David Cain (comics)
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| David Cain | |
 If this infobox is not supposed to have an image, please add "|noimage=yes". |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Batman #567 (July 1999) |
| Created by | Kelley Puckett Damion Scott |
| In story information | |
| Alter ego | David Cain |
| Team affiliations | League of Assassins |
| Abilities | None. Cain is a highly trained human assassin, skilled in hundreds of martial art forms, weapon use and explosives. He is trained in espionage and other forms of covert operations. |
David Cain is the name of a comic book character associated with the Batman mythos. He first appeared in Batman #567 (July 1999), and was created by Kelley Puckett and Damion Scott.
Contents |
[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] The assassin
David Cain is one of the world's premier assassins, taking out some of the most famous and powerful people on the planet, no matter how seemingly impossible the task. He was one of the people who trained the young Bruce Wayne with the skills that he would use as Batman, although Bruce has, naturally, never used the murder techniques Cain demonstrated. When asked why he went to Cain in the first place, Batman replied 'Knowing how to kill doesn't mean you must kill.'
Exceptionally meticulous, Cain's success can be partially attributed to his painstaking preparation, always planning far ahead for any contingency: hence his decision to train someone to be his partner and eventual successor. He had made several attempts in the past, training young children, but found every one of them to be a failure. The closest success he had was a child that was later named The Mad Dog. While he was highly skilled, he was also a feral insane child who was more animal than human. Giving up on this child, Cain decided that the answer to his problem lay in genetics. If he was to accomplish his goal, he would need to have a child of his own, whom he could train from the moment he or she was out of the womb.
But in order to do this, he also needed a to find a woman warrior worthy to mother said child. David Cain found the perfect mate in Sandra Wu-San. While visiting he witnessed Sandra and her sister Carolyn, sparring in a martial arts tournament. While both women were highly accomplished fighters, Cain saw a flame in Sandra which he felt he shared. Cain decided to spark it by removing the restraint that held her back. One fateful day, Sandra found the bloody corpse of her sister, murdered in cold blood.
Discovering that David Cain had been the one to kill her sister, Sandra Wu-San hunted for the murderer, only to be lured into an ambush by Ra's al Ghul's League of Assassins, of which Cain was a member. Although she lost the battle, in the heat of the moment, Sandra realized how much she had held back when fighting Carolyn and got a taste for just what heights she could attain with more experience--her life now had purpose. However, Cain exacted a price for sparing Sandra's life after the battle with the League. In order to be reborn as something new and terrible, Sandra agreed to bear Cain's child and leave that child for him alone to raise. The child who would later be named Cassandra Cain, was to be Ra's al Ghul's "One Who Is All," a perfected bodyguard whose only native tongue was an instinct for hand-to-hand combat and the ability to read people's intentions simply by observing their slightest muscle movements. With Carolyn gone, Cassandra and Sandra were the only two humans known to share this gift. The day of Cassandra's birth, Sandra also set out for her own rebirth, as the Lady Shiva: creator and destroyer.
[edit] The father
Cain trained Cassandra in every imaginable form of violence, from hand-to-hand combat to weapons and explosives. To further her skills, Cain never taught her how to speak; instead, physical movement became her language--she learned to read a person's body language as well and easily as other people can understand speech. This skill led Cassandra to be able to predict exactly what her opponents were going to do, sometimes before they knew it themselves.
When she was 8 years old, Cain took her to kill a businessman. After she did it, she "read" him as he died, she saw death as the man saw it. "Terror and then... nothing". In addition to scarring her emotionally, she realized murder, like Cain's profession, is wrong, and she ran away from her father. Cain was surprisingly devastated by her disappearance and has never been the same since. He has never quite given up hope that someday she might return to his life. While Cain is not that good of a father, he has shown that he does care deeply for Cassandra; he even began to cry slightly when he heard her speak for the first time, even if it were merely the word "Stop".
This last incident occurs during Cain's attempts to kill Gordon during the No Man's Land incident. Both times, he is stopped by Cassandra; in the first attempt he slays two police officers while escaping.
[edit] Framing Bruce Wayne
Cain was the one who framed Bruce Wayne for the murder of Vesper Fairchild, partly because Lex Luthor had hired him to do so and partly to see if Batman was worthy enough of raising Cassandra. For a time, he felt that Wayne had proved he was incapable of it, as he rejected the help of the Bat-Family and went out on his own, but as Cain and Batman fought shortly before the conclusion of this story arc, Bruce Wayne vowed he would no longer be that way. Believing Batman had succeeded in proving himself, Cain cleared Bruce Wayne's name by turning himself in.
Later, Luthor hired the assassin Deadshot to kill Cain in prison because Cain might try implicating him in Vesper's murder. Due to a deathwish, Cain almost allowed himself to be killed before being reminded of Cassandra, causing him to fight back and shoot Deadshot several times in the chest, leaving him in a minor coma. When Cassandra visited Cain in jail, he immediately recognized her. After attacking him, Cassandra threatened to kill Cain if he ever committed another murder. Cain was proud of this and informed his daughter when her birthday was and remarked "My little girl... all grown up."
While Cain is still imprisoned, he has shown he can escape whenever he wants to. He once escaped to give Cassandra a birthday present before returning to prison as if nothing had happened.
[edit] Truth and consequences
David's daughter Cassandra Cain recently became curious as to the identity of her birth mother, believing it to be Lady Shiva. She went to visit Cain in prison to find out who, but Cain wouldn't tell; saying that he had promised not to, and that some things were better left not known.
However, despite David's silence, Cassandra Cain did eventually confirm her suspicions during a fateful meeting with her mother. As a result, Cassandra also quit being the superheroine Batgirl afterward.
[edit] Uncertain future
Following the One Year Later continuity jump, Robin brings a subdued David Cain to the League of Assassins as ransom to save Cassandra Cain. However, it is then revealed that Cassandra had actually taken over the League of Assassins. Cassandra then explained that she had changed after finding out that Cain had trained another child, Annalea. In what was first considered a possible retcon, due to the story's contradictory nature, Cassandra stated that the only thing to keep her going over the years was the fact that she was the only child Cain had trained, and that she had decided to give up on being a hero (in truth, the contradictory behavior of Cassandra was explained as a result of a mind altering serum she had been injected with by Deathstroke). After her speech, Cassandra handed Robin a gun and told him to kill David Cain and offered him a place in her League. When he refused, she shot her father herself. As Robin rushes to check David's condition, the elder Cain attempts to tell the boy that Cassandra and Annalea "weren't the only ones. There were others."
However, Robin soon leaves David's body to continue his fight against Cassandra, in an attempt to bring her to justice. When an explosive causes a fire breakout, ending their fight, Cassandra flees the scene and Robin goes in a different direction, returning to where David's body was, only to find all the assassins dead with broken necks and David's body missing.
