Titans East (Teen Titans #43-47) and World War III #2

[zechs80]

So you survived Robin OYL and Supergirl #14. Now can you endure the next chapter of Cassandra Cain's villainous career, Titans East?!


Be warned there will be a TON of scans featured in this entry. This story isn't for the timid either!

Once more prepare yourself for more:

So here we are at Titans East, the event DC promised we get true answers as to why Cass went evil! And it's the turning point for Cass's EVIL career.. well with one more surprise road bump (more on that at the end).

There's a lot of Titans East to cover (so much like Raven's hypno-ass, Rose/Jericho scenes, Titans East attack on the Titans, and Cassie's teenage angst over Kon). So I'm only including the Cass portions since it makes things so much easier. That starts when Cyborg and Miss Martian pay latest Titans traitor Bombshell a visit. It doesn't last long though when some unexpected guests drop in:





Thankfully, Sean McKeever did a great deed for the world and retconned this death. So one less death on EVIL Cass's hand. With this the Titans East strike and all the Titans save for Rose and Jericho get caught. Each are put through their own little hell. Which leads us to Tim's:






So there we have it folks! The answer as to why Cassandra is evil! She was hopped up on Slade juice. .... Ew. As to how this all happened. Well during this time period DC promised us more answers and to get those we had to look at 52: World War III for them. The thing is though.. we don't really get a full answer or shown the scene where Slade captures Cass. Just this:






We do get one extra panel of Cass in Slade's cross hairs or something when the Martian Manhunter's mind extends throughout the Earth. My friend could only find this part. However, of course Beechen had to add his own little part to Cass's missing year that kind of negates a little what Harvey was the protector of Gotham making it more she made it safe (with help from Alfred).

So with part 2 Beechen himself returns to write Cass once more. Why? Because his Robin was so successful they gave him the Teen Titans job after Geoff decided to leave. Even more Geoff and Tony Daniels decided to leave midway through this very arc (Daniels to go onto Batman and Geoff.. I think just to focus on his GL stuff). The next time we see Cass and Tim it's like this:



No wait. That's a fan edit.. OR IS IT? No really it is, but it looks exactly what's going on. Plus it always cracks me up. So with the REAL panel:




However before Cass can inject Tim and they can have evil naughty Bat incest, Rose/Jericho vs. Slade busts into the room. Which leads us too:






Cass gets the better of Rose again, but notices Tim is now starting to get loose:





And so ends part 2. When part 3 starts up Daniels has left the penciling duties to another. Plus more and more we get see Beechen's writing bleed through:




So where are Cass and Tim? Why breaking free Titans trapped in their personal little hells. They free Miss Martian and Kid Devil before trying to bust Cassie out next:





Wow Tim, way to be a dick.



Cass is knocked out when the original Titans (with Bart) show up. Most of the Titans East get knocked for a loop leaving Slade the last villain left standing and the final target for all the heroes:







Wow Dick. Way to be a dick. And actually that's Cass's final appearance in the story. Slade decides to get the hell out of dodge and with the dust settled two Titans East members are missing:




So where is Cass? Is her EVIL career done now that she's been cleansed of the Slade juice? Well during part 3, Cass made a surprise appearance elsewhere in Beechen's own Robin. Fans assumed this took place before Titans East. I mean the way Cass acted and the scenes played out. It had to be Titans East right?

*sigh*

That's right, Cass continued to be EVIL even after this storyline. WHY?! Beechen deemed it so. Really he did when he explained it all away in his Batgirl mini. So yes.. when I post tomorrow you get Cass's final EVIL appearance and Beechen explaining the entire situation of Cass's EVIL career.

Comments

[shadowpsykie]

oh i agree, Beechen's writting batgirl stuff was not my favorite, i think he did the best he could with what was handed to him. Editorial said "Were making batgirl evil... no never mind the specifics, just make her evil...."

okay probably not that flippant.. but still for what it was, at least he TRIED to give us an explaination (he DIDNT have to make the other bat characters such Dicks though,)

[fifthie]

IDK what it matters who made what decision, as far as the final story being terrible, but even in the context of the terrible editorial decision to make Cass evil, Beechen failed at every level in the execution of that decision.

at least he TRIED

No, he didn't. He turned in work which was utterly disconnected from the character whose story he was ostensibly telling, which made no effort to explain her decision to murder her father in a comprehensible way. He subsequently patched that over with the supremely lazy and ineffectual "she was drugged" retcon, while still insisting on giving her an obsession with murder, which again, is completely incompatible with the character as she was originally written.

[shadowpsykie]

we are going to have to differ here, because while you see it as completely out of character, I see it as out of character were it not for certain factors. im not trying to fight here, im just stating my opinion and saying that while i don't like it, i see what he was trying to do, nd can also see how he got there from his point of view

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

"out of character were it not for certain factors"

You mean reality? ;)

Most of the things Beechen got wrong were covered in Cass' final arc of the series. He didn't do even basic research. Honestly, he earned both his rep and loathing.

[shadowpsykie]

just gonna have to agree to disagree.

i agree with most people saying that it wasn't the most smoothly executed story telling, but it wasn't as much as a hack job as most people claim it was.

and let me reiterate, i LOVED Cass, really I did, and still do, she is one of my favorite characters. the beechen years were not my favorite, but i didnt loathe it either, im just happy she seems to be getting back on track.

[jaybee3]

Still event though it was an Editorial mandate, Beechan admitted DC left the hows and why of why Cassandra went bad up to him and yet from the very first he showed no signs of doing any research on the character whatsoever (except maybe reading the very final issue of the Batgirl series). Under a better writer the explanation might have worked.

To make an analogy Ron Marz was loathed/hated much more than Beechan for Emerald Twilight (a story we know now was put together by Editors - including Eddie Berganza who was one of Beechan's editors - and handed to Marz) and yet even in 3 issues one could see Marz was making as much an effort to make Hal's descent into madness as explainable as possible given the constraints Editorial had on him. Beechan had even less constaints than Marz and he couldn't even do that much.

And then when he was handed a mini starring Cassandra (who he had basically wrecked by doing no research) he basically used it to try to explain his previous mistakes (which no one wanted to go into again - especially readers) instead of making Cass an honest to goodness hero again.

I don't hate Beechan. I DO think he got a raw deal by his editors and Dan Didio who basically let him take the entire fall for the Evil Cass fiasco when it was all their idea BUT when it comes to the actual writing of Cassandra Cain on the printed page I think he totally earned whatever ignominy is thrown at him.

[shadowpsykie]

okay, you are one of the few (there have been others) who has stated clearly what exactly your problem with Beechen's stories was and I thank you for that, most people just yell and scream and say they don't like it because he is a hack and so on and so forth, but hardly give any direct reason as to why they believe what they do. AND you go about it with clear and direct language. as well as a comparison to another story that made sense.

I see your point of view, from a psychological point of view i can see how and why Beechen did it and why his mind it worked. and really thats one of the main reasons i give him the slack that I do, because from a psychological point of view, some of the things he did made sense (let me stress SOME, because there are things even I was like "Wait what?") really my main issues with his stories were not just Batgirl, but the whole batclan. i could have taken one or the other and been "Okay, i'll work with this" but the combination of both (Dick's dickishness, and everyone elses seemingly indifference to her behavior made me roll my eyes everytime it occurred.)

To me it seemed after everything she went through in the end of her run, and her seemingly being both neglected and overlooked by the rest of the batclan during 52/Infinite Crisis made it to me, in my mind possible. throw in the manipulation by Deathstroke and it made more sense. all that taken into account after the fact it made sense she would be "Pissed" at DS.

HOW EVER all that said... i do agree, his writing itself was very... it wasn't good. motives and actions were never clear beyond "Arg i'm mad!" and "Arg! Vengeance!" and "Arg you betrayed us!" and "Arg! you Abandoned me!" ect...

Beechen is complicated for me... i liked alot of what he did. I liked his Robin run. I liked most of the Teen Titan stuff. i was able to bare what he did with Cass because it made some kind of sense to me... but at the same time, there was stuff he did with Cass, and the other characters (the above Arg montages) that i didn't like, so i have never been able to fully hate him, or love him. so i tend to defend him, mainly cuz hardly anyone does.

See he had the "Stuff" for an interesting story to tell, but not the "Filling" if you get what i mean? or to put it another way, he executed it badly, and like many was annoyed with his mini because he COULD have elaborated on it. instead we had a lot of Cass "Doing stuff" and not alot of "Cass thinking stuff" if he had put us IN HER MIND, or HE had done the same, then it could have been great. but it wasn't. of all the places to show us WHY she did it, THAT should have been it.

I hope this illustrates my point of view (sorry its not as consice... i am very hungry and need to shower and eat... :D hope some people can see where i am coming from.

[fifthie]

we are going to have to differ here, because while you see it as completely out of character, I see it as out of character were it not for certain factors. im not trying to fight here, im just stating my opinion and saying that while i don't like it, i see what he was trying to do, nd can also see how he got there from his point of view.

And I'm stating my opinion that you're wrong and that your opinion is an unjustified and unjustifiable one.

Cassandra Cain was a unique and interesting character because of particular traits which were carefully tied by the work of previous writers into the core of her characterization, which Beechen threw out in a lazy, thoughtless way that gave every indication that he didn't even recognize what he was throwing out. Her diction, her fighting ability, her visceral aversion to killing, all of these were specifically and painstakingly established, and nothing in Beechen's storytelling ever attempts to reconcile the establishment of these traits with his thoughtless removal and reversal of them. Even following the "it was drugs" retcon, he continues to insist on portraying her as obsessed with killing Deathstroke, when her series made it extremely clear that she had a deep objection to killing rooted in her empathic connection to other people, a cornerstone of the character which Beechen never addresses anywhere.

I'm not trying to fight here any more than you are. I'm just pointing out that your apologetics for Beechen's poor storytelling are utterly baseless. It of course remains your right to disregard or acknowledge this however you feel inclined.

[pepperspray101]

THIS. SO. EFFIN. MUCH.

[mistersandman]

Very well said! I wish I knew what the editorial/Beechen's thought process was when they decided to take this character in such a bizarre direction.