Martial Arts Week: Cassandra Cain vs the Mad Dog

[zechs27.insanejournal.com]

Before Round 2 vs Lady Shiva and my little finale in posting in this event. The prelimary bout: Cassandra fighting her father's "first" the one called the Mad Dog.

I was thinking one massive post for these two fights. But no way. I'm keeping it seperate. I'll post round 2 later tonight.

From Batgirl #72.


After the destruction of Nyssa's base, Cass is leading several survivors of the League of Assasins to safety (including Alpha). However, Shiva orders the remaining half to hunt them down. A fight ensues and suddenly both sides are killed by the Mad Dog. Any remaining of Shiva's half retreats scared to death of the Mad Dog where finally Cass puts two and two together.

Enter the fight between Cain's "best" result vs Cain's "worse" result.

Part 1 of the fight is tame as Cass has to contend with Alpha whose trying to shoot Mad Dog while also trying to make sure no life is taken. She does this by throwing some gas caps into Mad Dog's eyes while going after Alpha making sure he doesn't shoot her "brother" down.

Part 2 is pretty much Cass vs "Wolverine". Someone totally in a beserker rage. Obviously someone who she can't read given he's just being a total animal, thus she's really struggling against him. And given that this is when fight is utterly vicious. I really wish I could scan more of this part of the fight, but the ending to it was powerful stuff so here's one part of it when they're fighting on tree branches:



This time the fight ends when Cass is knocked off the tree's and loses sight of Mad Dog. Shiva then appears giving Cassandra some advice on the animal's next move. Which pretty much is going after Alpha and the remaining LoA member (forgot her name but she was fiercely loyal to Cass). However just as both appear to be pot roast by Mad Dog's hand...








Utterly awesome and I know nevermore posted that last page before in her Spoiler stuff, and I didn't even realize this until after I scanned this. But it's so damn powerful that's why I kept it in.

Comments

[newnumber6.insanejournal.com]

Damn you, don't make me nostalgic for Gabrych's run because then I have to remember how DC screwed the character over immediately after too!

Bah.

Anyway, I loved this. Not just the "Heroes are forever" line, which of course I iconed even though the visual isn't all that great, but I also really like the "You finally understand me. I win" line. As dying lines for heroes go, that's pretty damn awesome.

[jaybee3.insanejournal.com]

I loved the "Heroes are forever" line too. I can actually picture Shiva saying that. She's someone I think who has a clear sense of who she is and who others are (this attitude showed up to when she changed places with Black Canary in BoP). She'd have no compunctions about killing Batman if necessary but she also respects who and what he is.

I miss Gabrych. He had Cass down perfectly. He was just starting to write when he was doing Batgirl but I have no idea if he's writing anything now.

[zechs27.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, it's why I love his run on Batgirl. He really had something going on having Cass out on her own with appearances here and there of Bats and Babs with only Spoiler being the constant.

Sure he had his personal little bumps (Pig Biker in #66 and Laurza or whatever the heck Freeze's wife called herself in #70). But on the whole his run was good and a nice continuation of Puckett's.

[perletwo.insanejournal.com]

It's a nice little tie-in to Bronze Tiger saying "We made you a warrior, you made yourself a hero" to Cass, too.

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

He's got an OGN coming out next year for Vertigo Crime!

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether that's entirely true. She may respect Batman for what he is NOW, but back near the end of the 'Knightfall' storyline, when he had gone to her to help get him back into fighting shape, she all but said outright that he wasn't worthy of her consideration if he continued to refuse to kill. She sicced a bucnh of assassins on him, and didn't let up until he convinced her that he HAD killed one of them (he hadn't, of course), whereupon, she pronounced herself satisfied. I'm not sure whether or not she ever discovered the truth, but back then, she was pretty explicit about how he didn't live up to her standards until he'd crossed that final line.

[(Anonymous)]

Heroes are forever. The rest of us are just part of the story.

Wonderful stuff. Thanks for posting.

[vignettelante.insanejournal.com]

That last one is awww.

I'm also glad to see they remembered that even if she can't read someone's body language that doesn't invalidate the fact that she can do ridiculous physical feats like outrunning a batarang she threw. Or in this case, kicking a dude in the head so hard blood comes out even after she's been stabbed.

[perletwo.insanejournal.com]

I just had to make a few icons from that last page. They can be found here, (http://perletwo-ljcozy.livejournal.com/56682.html) to keep from cluttering up the comments thread.

[zechs27.insanejournal.com]

Good job with that, yeeeessss.

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

I don't want to romanticize Gabrych's run on Batgirl, so could someone please tell me something to dislike about it?

Oh! It crossed over with Willingham/Scott. Yeah.

[zechs27.insanejournal.com]

He also created Biker Pig Guy who stalked Cass and of course Lauraza or whatever the hell they called Freeze's wife when she took a dip in the pit. Plus there's Zero who was a zero. I mean stalking Cass is romantic how? There I made de-romantized Gabrych's run :P

[jedd_the_jedi.insanejournal.com]

Ugh. Biker Pig Guy just brings back the (bad) memories.

[zechs27.insanejournal.com]

But really even though I found the concept of him awful it was an amusing tale.

[shadowvalkyrie.insanejournal.com]

Nah, he just makes the shiny Cass/Steph stand out more! ":-D

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Eh, there's annoyances enough to go after if you want. Her sudden conversion from actively-resentful-of-sunlight-Cass to independent-high-functioning-social-Cass who quickly makes friends with strange boys and coffee shop girls was... awkward and abrupt at best. The total alienation from Bruce and especially Babs, and the profound sense of distance between Cass and Babs the one final time they did interact, was both irritating from an in-character perspective and kind of a betrayal of the whole Batgirl concept. The narrative brings up, but without properly exploring or expounding on, some serious character issues (you can't shove in our face the fact that Cass doesn't even know who Hitler is because she's been treated like an empty obedient tool and then just... move on a panel later). And, of course, the tail end of the run is a continual litany of "What in the blue hell is that woman wearing!?"

Obviously not all of that was fully under Gabyrich's control; the dissolution of the Batclan was a linewide edict and the girl had to have some kind of supporting cast, forced or not. And of course if Shiva looks ridiculous that's probably on the artist. However, these are still things that happened within Gabyrich's run, so if you want reassurance that it wasn't a godly beacon of narrative perfection from the moment he turned in his first page, there you go.

so OOC, what was your fave, Puckett/Scott, Horrocks/Leonardi or Gabrych/Garza/Mhan?

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

The narrative brings up, but without properly exploring or expounding on, some serious character issues

I think Gabrych thought that whoever took over OYL would explore those, though.

and the profound sense of distance between Cass and Babs the one final time they did interact, was both irritating from an in-character perspective and kind of a betrayal of the whole Batgirl concept.

Again, I think it was necessary for OYL. Unless they were totally alienated from each other, how could you explain Babs not dedicating all that year to looking for Cass?

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

I think Gabrych thought that whoever took over OYL would explore those, though.

He had to know the series was ending by then, since that whole arc is a very deliberate series wrap-up. I always got the impression that he meant for all that stuff to feed into the whole "Cass decides she can't be Batgirl" finish - like spending all this time on her own, plus confusion over the no-kill policy and whether it truly was the greater good, plus the realization that Bruce had genuinely not been treating her like a person and that was no longer going to work for her, had all played into the choice to give up the mantle and seek something new. But the story doesn't actually do that, since Cass just gives little one-sentence dismissals and then carries on like it never happened every time anything other than the no-kill problem comes up, making her walking off at the end come across as being solely about the killing question and nothing else (or perhaps even a little bit about acknowledging Shiva as a parent at the expense of Bruce and Babs, given the emphasis on their connection).

Unless they were totally alienated from each other, how could you explain Babs not dedicating all that year to looking for Cass?

::eyebrow:: So the mildly OOC behavior is okay because it's a necessary setup for atrociously OOC, abhorrently bad writing choices?

It's clearly only minimally Gabyrich's fault that his Batgirl was indifferent at best, outright hostile at worst to the people who were supposed to be her family and who form the foundation of her very existence as Batgirl, and that those people didn't seem to care. That doesn't change the fact that it happened, and casts an unfortunate pallor over an otherwise excellent run.

what was your fave

I like Puckett's best. Horrocks I used to be basically neutral on but it annoys me more and more every single time I see it. Gabyrich should be my favorite, because it's more complex than Puckett and offers a more interesting and multifaceted Cass (which is no slight on Puckett, that's precisely what you'd expect from the growth arc of the character he created), but the lingering bruise that is War Games keeps it from being the run that it should have been and colors my ability to properly adore it.

see, this is good for me.

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

::eyebrow:: So the mildly OOC behavior is okay because it's a necessary setup for atrociously OOC, abhorrently bad writing choices?

Well, he didn't KNOW it was going to be atrociously OOC, for all he knew, it was necessary to make it plausible for Cass and Babs to be separated for a year.

but the lingering bruise that is War Games keeps it from being the run that it should have been and colors my ability to properly adore it.

... you haven't wiped that from your brain yet?

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

It's not really possible to, in this case, since Gabyrich's whole run is informed by it. The crossover with ROBIN, the occasional dead!Steph sightings, the very fact of Cass' presence in Bludhaven and her total ongoing alienation from Bruce and Babs - War Games was a massive blow to the face for the whole Bat-mythos, and the swollen purpling lump it left behind on every involved title uglified even the prettiest storylines for a long time after.

Re: see, this is good for me.

[zechs27.insanejournal.com]

What is this War Games you speak of? It sounds familar but I purged my mind of all Batman books in a certain time frame which I think that and this other thing called War Crimes came from.

Let us never speak of them again! Much like HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED!

[runespoor7.insanejournal.com]

I thought Gabrych had a good grip on Cass' character and her Blüdhaven supporting cast worked well, but these qualities were weighted down by the fact that Cass shouldn't be a member of the Batfamily at the end of her series. Everything that happens from the moment she leaves Blüdhaven feels forced, and that does a lot of disservice to Gabrych's grasp on Cass.

[octopussoir.insanejournal.com]

J-just got something in my eye. I should really get a copy of the trade of this. Borrowed it from the library once, still owe 'em money 'cause I didn't want to part with it.

[jedd_the_jedi.insanejournal.com]

Steph carrying Cass is just d'awww!

[proteus_lives.insanejournal.com]

What happened to Mad Dog? Wasn't he her half-brother or something?

[zechs27.insanejournal.com]

He got knocked out. He later appeared OYL a part of Cass's League of Assassins and was sent by her to kill Supergirl. It took Kara but one page to own him. I think it was the same issue Cass attacked Kara too but it might be the one before.

All I know is he's still alive and out there and that Cass didn't kill him.