Oh, Cassie. Let’s talk about costumes.

You conjure a pair of jeans, don an armored blouse or collegiate sweater, and occasionally drop the bracers. There’s a colloquial charm in your street-ready threads but are they appropriate dress for superheroics?

Consider your predecessor’s clothes: when she was in the Teen Titans, Donna Troy’s costume was a wonder of economic, elegant design, truly a heroine’s costume. Her current starry suit ain’t half bad, either.

We’ll spare you an all-red get-up; you tried that and, I must agree, it didn’t always work. Also, we must control the blue, lest we mistake you for Supergirl, and temper the star motif, lest you remind us of Stargirl. How about a new ‘do, too?

Just try it on your next couple of adventures, Cassie. Should it fail to wow friends and foes alike, we’ll try something else.

Fondly,
Jonathan McNulty


----------------------


Dear Jonathan;

Oh boy. 10-4; I totally love it when civilians try to give heroes fashion advice.

You worked your way around this one, but I'll bring it up: a lot of people blame Superboy for kick-starting this "street ready" costume thing and ask if it's really appropriate for superheroes to wear. It's really funny, because I was in jeans and t-shirts long before Superboy was; other than those spandex shorts on my first costume, my first (and to date, only) actual spandex outfit was the all-red get-up you don't think worked. I've been doing it for six years, and people have been complaining about it ever since. Until I started wearing the black zip-up and the red pants towards the end of Young Justice, I made just about every worst-dressed list ever.

I'd ask why I got bitched at all the time about this, but I think we all know why Superboy "started a trend" and I'm "charming but inappropriate." What's so wrong with wanting to wear something comfortable, not so revealing, and more durable? Jeans look good scuffed up and torn –– they even sell them that way sometimes. Spandex looks grubby and tacky when torn up, not to mention what's happened to most female heroines at least once... to be blunt, inconveniently-placed tears suck. As the icing on the cake... touch velcro once in spandex and the entire thing's ruined.

I don't know about you, but I get really annoyed when I have to get a new costume made for me every time I go out and fight. Sponsors don't like it either –– and conveniently, they DO like that Wonder Girl knock-off jeans sell like hot cakes.

And I know what you're saying –– that doesn't really invalidate your criticism. It's still jeans and a shirt. But calling Donna's costume a wonder (ha ha, by the way, as if we haven't heard that a zillion times) and truly a heroine's costume... not to be crude, but are you sure you aren't distracted by the neckline? I love Donna, but I'll strangle myself with my own lasso before I wind up with a neckline that dips to my navel. Or that necklace –– you're practically asking to get whacked in the teeth or choked with it. And what is a "heroine's costume" anyway?

But really, I'm here to save your behind when some ugly thing is about to step on you. When the frame of your car is collapsing and there's a foot three inches from your head and bearing straight down, do you really want to bitch about my choice in pants?

Also, it's Wonder Girl to you.

Shove it,
Wonder Girl

Cassie doesn’t have many friends at high school. They tried, at one point, to be her friends, but that kind of thing doesn’t work out. Cassie doubts them, one by one, for the things they say, and do, and think. Girls don’t want to be friends with Cassie Sandsmark, they want to be friends with Wonder Girl. Boys don’t want to date Cassie Sandsmark, they want to date Wonder Girl. When it turns out Wonder Girl isn’t what they’re going to get, they turn.

If she didn’t have genuine friends like Greta, or Cissie, or the Teen Titans, she would have minded a lot more.

Cassie thinks about this in gym class, waiting to be picked for volleyball.

You would think that an athletic girl with super strength, super speed, flight and warrior training would be first pick for teams in a high school gym class, on the schoolyard equivalent of the battlefield, but she isn’t.

She’s dead last, or close to it. She watches the girls on her team sigh and roll their eyes. Cassie knows every last one of them is lamenting the fact that they’ll have to put up with Cassie Sandsmark on their team. Cassie Sandsmark, who puts no effort into the game, but puts no effort into hiding what she can do. Endless potential, zero application.

“I guess I’m stuck with Wonder Girl,” one team leader sighs, rudely, and the teacher doesn’t reprimand her.

Teachers don’t like her much, either, and it happens too often to keep up with. Cassie does her own policing, anyway.

“It’s Cassie, Hillary.”

“Whatever,” Hillary snorts, “you’ll still just stand there staring into the distance.”

Cassie ignores her. She walks over to her new team, pulling her hair up into a ponytail. Hillary’s eyes follow her every step, and Cassie still ignores her. It’s not worth it to take bait when she knows it’ll just lead to trouble. Hillary waits, and waits, and waits, and then, to Cassie’s great frustration, the teacher excuses herself to step out and talk to another teacher.

Hillary turns on her. Every head turns to watch the two of them.

“So what is it, Wonder Girl?” Hillary sneers, “I saw you on the news last night. Running around in that slutty little spandex get-up, tossing around cars and wrangling loose elephants and stuff. If you can do all that shit, why can’t you score one lousy point in gym class?”

Cassie glances at Hillary, but doesn’t say a thing. Not yet.

“What, not even going to answer me? Too good for that or something?”

Cassie’s eyes narrow, and she sinks as far as replying. “If I actually tried, I’d kick all of your asses, one-on-thirty, and no one would be happy that way, either. So why bother?”

“Yeah, yeah, we know. But would it kill you to do something useful? If you actually played sports, Elias School would win every championship in the country. We’d be on top. You know how long it’s been since Elias won anything but fucking archery?”

“But it wouldn’t be fair,” Cassie says, trying to keep her voice level. “And you better damn appreciate what Cissie does for this school.”

“Who cares?” Hillary shoots back, ignoring the point about Cissie.

“I care,” Cassie says, “and other schools do. And maybe I don’t have time for your stupid volleyball or field hockey games. If you hadn’t noticed, last night I helped save a city from rampaging animals and a virus outbreak. If you think winning some high school competition is more important than that, you need to sort out your priorities.”

Hillary’s riled. She steps forward, and seems to circle Cassie, but she doesn’t get close. Cassie turns, just slightly, to keep her eyes on the other girl, and she sees some girls in the crowd getting restless.

“I just don’t like losing,” Hillary sneers.

Cassie gets sharp.

“Then maybe you should practice more.”

Hillary might have slapped any other girl, but not Cassie. Definitely not Cassie. Under that hostility, the teasing, the criticism, the name calling, Cassie knows that Hillary is afraid of her and wouldn’t dare.

“Whatever,” Hillary says, “Wonder Bitch.”

Cassie takes one step forward, and Hillary holds her ground. On the second, however, she steps back, albeit with her chin held high.

“What are you going to do?” Hillary sneers. “Beat me into a pulp? Punch me through a wall?”

“No,” Cassie says, bluntly, “But I’m sick of this. So you know what, Hillary?”

Hillary hesitates, and Cassie could commend her bravery as she replies, confidently, “What?”

“I could do this––” Cassie says, and she grabs Hillary by the front of the shirt. Her fingers wind into the white cotton of the girl’s gym shirt, and Cassie hoists her up.

A couple things happen at once. First, the other girls flinch, prematurely, and step back like it’s them being seized. Hillary gasps and grabs onto Cassie’s wrist so she doesn’t choke, having not expected Cassie to actually do something. The teacher comes back.

“CASSIE SANDSMARK, LET GO OF THAT GIRL,” the teacher roars, and Cassie lets go, none-too-gently. Hillary lands in a heap on the floor. Everyone turns to face the teacher, who continues, angrily, “Just WHAT do you think you’re doing?”

Cassie lifts her chin.

“I was going to stick her on the ceiling. I’m sick of being treated like this, and since the faculty does nothing, I thought it was high time I did something myself.”

“Office, now,” the teacher orders.

“Gladly,” Cassie replies, and stalks off.

She just stares down at him, smiling, and glossy sheets of blonde hair fall from behind her shoulders and frame her face. Kon’s fingers trace the shape of her cheek, and re-tuck a few blonde locks behind her ear, and then cups her face in one big palm.

Cassie reaches up to place her hand over his at the same time as Kon sits up more. She shifts on his lap, captures his mouth with his, and his other hand slides up her side. He tries to maneuver her over so he can roll her onto her back at the same time as she goes to take off his shirt. They break apart to arrange themselves and figure out what they’re doing, and as they get things together, Kon sees that tears are slipping down Cassie’s cheeks.

“Cass,” he starts, concerned, brushing one away.

“No, no,” she says, quickly. She smiles. “Happy tears. These are happy tears.”

Things are perfect.

Fighting.

That’s what Cassie’s damn good at, and one tends to like the things they do well.

She may not be an Amazon by bloodline, heritage, or upbringing, but she has become one by intense training and experience. Few women have the luxury of being welcomed into the Amazons' fold, and fewer succeed there as she has. As a skinny little blonde in a sea of tall, shapely raven- and chestnut-haired beauties, “privilege” doesn’t even begin to cover it –– and despite the differences, Cassie stands amongst them as an equal, perfectly capable of living up to them, even surpassing them.

... Most of the time, anyway.

Cassie comes to a rolling stop, bouncing off the ground and sliding a rough twenty feet before stopping on her stomach.

“Son of a,” she breathes, as she hefts herself up. There’s no time to stop and access damage; if she’s broken a bone, she’ll know in the next few seconds. She gets her shoulders up, gets a foot on the ground, and then she’s up again in a flash, dirtied but not down.

She looks up at her opponent and scoffs. “Did you really think one punch would work?”

Judging by the flabbergasted look on the beast’s face, yes, he did. He really did.

“No, but two might,” Cassie shoots back.

And so it does.