Young Justice Makes One Batgirl Origin Story Even Darker Than DC Comics

Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Young Justice season 4, episode 6.

Young Justice season 4 has established an origin story for its version of Orphan that’s even darker than the character’s comic book origins. Beyond changing the young heroine’s birth name from Cassandra Cain to Cassandra Wu-San, Young Justice also revealed that she was unable to speak because of an act of mutilation. This was different from the character’s origins in the comics, where Cassandra assumed the mantle of Batgirl before adopting the codename Orphan under the tutelage of the previous Batgirl, Barbara Gordon.

The action of the Young Justice: Phantoms episode “Artemis Through The Looking Glass” focused upon the mystery posed by two members of the League of Shadows. Both Onyx Adams and Cassandra Savage claimed to have defected and that the other assassin was a mole trying to infiltrate the Justice League. This was, as the heroes noted, far from the first time the League of Shadows had attempted to plant a trailer within the midst of a super-team over the course of Young Justice‘s 4 seasons, becoming something of a repeating joke. However, their stories found credibility when a League of Shadows taskforce led by Lady Shiva herself captured Oprhan.

In the wake of the abduction, Orphan’s background was discussed and Cheshire revealed several things that had only been known to the League of Shadows. First, that Orphan’s true name was Cassandra Wu-San. Next, that she was the daughter of Lady Shiva and had been raised by her mother to be the ultimate weapon. Finally, she revealed that the reason Orphan could not speak was because Lady Shiva had her vocal cords severed as an infant so that “her only language would be body language.” Apart from this final detail, this backstory matches up to Cassandra Cain’s origin in the original Batman comics fairly well.

First appearing in Batman #567 in July 1999, Cassandra Cain was originally one of several homeless youths Barbara Gordon employed as her agents during the famous “No Man’s Land” Batman crossover event. She was later revealed to be the daughter of Lady Shiva (aka Sandra Wu-San) and the assassin David Cain, who trained his daughter from birth to become the perfect assassin.  To that end, Cain did not speak to Cassandra nor allow anyone to use any form of language around her, causing her to become a master at reading body language.  This left Cassandra largely mute until she later began learning how to speak, read and write with Barbara Gordon’s help.

While these changes to Orphan’s background in the reality of Young Justice are disturbing, they do serve to distinguish her from the other young heroes under the Justice League’s supervision, many of whom are also former assassins or the children of supervillains. The Earth-16 Orphan’s backstory has far more in common with her comic book origin than the version of Cassandra Cain seen in the Birds of Prey movie, satisfying many longtime DC Comics fans, even if the new twists are darker than usual.

About The Author

Matt Morrison
(1835 Articles Published)

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Matt Morrison has been writing about comics since before the word
“blogging” was coined. He got his start writing for the
legendary DC Comics digital fanzine Fanzing,
before receiving his own column, The Mount. Since then he has gone on
to write for over a dozen websites, including 411
Mania, Comics
Nexus and The Cult of Nobody. He holds both an MS in Information
Science from the University of North Texas and a BFA from the
University of Texas at Arlington. Known as a font of comic book
history trivia, he has delivered lectures on the history of American
Comic Books, Japanese Manga, Doctor Who, and Cosplay at over a dozen conventions
and served as an Expert In-Residence for a course on Graphic Novels
for Librarians at the University of North Texas. In addition to his
work for Screen Rant, Matt is currently the Editor In Chief of
Kabooooom.com and writes reviews for No
Flying, No Tights – a graphic literature and anime review site
aimed at teachers and librarians. He also maintains a personal blog –
My Geeky Geeky Ways –
which hosts his extensive episode guide for the television series
making up The Arrowverse as well as his
comedic Let’s Play videos. What little spare time he has is
devoted towards acting, role-playing, movie-riffing and sarcasm. You
can follow his adventures on Twitter, @GeekyGeekyWays.

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