Batgirl # 4 (2008)

 By Mark Rodriguez

Cassandra Cain is now living with the Waynes while secretly using the Bat Cave's resources to track down her father David Cain. The search led to her working together with fellow assassin Marque and later on Rose Wilson. All three of them wants Cain and Deathstroke. As they follow another assassin, she leads them to a training center for more girls to become assassins, but the sisters-in-arms are now being watched by Deathstroke! What will happen now?

 

"Batgirl/Redemption Road Chapter Four- Daddy Issues" opens with Batgirl, Marque and Ravager looking through the apartment window as several girls train to become more of Cain and Deathstroke's assassin army. As Batgirl ponders that these girls are essentially her sisters, Deathstroke is watching from the rooftop across the street. He launches a grappling hook and swings towards them. Batgirl notices seconds before impact. Deathstroke kicks Ravager and Marque through the window, both women landing in front of all of the trained assassins. Batgirl leaps in to join the fight, ready or not.

Batgirl is surrounded and she ponders how she could have turned out to be like any of these girls. Cain trained her to see enemies as faceless and nameless without names, pasts or lives. She wonders how she can do that in this kind of fight.

Slade says he's tired of slapping Rose down every time she gets in his business. Rose says that will end tonight. Marque says they will take out Cain's army and then Cain himself. Slade and Rose have a swordfight. Batgil dodges the other women, letting them accidentally take each other out. Batgirl ends up getting tied up by a bola. 

Unlike Batgirl, Marque uses her swords to slice and dice the women without holding back. One of the girls manages to choke Marque with her chain and asks why she would attack them and their father since they're all the same. Marque throws herself backwards, slamming both the girl and another one up against the wall behind them. Marque says she is not like them since her eyes are open.

 

Rose tells her father that she's not a failure. She had made something of herself and joined the Titans. Slade mocks that Rose's outfit is a knock-off of his own despite claiming to be her own woman. She also joined the team that Deathstroke whups ass on every third week. Rose leaps at him with a flying kick telling him to shut up. Deathstroke says this is his own fault as he kept hoping Rose would come back to him, when he should just kill her and put her out of her misery. He catches her foot out of the air and throws her into a weight rack.

Batgirl fights one of the women as her arm is still tied to her hip. The woman says Batgirl doesn't deserve Cain as a father. Batgirl cuts herself free and socks the girl out. She tells her that she deserves better, as does she and rest of the girls. She turns her attention towards Slade as he approaches his injured daughter, sword in hand. Batgirl leaps towards him.

Batgirl tackles Slade down onto the weight rack. Slade says she's a lot like his daughter and there's two ways to defeat her. He can do so from a distance like the one time he poisoned her, or by getting in her head. He takes this chance to smash her across the face with a weight.

 

Marque continues to kill anyone that tries to attack her. She says she will wipe ever last trace of David Cain. One of the girl grabs her and says if that will include herself. She asks if Marque is willing to die to achieve her goal. Marque takes out her knife and stabs the woman as she says she will do whatever it takes.

Batgirl slams Deathstroke's head against the wall and monologues that he is in her head and it's making her sloppy. She ponders if Slade can psyche her out, how will she able to face her father. Deathstroke says the fight has gone on long enough and there's too much risk for total exposure. The wall cracks behind Deathstroke's head and it's full of explosives. Ravager breaks another part of the wall with her sword and sees the whole place is wired to explosives. 

One of the girls tells Slade not to set off the explosives since they can take the women down. Slade says he's say they can eventually, but there are bigger pictures to consider. Deathstroke activates the detonator and the trio jump out of the apartment barely in time to avoid the blast. They brace themselves behind a car as the apartment collapses.

Once the destruction is over, Batgirl and Ravager lament that no one could have survived that explosion. Batgirl says it's terrible but Marque calls it beautiful. Rose says her father survived, as she has seen him survive enough falling buildings to think otherwise. She will head off to find him. Batgirl tells her that Cain is still out there. Rose says she is only focused on her father and doesn't care about Cain. She heads off.

Marque says Rose was slowing them down anyway. She marks herself with her knife, adding to her scars, and says they got a good score today. Batgirl says this isn't about a game and keeping scores. Marque says this is all about the settling the score and she also won't let Batgirl slow her down either. She heads off and says she will kill Batgirl if she gets in her way.

Slade is watching with binoculars and radios Cain that the three girls survived but split up on unfriendly terms. He says it looks like the only one he'd have to worry about is Batgirl. Cain is on his own, Slade is out. Cain is angry that Slade blew up the bulk of his army and is now walking away. Cain was telling potential investors that the girls were going to cripple the meta-hero community in two days and now he doesn't have enough left to accomplish that.

Slade says things might have worked differently if Cain was there personally. The situation got out of hand so he blew up the trail. Slade tells Cain that if he wants to make good with the investors, he'll have to do so himself. 

Batgirl manages to overhear this since she tossed several micro-mics out during the fight. She fries the mics before Slade finds them and heads home.

At the Bat Cave, Cassandra nurses her injuries and ponders what Cain's plan will happen in two days and he will do the killing himself. She figures he will secure the investors first and focus on rebuilding his army later. Cain said he will target someone that will affect all heroes and Cassandra wonders if he means Nightwing, Robin or Batman himself. She figures she'll need not to think about it for a while and come back to it later. She pulls out her phone.

Later on, Cassandra is at a coffee shop, thinking about possible targets. She remembers hearing that the target won't affect all heroes, but meta-heroes. Her friend Sal arrives who is glad to see her again. He asks about the bruise on her cheek and she says she got it while sparring with kickboxing. Sal says boxing is a good way to get rid of stress and anger. Sal says he was an angry kid but doesn't really remember. He was at a political rally with his father and when things got out of hand, government troops beat his father to death right in front of him. Sal didn't talk for the next seven years.

Sal says boxing as well as moving from Indonesia helped him. He apologizes from bringing up such a bad story but he feels that Cassandra can understand him. Just then Cassie's phone goes off. Sal takes this chance to grab a coffee and promises to talk about happier things when he returns. 

Cassie picks up and Barbara tells her that is going to send her the data on the blood sample given to her earlier. She says at first she thought it was her blood since it's very similar. Cassie figures it has to be Marque.. and she just figured out who Cain's target is. She gets up to leave and Sal asks if everything is alright. Cassie kisses him and promises him that she will call. Sal asks where she's going and Cassie tells him she's headed towards Platinum Flats.

Cassie monologues that she should have told Oracle, Barbara, that she is the target. Not only that, but she is also bait for David Cain, the man she intends to kill.

 

My Thoughts- 

Between the three girls, Marque is definitely the most insane and murderous. While Cassie has Batman and Rose has the Titans, Marque has no positive influence in her life and has gone off the deep end, consumed by revenge even more than Cass and Rose are. She definitely got a lot of insane facial expressions in this issue. It seems that Rose is bowing out of the story unless Deathstroke comes back. All roads seem to lead to Batgirl running into Marque again though. 

 

The story ramps up as now we know that Cain is targeting Oracle and Cass intends to use her to get to him. I do wonder how Cain would even find out that Oracle is Barbara Gordon. Unlike say, Nightwing, Oracle is the women behind the scenes, calling the shots for heroes like the Birds of Prey among others. How would Cain even know the Birds of Prey are following the orders of some unseen shot-caller and aren't just working on their own? 

Probably the most tragic thing is just easily disposable the other girls were. Slade just blowing them shows how little they mean to him, and Cain is more angry about a lost investment than loss of life. Of course, that's to be expected from those Cain and Slade, but you see the difference on how even Cass and Rose hesitate since they know they were also girls just like them. It also adds more to Marque's insanity as she was killing off her 'sisters' with glee, while knowing that they're brainwashed assassins and she was like them once. After the building was blown up, Cass and Rose are still horrified by the senseless loss of life while Marque was overjoyed, seeing as she would have killed them anyway.

I have to say, Cassie trying to establish some sort of friendship/relationship with Sal is horribly irresponsible, seeing as there are so many people after her while knowing that she is Batgirl or at the very least a trained assassin. I get that this is someone to help her have more of a normal life and feel more human overall... but she's pretty much endangering Sal every time they hang out. 

 

 

This issue didn't have any ads that really grabbed me except for one of several DC women bust statues. I guess out of the ones selected, I would have gotten the Catwoman since she was the one I would have been the most familiar with at the time.

 

We'll see what happens next issue as the rest of the Bat-Family get involved, and not necessarily in her favor. Also I know Deathstroke came first, but I can't help of think of Deadpool seeing Slade do the 'you can see the smile under the mask' thing. He didn't have to roast Rose so hard.