Batman and the extended Batman Family are widely considered to be some of the most dangerous superheroes around. Granted, they don’t have any superpowers, so they can’t inflict the raw destruction that heroes like the Flash and Wonder Woman could inflict if they turned evil, but the fact that they’re human only adds to the terror they instill. They’ve trained themselves to unimaginable degrees, becoming masters of combat, deduction, and just about every skill under the sun. The Bat-Family became legends despite their limitations, and have proven time and again that they don’t need superpowers to save the day. Heck, whenever one of them temporarily acquires powers, they’re practically unstoppable, and that’s exactly what makes this new development so insane.
Batgirl, Cassandra Cain, is arguably the greatest martial artist in the world. She’s definitively the best fighter in the Bat-Family. To Cass, body language is a conversation, and every movement is the opponent screaming what they’re about to do. She’s a one-woman army that can take on opponents in a much higher weight class than a normal human has any right to, which makes it even more terrifying that now, she has superpowers. As of Batgirl (2024) #17, Cass officially has superpowers, and they are terrifying.
The Power of Blood
Image Courtesy of DC Comics
After a long, painful mission dealing with the fallout of her mother’s family, Cass wanted nothing more than to eat dinner with the people she considers her real family. Unfortunately, on the way to the Bat-Family dinner set to welcome Cass back to Gotham, her blood suddenly turned against her. It ravaged her body, slicing out and trying to destroy everything around her. It took everything in Cass’s power to keep it contained. Not wanting her family to see her like this, Cass recruited Jade Tiger and Jaya to track down the people she deemed responsible. These powers came from her familial connection to the crime organization, the Blood, and they just opened their first tower in Gotham.
Even with Batgirl struggling to contain her violent blood, the trio made quick work of the guards on their mission to find the leader, the Bloodmaster. Just when they did, his assistant shot him in the head. During the ensuing fight, Batgirl realized that she had to embrace the raging tide of her blood to control it. Instead of fighting it, she had to direct it. Now with her powers under her control, she ripped through the Blood’s guard and found that they were hiding a portal to the Spirit World. While that’s a story for another day, the fact that Cass has powers is deeply interesting.
The Greatest Batgirl Is Better Than Ever
Image Courtesy of DC Comics
Batgirl’s new powers open a whole hotel’s worth of doors. She’s now able to send out her blood in streams and control it with deadly precision. In this issue, it mostly circled her like thin tendrils, leaping out to slice or slap everything around her. However, she should be more than capable of adapting it as she learns more control. Earlier opponents who had the same abilities could shape their blood into a small arsenal of weapons of every shape and size. Batgirl should easily be able to follow suit and will likely be making blood batarangs and blades in very short order. There’s also the nature of her powers, which originate from dark spirits.
As shown in issue #9, these spirits lie within the blood of those who have this power. Wu Bing unleashed these spirits as a last-ditch effort to destroy Batgirl, but they simply took an interest in Cass and left. These spirits likely awakened her dormant powers and are surely connected to the Spirit World, where Cass is set to return to next issue. Regardless of their origin, the strongest Batgirl now has magic-based bloodbening that can make anything she can put her mind to. Her only limits are the amount of blood she has and her imagination, which, keep in mind, is hard-coded for violence.
Batgirl has been given a weapon unlike anything she’s ever had. She was already the most dangerous single greatest fighter in the Bat-Family, but now she has a whole new range of attacks to decimate her opponents with. For a woman whose bodily control is second to none, being given shapeshifting tendrils that can strike from any part of her must be the equivalent of multiplying her attack power by ten. She was already the greatest fighter out there without any powers. Now that Batgirl has these skills, she’s ready to take down much, much stronger foes. I’d be afraid for anyone who gets in her way.
Batgirl #17 is on sale now!
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