and recently appeared in Young Justice Outsiders as Batgirl.


Throughout her history Cassandra Cain is a character who came from a terrible place with a terrible family but moved to better place with a better surrogate family. She is also one of the most prominent Asian characters in comic books and also one of the ones with a learning disability. She had a large fanbase behind her as well, because of those qualities.


THE MOVIE VERSION


Cassandra has had very few appearances in media despite her popularity, she had a cameo in the Justice League episode The Savage Time, she had a couple sporadic appearances in a few video games and recently appeared in Young Justice Outsiders as Batgirl. Birds of Prey is her first appearance in a major movie and in it she was played by Ella Jay Basco and now before I write anything I don't want to drag the actress who played her into this, she did a great performance along with the rest of the cast, I'll just compare how this version of character worked in the film.


The origin of Cassandra Cain is different from the comics, instead of the abused daughter of an assassin. She is a streetwise pickpocket who is neglected by her adoptive parents who get in trouble with Gotham City's criminal elements and team up with Harley Quinn (played Margot Robbie) and form a teacher, student relationship with her. It's also important to note Cassandra does speak actual full sentences in the film, but they do get a reference with her first scene with Montoya (played by Rosie Perez), where she struggles to speech and they do make a note that she's adopted, so David Cain and Lady Shiva could drop by in a another movie down the road.


So where to dig deep with this? Let's start with the big elephant in the room which is that they disability washed Cassandra Cain, by making her speak. Now I'm someone with a autism and I do think it would've great to seen a superhero on screen with a visible learning disability on screen and the disability is one of her characteristics. I could see why the character deviated from the source material, by having a comedic character like Harley Quinn look after with a disability would've clashed with the films comedic and fun tone and added too much to a film that was a bit stacked in the first place. Hopefully see some more better representation of people with disabilities on screen.


They also change her personality from the comics where she was someone who wanted to do good in the world and help make it like that and is an all caring person deep down, in this version they made her a pickpocket who teams up with Harley, instead of Batman. Personality changes are really big problems in adaptations, mostly because it's the core of the character and if that changes but then it's debatable if it's the character, but at the same time that change does prove to be warranted as it helps develops Harley Quinn's character in the film. At the beginning of the film we have an animated sequence of Harley telling the audience her origins, how her father abandoned her, all the stuff from Mad Love all the way to Suicide Squad and then leads to Harley getting dumped by the Joker. Eventually Cassandra and Harley meet up and Cassandra's situation is similar to Harley's origins, being abandoned by her parents so this strives her to look after her and protect her from Black Mask's goons. This is very similar to Cassandra in the comics with her finding a surrogate family with Batman and his sidekicks.


IN CONCLUSION


Cassandra Cain in the film is both a far cry and close approximation of her comic counterpart. She has a different origin, but the same situation, she doesn't end up with the Dark Knight, but the Joker's ex-girlfriend. Different recipe, but the same taste.

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