Cassandra Sandsmark

Cassandra Sandsmark: 1994 - 2007
Cassie’s story starts with her mother, archeologist Helena Sandsmark who was on assignment at a significant excavation in Greece when she fell in love with a local Name Zach. Though Zach would ultimately end up disappearing one night with one of the excavation’s artifacts, he did leave Helena with a souvenir of Greece when Cassie was born nine months later.

After returning stateside and getting employment at the Gateway City Museum of Antiquities, Helena began to notice that her daughter was unusually special. By age six, Cassie was not only more physically capable than her peers but was a full head and shoulders taller than the tallest boy in her grade.

When she was eight, Cassie crashed her bike and flew over her bike’s handlebars head-first into a wall and walked it off without a scratch. When Helena took Cassandra to the hospital regardless of a lack of visible injuries, she had to admit that she couldn’t remember the last time Cassandra had ever been sick (for the record, it was when Cassie was three). Due to the rise of the metahuman phenomenon at the time, Helena decided it was best to keep her daughter close. So when Helena became curator at the museum, Cassie would spend most of her after-schools hours at the museum; but even then, she could not escape the sense that she was different as some of the relics and artifacts in the museum’s Greek exhibit gave her an uneasy feeling and was also shocked to know she could read ancient Greek.

Cassie tried her best to blend in, but in 2007, with the JLA disbanded, Wonder Woman was spending more time in Gateway City and Cassie began to feel a strange bond to her. This bond became so familiar to Cassie that when she was Diana Prince at the Greek Exhibit, Cassie knew she was the Amazon princess. Before Cassie introduced herself, Circe arrived to steal a medallion from the exhibit, forcing Diana to run off for a quick costume change. To prevent Circe’s escape, Cassie grabbed some old weaponry from a display to stall Circe: but was chocked to find her touch woke the dormant magic in the archaic weaponry. After seeing this display, Wonder Woman took Cassie to Olympus to meet their shared deadbeat dad: ZEUS!

Wonder Girl: 2007 - 2012
Taken by her half-sister Diana of Themyscira to Olympus, Cassie met her absentee dad: Zeus, King of Olympus. There was an elaborate feast and celebration, as Zeus is keen to do for his offspring once they reach a certain age, even fo his illegitimate children. Hermes was even dispatched to Earth to retrieve Cassie's mother, Helena Sandsmark. At this celebration, Diana spoke to Zeus and Helena on Cassandra's behalf. She told the tale of what had happened at the museum against Circe asked for their consent. Diana sought Helena's consent to take Cassandra on as s pupil, or sidekicks: and Zeus' consent to perform the same ritual he had once done for Diana to grant her the additional powers that made her Wonder Woman. After a rather lengthy and involved discussion, it was decided that Cassie cuold become a powered heroine with the added stipulation that her powers have a "magical off switch" which Helena would control simply through placing a geas on Cassandra to obey her parents' wishes or lose her powers until Helena reinstated them or she reached eighteenth birthday. At first Cassandra was restricted to accompanying Diana on the rare weekend training session, but that was only on the condition that her homework was completed and her chores finished. During her first summer break as Wonder Girl, Cassandra not only got to go out on regular nightly patrol with Diana but even accompanied Diana on a few field missions. Before her return to school in the fall of 2007, Diana felt Cassandra had proven herself enough to bring her to Themyscira where she suprised her half-sister by having Queen Hippolyta name her a true and honored citizen of Themyscira, and therefore an Amazon. Fun fact, since her dad is a king, that makes Cassie the only Amazon princess that's not Hippolyta's daughter.

The next year was more of the same, but that following summer was a big highlight. Due to Diana being occupied elsewhere, Cyborg took over Cassie's hero training. This made her a founding member of Young Justice and introduced her to many of her friends she still has today. Here she also met Tim Drake and Conner Kent... more on her dating life later.

Wonder Girl: 2012 - Present
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Powers

 * Divine Empowerment: As the daughter of Zeus, Cassandra has abilities which far exceed those of mortals and many metahumans and she has been endowed with even more through the patronage of several Olympian gods.
 * Mythical Strength: Cassandra claims to be "Stronger than Hercules". As Wonder Girl has shown she is strong enough to match the strength of Superboy. ARGUS ranks Wonder Girl in the Class 6 Enhanced Strength category.
 * Mythical Stamina: Cassie fatigues at about a seventh of the rate of a normal woman of her age and build. When Cassie does begin to tire it is mostly a mental strain due to her body producing very little lactic acids. However, like anyone else, Cassie still requires sleep or else she will begin to suffer the mental effects of sleep deprivation.
 * Mythical Resilience: Cassandra possesses a high resistance to damage and magical attacks. However, her resistance to injury is not quite as great as some metahumans. Due to her vast threshold for pain, this easily makes up for the difference. She has withstood considerable bludgeoning damage in the form of hand to hand combat with metahuman opponents such as Mammoth and Bane. She has considerable resistance to human weaponry, though this is not absolute; Bullets can cause minor to moderate injury, but are never really life-threatening.
 * Mythical Speed and Flight: Cassie is capable of unassisted flight by gliding on air currents at a max speed of around 1,500 MPH. She can also run at inhuman speeds (200 MPH).
 * Mythical Reflexes: Cassie's reflexes are far beyond the limitations of the finest human athletes. She has been able to react to a barrage of gunfire from multiple opponents at once unharmed. Batman notes that the reflexes of the daughters of Zeus seem to exceed those of Kryptonians.
 * Mythical Agility: Cassie's agility is far beyond that of even an Olympic level athlete, as is her balance and coordination.
 * Mythical Wisdom: Cassie possesses great wisdom and intelligence. She also has an instinctive ability to understand, read, write, and speak both Ancient and Modern Greek and learns languages at an accelerated rate.
 * Mythical Senses: All of Cassie's mundane senses perform at peak levels. Cassie can often distinguish mental illusions from reality and perceive the supernatural.
 * Healing Factor: Cassie' natural regenerative abilities allow her to recover from injury within minutes to hours. She possesses an incredible immunity from nearly all poisons, toxins, as well as simple diseases.

Abilities

 * Amazon-in-Training: Cassie has only just begun her Amazonian training (by Amazon standards) but what she does know is extensive by mortal standards and helps shape her physical potential into a true weapon.
 * Archaeology: Although nowhere near the level of her mother, Cassandra has learned quite a bit from her mother.
 * Investigation: When she dated Tim, Cassie became quite the amateur detective and learned to fine-tune her senses to be used for some forensic purposes.
 * Multilingualism: Because of her travel record early in her life, she's learned a few languages. She speaks some Mandarin, Greek (Ancient and Modern), Latin, and a couple others but no Spanish.
 * Leadership: Cassie has proven herself to be a good leader in the field as she would often take charge of Young Justice before Kaldur'ahm was selected to be the official team leader. Though a gifted leader, Cassie usually prefers to lead small strike teams or take the place of a senior strategist or second-in-command.
 * Indomitable Will (?): Diana speculates that she inherited her sheer willpower from Zeus and believes Cassie may be just as stubborn as she is.

Paraphernalia

 * Bracelets of Submission: Modeled after the shackles the Amazons were once enslaved with. The gauntlets were forged from a mythical metal alloy known as Amazonium and were crafted for her use by Hephaestus at the request of both her sister Diana and their father Zeus. Cassie's superhuman reflexes enable her to use the gauntlets to easily deflect projectiles (such as bullets) and powerful energy blasts, much like Diana. She is even fast enough to protect herself from multi-vector attacks. At close-range, the gauntlets block blades, weapons, and punches. When crossed, the gauntlets generate an echo of the Aegis itself, forming an impenetrable barrier just in front of them which allows Cassie to protect herself and those behind her from area attacks. They are also capable of channeling Zeus' holy lightning when struck together.
 * Lasso of Lightning: Created by her father, Zeus, the Lasso of Lightning is similarly indestructible as the Lasso of Truth or the Lasso of Persuasion but possesses different properties from that of Diana or Donna's lassos. Upon the command of its wielder, Cassandra Sandsmark, the lasso can generate an electrical field of energy stemming directly from the lighting of Zeus, which can be used to injure opponents. Note: Those with a greater will than Wonder Girl can turn the tables on her and will the lasso to shock her instead.
 * Magical Sword: A sword forged by Hephaestus which is said to be sharp enough to cut the electrons from an atom.

Weaknesses

 * Rage: Ares has noted that Cassandra has "his rage" and one more than one occasion she has been tricked into flying into a fury and being lured into a trap or into abandoning her teammates.
 * Vulnerability to Adamant: As the daughter of Zeus, Wonder Woman shares his weakness to weapons made of Adamant. Injuries caused by such weapons inflict painful wounds upon the divine, causing damage which heals at a much slower rate.
 * Vulnerability to Piercing Weapons: Diana is extremely resistant to blunt force attacks and has a vast tolerance for pain. However, she is more vulnerable to piercing weapons, such as arrows and bullets.

Trivia

 * She is likely marginally related to Donna (not counting the adoptive element of them sharing a sister) because I am sure that Donna's lineage has several injections of Zeus in it (he seduced every other queen or princess in Greek mythology).
 * Cassie Sandsmark is obsessed with social media. She has multiple accounts for her multiple identities and enjoys taking selfies with the unconscious and/or restrained criminals she encounters.
 * A true cinephile, Cassie can quote hundreds of lines from dozens of movies at the drop of a hat.
 * Cassie is a frequent sight on a number of first-person shooter leaderboards under the screen name 'Drusilla96'. Apparently, she is quite the trash-talker, too.
 * Cassie is really good at math, though she despises 'showing her work' and as a result, often neglected her homework and had atrocious math grades.
 * Cassie is a heavy sleeper and by no means a morning person. She has been known to not only break alarm clocks, but also the nightstand they were resting on and even the floor below it.
 * Cassie has a bad temper and has been known to throw things when upset. Thankfully, as she can throw cars and shipping containers, it's rare for her to do this with friends, family, and teammate arguments.
 * Cassie doesn't leave the house without applying her favorite lip gloss.
 * Cassie loves to chew on ice cubes but absolutely cannot stand to drink plain water.
 * Cassie thinks that babies are totally adorable. She has been known to become distracted if a baby is around her or break into quiet giggle fits if one makes eye contact with her.
 * Recently, Cassie decided to try her hand at bartending, as a hobby. She thinks she is like Tom Cruise in Cocktail, but in reality, she not only gets the drinks all wrong but she also breaks more bottles than she serves with her attempted tricks. None of her friends have had the nerve to tell her to stop and their beating around the bush on the matter only gets them scary glares from the demigoddess.
 * She and Tim Drake, lost their virginity to each other.
 * Cassandra is studying Ancient History and Archaeology at Ivy University.

Links and References

 * Appearances of Cassandra Sandsmark
 * Character Gallery: Cassandra Sandsmark