The Four Color Media Monitor

Here comes some interesting news. Chuck Dixon has been assigned as the writer for the new volume of Batman and the Outsiders. And, it looks like Cassandra Cain, the new Batgirl, may be finding repairs at last, assuming they're not deceiving us (even with Dixon, I figure there should be cautious optimism):

DC has released two covers for #1: the main cover by Doug Braithwaite, and a variant cover by Ryan Sook. The covers have two characters that were previously unseen/unannounced in the discussions of the series, namely Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) and Cassandra Cain (Batgirl). The publisher describes the issue as (solicitation for the first issue is different from the original solicitation text:

The new era for the team begins with Catwoman, Metamorpho, Katana, Grace and Martian Manhunter called into investigate a potential time bomb at Jardine Enterprises – but will the new team’s first mission also be it’s last?

Well well well. So I take it that DC has finally given in, and brought Cassie Cain back to the good side? (A public apology from the publishers could especially be great to hear.) The Outsiders as a team title is surely the most ideal team for someone like her to join up with, and could make the best of families for her too. But the cover alone doesn't confirm anything, and I notice that Dixon doesn't seem to say anything else about Cassie, so I guess cautious optimism is required. Because, what if she's still depicted badly as a leader of the League of Assassins first founded by Ra's al Ghul?

On the other hand, I found out a little bit about another Cassie's miniseries - Cassandra Sandsmark, the new Wonder Girl*, and reading this item, it's just as thought, they're going by the damage done in Amazons Attack:

Cassandra has decided to take it upon herself to clean up after the mess that the Amazons Attack! story-line has created in the world. We get a little of her history and origin. And we find out that her mother is hiding out in Greece, while Cassandra is hiding, in plane sight, in Georgetown. Actually she has changed her look a little bit, ala Clark Kent, to try to stay hidden, out in the open.

Oh really? And I suppose even Professor Kapatelis and her daughter Vanessa are hiding over in Greece as well? I'm sorry, but this just shows why some crossovers are not the way to set the tone for what's to follow for some protagonists, and why this is clearly not a book true fans of Cassie Sandsmark should bother about either. This review here might offer a bit of an explanation of what's wrong with it, right down to how it's more or less an editorially mandated story, exactly what's rendering many of these kind of books worthless now. A book in which Cassie is tossed into a scenario in which she's reviled, something I doubt Stargirl was ever in when Courtney Whitmore debuted in her own series, Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E, almost a decade ago, is the wrong way to go, as it only makes things more depressing, and possibly pessimistic.

And seeing how low it was in sales, and how much lower it's likely to sink, I wouldn't be surprised if other people have already taken up that view.

* Speaking of which, when I tried to do a search for more info about this on Google's blog searching motor, I could only come up with less than 25 results, little of which were review material. I wouldn't be surprised if anyone came up and told me "it didn't get much buzz or fanfare."

Labels: dc comics, women of dc