Cassandra Cain: Bio, Origin & History

Real Name: Cassandra Cain

First Appearance: Batman #567 (July, 1999)

Powers: Master martial artist, exceptionally good at reading body language, master of stealth, and incredible negotiator

Affiliation: Batman Family, League of Assassins, Outsiders, Young Justice

Did You Know: Cassandra Cain is the daughter of an assassin and a martial arts master.

A Little History

The daughter of Lady Shiva and David Cain, Cassandra Cain is, as David has admitted, his greatest creation.

After numerous failed attempts to train children from birth in martial arts to become the bodyguard for Ra’s al Ghul, David Cain, with the approval of Ghul, set out to find the perfect mother to procreate with. His idea was that instead of training children with less than perfect genes for molding a warrior, he should create it himself.

His search took him to Detroit where he came into contact with the Wu-San sisters. Cain immediately took sympathy for the younger, Sandra and in an effort to help her become everything that she could be, he murdered her sister. He did this so he could lure her away from Detroit and into an ambush. At the conclusion of the ambush, David, after he defeated her, stood overtop and told her he would spare her life in exchange for a child. Sandra agreed under the thought that one day, her child may be strong enough to stop the destruction she’d cause as Lady Shiva.

While just a girl, Cassandra Cain was trained by her father in isolation and away from spoken language. He did this so she would learn how to read and understand the people around her through their motions. Due to this, the parts of her brain that would normally be used for speech processing focused their efforts on learning to read body movement. As such, she became adept at predicting her opponents every move.

When just eight years old, David took out Cassandra on a mission. While on the mission she was to carry out an assassination. She did exactly what she was told and ripped the man’s throat out. Tragically, due to her body reading ability, she watched and felt in horror as he died. This event changed Cassandra and she fled her father.

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