I'm Telling Tales: Creating Cass Cain

Over at DC Women Kicking Ass, I've shared a look at how Kelley Puckett and I created Cassandra Cain, aka Batgirl.

For years, Mike Carlin was politely, gently suggesting every few months that we should think about a new Batgirl. Eventually, he laid down the law—there WOULD be a new Batgirl. We could create it, in which case we could decide her backstory, her character, her motivations, her strengths and weaknesses. Or he would, in which case we’d be stuck with whatever he wanted. Faced with such a reasonable argument, we went away and bitched—okay, I ranted and they patiently waited for me to finally be done—and talked about what a terrible idea it was.

And then somewhere on the way back to my office I had this crazy vision of a new Batgirl. She was young—late teens, I thought—and Asian, because, well, at the time we had an awful lotta white faces in the DCU, and I thought, if we’re creating a brand new character in the DCU, why on earth would we make her white when other races are under-represented? And in my vision, she was cheerful and chipper and always up and good-natured and she had a complete and total death wish.

This did not seem like a good idea. In fact, it didn’t seem to even make any sense. But it wouldn’t go away.

Here's the rest.

No comments:

Post a Comment