Cass Cain versus Wolverine in progress...

Playing around with inking styles.

Cass redesign plus some other people and the Thing for no real reason

That's capeless Cass on the right.  This is another inking experiment.

Adios, Fearless Defenders!

Much like with Katana, Fearless Defenders was a lone offering from one of the Big Two superhero publishers that I bought with any regularity.  And now it's cancelled.  To be honest, I didn't like it quite as much as I did Katana, but Fearless Defenders featured a character for whom my dedication is true.  Dani Moonstar.  I usually follow creators or series rather than single characters, but Dani Moonstar was my Marvel Cass Cain.  She's one of those characters I will buy stories in which she appears even if they stink.  She and I just kind of hit it off when I read Marvel Graphic Novel #4 The New Mutants the year it came out and in The New Mutants regular series.  She was my "in," the character I identified the most with and one I tend to write a lot about when I'm doing the comic book fan blog thing. 

And Fearless Defenders certainly did not stink.  While I could never match the love its hardcore fans hold for  it (I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who loved Katana; a fandom of one!), it does bum me out we won't have new issues.

I need new Dani Moonstar adventures, but I'm not too worried about her future.  Unlike DC, Marvel tends to keep its characters around.  They may not appear in a book for a while-- they may even be killed at some point-- but you can rest assured they will come back at some point and if you ask about them at conventions, editors won't treat you as if you'd just murdered a puppy in front of them.  Dani Moonstar is, if anything, a survivor.  She's survived all kinds of crazy codename and power changes, lost her powers, gone from one team to another, emerged unscathed from the bitter ending of multiple titles and even has her own (albeit hideous) plastic action figure now.

Annie Wu is pretty darned good, isn't she?

I just saw these preview pages from Annie Wu's issue (or issues) of Marvel's Hawkeye over at DC Women Kicking Ass and felt I had to share them with you.  Why?  Well, if a blog about DC women kicking ass can post an item about a Marvel book, then I feel I can on this Cassandra Cain blog as well, especially since I first became aware of Wu's work through the story arc she did with writer Scott Peterson (of Cass Cain Batgirl fame) on Batman Beyond featuring a new Batgirl.

Wu did an outstanding job on Batman Beyond, but I'm liking these Hawkeye pages even more.  I think I'm biased towards real-world locations as opposed to sci-fi settings.  It takes a lot of imagination to envision what a city will look like in a future time, but creating a believable present requires some other illustrative chops and we have our own personal space to judge it by.  Real cars as opposed to flying wedges and whatnot.  Asphalt streets, concrete sidewalks.  Contemporary clothes and recognizable architecture.  Still imaginative, but lots of details to get right!  I'd say she nailed it.

While I've dabbled in some Hawkeye strictly for its excellent art, I haven't really been able to find my "in" with that book.  I know a lot of people are really high on Hawkeye, so I'll give it another shot just to look at what Annie Wu is doing with it on a full issue.

And might I suggest to DC when they bow to the inevitable and re-boot Cassandra Cain, they do so with Annie Wu handling the art duties?

Cassandra Cain versus Jubilee

This fight was long in coming, but I just read one of those Internet question thingies where some interested person asked who would win if Jubilee and Cassandra Cain/Batgirl/Black Bat fought.  The consensus was Cass would win, although one person commented, "Jubilee, hands down."  That person must be huffing ground-up Marvel comics for an expensive high because that answer is hallucinatory at best.

As a fan of both characters, I'd hope Cass and Jubilee would simply team up and fight some other person for some desperate, comic book-y reason.  But one of the things we do here (the royal "we," since this is a one idiot operation) is pit Cass against various characters from comics and other pop culture media entities.  We can imagine their initial encounter as one of those clichéd comic book mix-ups where two heroes meet for the first time, fight, then unite against a common foe, or two (one from each's standard rogue's gallery), but the fight is the thing here, not the overall story. 

So here's how things would go down if these two tangled.

It wouldn't last very long.  While Jubilee has Danger Room combat training and real world experience, there's no version of the character who can match Cass in hand-to-hand fighting.  Cass is simply one of the top two or three unarmed combatants in the world, and possibly at the same level with weapons.  Jubilee is, charitably put, not.  Unless a psychic teammate alerted Jubilee to Cass' presence, Cass would strike from the shadows and knock Jubilee out before the poor girl could ever use her mutant fireworks power.  Over before it even begins.

And even if Cass should miss with her first attack (she wouldn't unless Jubilee has some major help), it wouldn't take her long to figure out Jubilee's X-training patterns and dodge the little plasma balls tossed her way. Jubilee would be faced with the choice of grappling hand-to-hand with Cass (certain failure) or using her powers in much more violent and destructive way (really her only chance, but one she would find unappealing).  Operating under her ordinary moral constraints, Jubilee might dazzle Cass' eyes or even stun her for a moment's respite, but even so, this fight would last at most a minute or two.

That's classic Jubilee.  Vampire Jubilee would be another story.  I'm not certain just how many of the traditional vampire powers and weaknesses Marvel uses in its continuity, but if they use the familiar ones, vampire Jubilee would be largely impervious to most of Cass' martial arts attacks-- save those involving wooden stake strikes directly to the heart.  As vampires possess speed and strength in excess of most mortals (Superman-types excluded), Cass would have to be well-prepared in advance with vampire-specific weaponry.  It's doubtful Cass would carry holy water, garlic, stakes or religious symbols on her person under ordinary circumstances.  Vampires also possess various transformative abilities, one of which renders them as insubstantial as a mist or fog.  Kind of hard to fight mists and fogs. 

I can see this fight as having more than one possible outcome.  Under these circumstances, Cass would find herself outmatched and forced to use her smarts to out-think and therefore defeat Jubilee.  Jubilee, however, is a pretty smart cookie and doing so would prove easier said than done.  In this case, the fight goes to Jubilee barring some intervening circumstances-- nearness of dawn, for example, or whether or not Cass knew in advance her opponent was a vampire.  In either of those cases, Cass would win by exploiting Jubilee's vampiric weaknesses in much the same way people of lesser ability manage in multiple stories to destroy even the Lord of Vampires himself, Count Dracula.  And there's no way Jubilee is even close to being in Dracula's weight class.

Cassandra Cain versus Captain America

I saw a short discussion of this fight the other day and I put almost as much time into thinking about it as I did reading that discussion.  Writing about fights Cass would lose gets old, but I'm afraid Captain America would beat Cass.

Captain America can dodge machine gun bullets, for crying out loud.  Cass can only fake that skill if she sees the person with the gun and reads his or her movements.  That alone makes it unlikely Cass could tag Cap.  Cass could dodge Captain America's shield because she'd know when and where he was about to throw it, but once they went hand-to-hand, Cap's greater speed, strength and stamina give him more than a slight edge.

More than likely, however, this fight would end shortly after it began because Cap would find a way to reason with Cass and convince her they're both on the same side and their little physical tete-a-tete is the result of one of those cliched comic book misunderstandings.  Recognizing Cass as a fighter par excellence, Cap would impart some of his All-American leadership type wisdom then take Cass under his wing for a quick adventure, possibly breaking up some kind of Hydra-Intergang confederation.  Then they'd go back to their respective comic book universes.

This would actually make a pretty neat story.  I see it happening during Cass's Black Bat phase rather than her Batgirl days.  Jim Steranko on art or at least Paul Gulacy doing his best Steranko impersonation.

More reaction to the Gail Simone firing...

DC Women Kicking Ass has a sharp take on DC's abrupt and low-class firing of one of their top writers and New 52 cheerleaders, but it's one of the comments that inspired I found intriguing.  Here it is:

 "I think Marvel or any other company would welcome her with open arms." --jayb3 

 If Marvel is smart, they'll immediately announce they've offered a top-flight title to Simone.  I have no idea what her reaction to that would be and I wouldn't want to speculate, but the evil Texas businessperson side of me can't help but hope something like this happens.

In fact, if I were J.R. Bryan, Stetson-wearing editor-in-chief of Marvel, I'd be on the phone with Simone today with a Southern-accented sales pitch along these lines:

"I want to hire you right this minute.  We've got an idea that Dani Moonstar and Xi'an Coy Manh are so sick of all the factions and in-fighting among the X-Men they've decided to buy a van and travel these United States lending a helping hand to those in need.  Kinda like that ol' Lee Van Cleef-Timothy Van Patten show The Master, only awesome because you're writing it.  Other than that basic concept, you've got carte blanche to do whatever you want, set the tone, add other members to the cast, no one's off limits, slap any title you like on there and we're gonna give you a big PR push in the media and at the conventions.  How 'bout it?"

I predict at least 50k in sales.  At least.  And I do know Ms. Simone is a lot classier than I am.

Cassandra Cain versus Iron Fist!

It's fun to pit characters from one company against characters from another.  After all, now that Cass doesn't exist, any fight between her and another character is strictly hypothetical, so why not be the hypo-ist of the thetical?  I seem to toss Cass up against heroes, though.  I enjoy that more than a hero-villain dust up and the results are easier to plan or predict.  A discussion I didn't bother to read on Comic Vine inspired this, the latest entry in my "Cassandra Cain versus" series.

What happens when martial artist Cass fights martial artist Iron Fist?

All things being equal, she absolutely would win with her move predictive ability and resulting defensive superiority, while matching Iron Fist's offensive skills.  Perhaps she's not as physically strong as he is, but she'd make up for that with speed and endurance.  She would also be learning his techniques as they fought, thus gaining all of his skills plus her own.

Unfortunately, all things aren't equal.  Danny "Iron Fist" Rand has a lot of supernatural/metaphysical martial arts powers that, frankly, put him out of Cass's class, so I seriously doubt she could defeat him.  Iron Fist could focus his chi and overmatch Cass in every category and she couldn't learn those things simply by observing and sparring anymore than she could learn Spider-Man's spider-sense or Mr. Fantastic's stretching ability.  Cass has a chance if she somehow provoked Iron Fist into using his "iron fist" ability, somehow dodged the strike, then counter-attacked while he was drained.

Failing that, her only course would be purely defensive-- staying out of Iron Fist's reach and then escaping.  Sorry, Cass.  If it's any consolation, I'm pretty sure you could beat Shang-Chi, master of Kung Fu, and he's no slouch himself.