[wertham]

Cassandra Cain is the most recent Batgirl. Cassandra is the daughter of assassin David Cain and Lady Shiva. She first appeared in Batman #567 (1999), and was created by Kelley Puckett and Damion Scott (though it was Alex Maleev who designed her costume).

A uniquely gifted warrior, Cassandra Cain was conceived and trained from birth with the intention of creating the perfect bodyguard for Ra's al Ghul. After many unsuccessful attempts to train children from birth in martial arts to make them inculcate it like a native language (the most successful being the abandoned child The Mad Dog), David Cain, a member of al Ghul's League of Assassins, decided the right genes were necessary to create this "One Who Is All". Cain searched for the perfect mother for this child, finding her in the Wu-San sisters of Detroit, who practiced martial arts with each other nearly every moment of their childhood in a type of sister's language. Cain sympathized with the younger sister, Sandra, when he noticed that she held back out of love for Carolyn. To "help" Sandra reach her full potential, Cain murdered Carolyn, then lured Sandra into an ambush by the League of Assassins, where he defeated her. Cain spared Sandra from death on the condition that she bear his child, and leave her for him to raise. Awed by the potential heights she could reach in her physical talents now that Carolyn was gone, Sandra agreed to Cain's bargain in order that she might go on to become the unstoppable force of nature known as Lady Shiva: creator and destroyer. Shiva's hope for her child was that she might one day grow to be the one force that could stop her reign of destruction.

Trained by her father, assassin David Cain, to be the ultimate martial artist and assassin, Cassandra was not taught to speak. Instead, the parts of her brain normally used for speech were trained so she could read other people's movements and body language and predict, with uncanny accuracy, their next move. This ability lives up to her namesake; Cassandra in Greek mythology had the gift of seeing into the future, but was cursed so that nobody would ever believe her predictions. This closely relates to her capability of 'seeing' her opponents' next move at the cost of being (initially) unable to speak. This also caused her brain to develop learning functions different from most, a form of dyslexia that hampers her ability to read and write.

When she was 8 years old, Cain decided his experiment had progressed far enough for him to test Cassandra's abilities in the real world, and took her to kill a businessman. At the time Cassandra had no idea what she was doing and believed it was only a game (an interpretation in keeping with her own reaction to what happened, and matching the interpretation of Alfred Pennyworth, an expert on children who saw a tape of events). After striking a deathblow, she "read" the target as he died, and saw death as he saw it. "Terror and then... nothing". In addition to scarring her emotionally, she realized murder, like Cain's profession, is wrong, and she ran away from her father.

After spending the next ten years homeless, beating herself up mentally over what she'd done, Cassandra came to be one of Oracle's agents in the No Man's Land Gotham. After proving herself by saving Commissioner Gordon's life, she was given the Batgirl costume with the approval of both Batman and Oracle. She became Barbara's ward.

Batman eventually learned about Cassandra's past when Cain transmitted a video he had made of the murder to the Batcave, but Batman nevertheless continued to accept Cassandra after she took several bullets to save the life of a hired assassin, proving her devotion to protecting human life.

In 2000, Cassandra became the first Batgirl to get her own ongoing self-titled comic book series (the Barbara Gordon Batgirl having been featured in a couple of one-shot releases). A telepath "rewired" her brain to think with words and understand English (although speaking properly took longer, and she still could not read or write) at the cost of her ability to predict and read people. This left her unable to defend herself in a fight, as that part of her style relied completely on her ability to read moves, not the "strategies, patterns, and tricks" employed by Batman and most other martial artists. Fearing that she would meet a fate similar to former Robin Jason Todd, Batman refused to let Cassandra wear the Batgirl costume and patrol the city until she could learn adequate defensive skills, which he estimated would take at least a year of work. She soon discovered that assassin Lady Shiva could read people like she used to be able to, and asked her to reteach her. Lady Shiva accepted, on the condition that in a year they would have a duel to the death. Knowing that she would never kill again and would most assuredly lose, but preferring to be "perfect for a year" rather than "mediocre for a lifetime", Cassandra accepted and Lady Shiva retaught her in a night.

One year later, Cassandra kept the appointment - and died within minutes. Then Shiva restarted her heart, having realized that Cassandra "wanted" to die (although not why), and wishing for a fight Cassandra would try to win. In the ensuing battle, Cassandra realized that Shiva had her own death wish, and defeated her, although she spared Shiva's life.

Batman regards Cassandra very highly. During War Games, he relied heavily on her to help control the violence of the gang war in Gotham City.

Following War Games, Batgirl moved to Blüdhaven with Tim Drake (the third Robin) at Batman's suggestion and with his financial support (Nightwing had been injured during the crisis, and the Gotham City Police Department had declared all costumed heroes illegal). There, Deathstroke took on a contract from the Penguin to kill Batgirl and decided to let his daughter Rose (the current Ravager) do the job instead. Cassandra beat Rose by critically wounding her and giving Deathstroke no choice but to get her medical attention.

During all this, Cassandra started developing friendships and even a very short lived relationship with a boy named Zero. Unfortunately her friends would all later be killed in the Blüdhaven disaster.

Cassandra also went undercover for Batman in the Justice League Elite masquerading as an assassin named Kasumi. She revealed herself to Coldcast to tell him that he was not a bad person, right before he was accused of murder.

Cassandra gathered evidence that indicated that Shiva could have been her mother, and sought out Shiva to confirm this. After being proclaimed by Nyssa al Ghul as the "One Who Is All", the students of the League of Assassins split their allegiances, half following Shiva and the others Cassandra. In the ensuing confrontation, Cassandra was mortally wounded by her "adoptive brother", The Mad Dog while heroically saving one of the students under her leadership. Shiva revived Cassandra in the Lazarus Pit, then answered Cassandra's questions on her parentage. When Cassandra asked Shiva if she had killed more people since their last battle and Shiva said that she had, Cassandra asked if she would ever stop. Shiva responded "It's why I had you," and Cassandra agreed to fight her to the death once more.

In an evenly matched battle, Cassandra managed to break Shiva's neck, paralyzing her. She appeared ready to place Shiva in the Lazarus Pit, but Shiva pleaded with her not to do so. In response, Cassandra impaled Shiva on a hook hanging over the pit, apparently killing her. (Although Cassandra's intent regarding this action is unclear, whether to kill her or let her fall into the pit and be revived, it has been confirmed that Shiva is alive in One Year Later.) Cassandra then abandoned the identity of Batgirl and returned to her life as a wanderer.