This seems to be DC’s tone on Babs returning to the Batgirl mantle after the reboot. The way they’re treating it, it makes Steph and Cass feel like placeholders, like pretenders to a legacy that only has room for one woman. Does the batgirl cape really only fit one person’s shoulders?

Redemption

Cassandra Cain was my first Batgirl. I read her comics in the library, which was a ten minute bike ride from my house. I found a refuge there, since my home life was so much of a wreck that on some days, I couldn’t bring myself to come home from school. I would stand there, staring at the street sign, full of dread of something I couldn’t name, before turning back. Sometimes I wouldn’t return for a day at a time.

I didn’t really like comic books yet, but I saw this comic while looking for fantasy novels: Batgirl. I vaguely recalled liking the old Batman animated series, so I opened an issue. It was the point where Cassandra confronted Lady Shiva in a duel to the death. While the fighting scenes were amazing, fluid, and drawn in a very dynamic style, it was the overarching theme that struck me. Cass was seeking redemption for the training she’d had as a child—she was constantly proving, every day, that she was not a corrupt product of a supremely messed-up early life. She had a real goodness in her, and she fought hard to make sure that goodness was her drive, always. She was able to fight perfectly, stopping just before a lethal blow—and Batman didn’t teach her that, Cain didn’t teach her that, and neither did Babs. That was all her own.

There was an issue in Cass’ series where she visited the jail cell of a teenage boy who’d committed a crime in a desperate situation. She told him that she was looking for redemption just like him, and that while he did a bad thing, “You… are not.”

I know this will seem silly, but I can’t think about that scene without crying. How many times was I (and other kids like me) told that I would turn out just like my parent, that because I was raised by them I had that seed of badness at my core? And here, it was turned around. I’d never expected a Batgirl comic to reach that level of poignancy.

Cass isn’t Batgirl because she’s a martial arts expert who can read body language. She isn’t Batgirl because she works with Batman now and then. She’s Batgirl because she’s redemptive. She’s Batgirl because she will surprise you with her capacity for joy. She’s Batgirl because she tells you that you can rise above the messed-up tangle of your surroundings and find something worth holding on to within yourself. She’s Batgirl because she is good.

Like those before and after her, Cass is the real Batgirl.

And no one should ever take that from her.