Well, folks, here we are at last. Six years, three failed drafts, several character and concept revamps, and one sex scene later, Da Pacem Domine is done. And very nearly eleven years and three stories (and some extra stuff) later, the Angel of the Bat trilogy is at an end too. This still feels surreal and exhausting to me, and I'm very relieved and pleased to be here. Over the last few months I've done pages upon pages of annotations on the previous stories and this one, so to some extent I feel like I only have so much left to say. But doing a closer reflecting on Cassandra's journey, my own feelings, and all that has been tradition for the past entries. So it's only right that Da Pacem Domine gets that treatment too.
So as to keep it from hanging over the rest of this reflection, I feel compelled to talk a little bit about the state of the world after I finished writing Da Pacem Domine. The pre-epilogue's final message is deeply rooted in hope and idealism leading us into a better tomorrow… which I wrote in September of 2024, just weeks before the fallout of the 2024 US election and a bunch of the most bullheaded, least qualified, most bigoted bastards in my country taking power. I remember back when that horse's ass won back in 2016, I told Meredith that I wanted to take it out on Times of Heresy and have Cassandra lose her faith by the end, just to feel like I was taking her away from the kind of religious people who voted for him. She pointed out that didn't actually make much sense, and encouraged me that, at that point, hope was going to be more necessary to write about than ever. And, in spite of all the stumbling blocks along the way, I did say Times of Heresy was a story about hope. I decided ahead of the election that I wouldn't compromise my ending, no matter what. Indeed, right now, it's better it's this way than falling into despair.
I'm trying my very hardest to take care of what I have direct control of and finding ways to exert more. I've taken up more volunteer opportunities, I've told my queer friends how much I care about them, I'm trying to get involved in mutual aid networks and trying to get friends organized together to start making good trouble in town halls and protests and all that. The despair feels overwhelming, but the best way any of us get through is together. This darkness is a little like its own Guilt incident, and the way we get through is by being defiant. And sometimes, it's our love for one another and ourselves that defines that best.
Feeling depressed yet? I am, a little bit. Let's get back to the story proper. The development of this story changed quite a bit from those early failed attempts to this completed one, but a lot of the broad strokes were always there by the time I sat down to really get writing. I knew I wanted to send both Cassandra and Sadie off on this big, nation-spanning adventure, I wanted fully realized fantasy elements, and Kedar being in pursuit of becoming the Spectre's host. Every one of these elements got expanded on, from more intricate travel planning to Kedar's more fleshed out backstory and his relationship with his acolytes, and the romance felt more fulfilling by the time I was done. Feels like those are the kind of developments I'll be focusing on here if I have something additional to say beyond my previous annotations. I'm going to discuss those matters in the order Setting and Setup, The Order of Nephilim, Characters and Plot Progression, Romance.
Setup and Setting
Batman and Bat Fam related stories have a tendency to stick to Gotham, of course. Gotham is plenty busy enough as is and Batman has the greatest rogue gallery in all of comic books, it's usually a sufficiently big toybox to play with. But Bruce has been known to take on international threats beyond Gotham before, especially when he's dealing with something alongside the Justice League or Ra's al Ghul is masterminding some big plot. In the earliest earliest EARLIEST ideas for a third story (which would never have been called Da Pacem Domine), I was thinking about using Ra's as the main villain. Ra's is kind of the top dog in terms of threats to the entire planet that Batman deals with himself, he could have given us some of that world traveling, and all that business. Eventually, though, I decided the Ra's brand of terrorism wasn't all that interesting for the purposes I wanted. I wanted another crack at doing a religious zealot villain since I felt there were interesting angles besides the Seraphim I could still tap into. Having criticized Protestant Evangelicals in the first and to a lesser extent second piece, it felt like it was about time I reckoned with my own denomination's bloody history. Kedar himself has some Ra's-esque traits, ranging from his immortality to the fact he does, indeed, hate some of the kinds of people who most deserve it. But he's different from Ra's and the Seraphim in a lot of other ways too, particularly his endgame, the fact that he believes he can accomplish his goals bloodlessly, and his relationship to his acolytes. With that basic setup, I went on to craft the bad guys.
The Order of Nephilim
I think I've mentioned before that the final battle is usually the very first thing in a story I figure out. It might end up being quite different by the time I get there, but the plan is always to at least have a frame work I'm pushing toward. That means I have to have ideas about my main villain figured out from very early on. I reflected before that a lot of Kedar I figured out from the get go, but that some elements of him came in the revision process. No one ever points it out in the plot, but Kedar both carries and celebrates the scars of colonialism that mark him. He was literally the product of a British invader raping a Muslim woman, and although he doesn't approve of that, he ultimately gets pressured into accepting kinship with the very invaders responsible for that assault. He then cozies up with his British ancestry for several centuries, and even his care for his folklore scion charges has a white man's burden reek to them (kinda ironic, for a man who's half Arabic.) This would normally be the place the explanation would say how much he genuinely does care about his acolytes, Nijah especially, but I think we're all tired of being told about characters who inflict violence on people and, "still love them." Kedar is more than capable of forgiving mistakes, and he would probably resent the idea he groomed them, he'd insist they follow him of their own will. But in his last scene, Kedar himself acknowledges he manipulated them all as children. And he hints that he regrets what he did to Nijah. But he didn't feel any of those things enough to not cut her throat when it mattered most.
In the earlier versions of the story, before I had all the details of the visions figured out, Kedar was going to appear relatively early using a fake name (probably Michael Lane, just to really mess with the Azrael connections), and Nijah was around as early as the first version, I think she was under a fake name too. She was still his distant niece, but I didn't really have her backstory figured out yet, I just realized I never had a female villain in the trilogy (this was still a while before I wrote Blood for Blood.) I've gone back and read the notes on the second version of Da Pacem Domine and I kinda am missing the context for some of those notes at the time, so there are straight up just blank spaces in the storyline as a result, lol. Anyway, regardless, Kedar and Nijah were around in my planning in version two, with Benjie, Gedeyon, Joaquin, and Gallagher joining in version three. I think Nijah still had some jinni ancestry back in version two as well, but I decided it would be fun to go considerably more obscure for the other types of folklore monsters I invoked.
If this were the 90's or something, I could see all of the Nephilim getting trading cards with their different stats, abilities, favorite foods, etc. on them. And I kinda wrote them with the thought, "If this was more of a full on production, different readers would have their own different favorites." But, inevitably, Nijah, Kedar, and Gallagher get the most development, so it really feels like more of a question of who your favorite of the lesser members are.
If anything is the truest sense of finality to this from that side of the story, it's the fact that the final battle is with a villain powered by the Spectre. It just doesn't feel like there's anywhere else I can go to get beyond that even if I wanted to write another story. I suppose I could turn to the forces of Hell for inspiration, but I don't think my heart would really be in it. I have my own kinda subversive take on an invasion of Hell in another work I'm planning, and, frankly, fighting a force from Heaven is just more impressive. Kedar literally hijacked the power of an angel and, as Sadie put it, did a Clockwork Orange on the entire planet. Demons and Hell just are not interesting to me in the same way that is.
Characters and Plot Progression
Touched on some of this before, but to recap- the very earliest days after the third story became Da Pacem Domine (IE after Kedar got introduced), Sadie was only barely involved, and the plot dealt mostly with Cassandra becoming the heir to the Suit of Sorrows after the death of Abraham Arlington. This was significant as Abraham knew of Kedar's plan and was trying to foil him, meaning Cassandra inherited the job. Still in the time before the Order of Nephilim were a thing, Kedar would have used a ritual to bring the angel Zauriel under his command to hunt Cassie down while he continued to pursue the Spectre (who was Jim Corrigan in that version. I hadn't done my research, wasn't as familiar with Crispus Allen being the host.) I think John Constantine was going to show up in that version like he would in the ones I actually started writing, probably assisting with freeing Zauriel from Kedar's control. I don't remember a whole lot beyond that.
The first version I started writing kept some of that framework, with Kedar sending a creature to do his bidding (Azmodus instead), Arlington being killed, the suit being passed on, and Constantine being involved. Renee Montoya as the Question was added to give a more conspiratorial edge and give Cassandra something different to riff off of, as an older lesbian and no longer practicing Catholic, Cassandra would have had some struggle with if abandoning her faith while being queer felt like it was an inevitability, which Renee would have dismissed, but had to help her through. I think there's still a good version of that story with those two involved, but Renee especially I always kinda struggled with what to do with. And Sadie was forced into the events in those three failed versions, either by Constantine working a spell that tied her in or by having some of the Suit of Sorrow's powers transfer over to her. That was always a bit of tricky business—how to incorporate an unpowered Sadie into the plot and make it feel natural. I very briefly considered letting her have all of the Suit of Sorrow's powers, but I didn't want to feel like she was suddenly in a position to be fighting the bad guys without any real prep or the like. Again, there's probably a very cool story where Sadie is all of a sudden more powerful than Cassie is and suddenly they can bond over fighting the bad guys together, but I don't think I wanted to make things feel too easy or straightforward for the heroes.
I had small roles for Stephanie and Tim figured out in the past, the two of them planning their wedding was always going to be a background worldbuilding detail. But it wasn't until this version that I uploaded that they finally got to go on the whole international journey with the girls. I think the rapport was so much more organic and enjoyable between the four that it really helped me finally get some version of this story written. And absolutely, you can tell a good story where the leads are more like strangers pushed by circumstance like in the old versions, but having a group of four who already care deeply about one another just felt better to me.
As I've reflected before, this version of the story was kind of an apology for how much less I gave Tim to do back in Times of Heresy. This cut shows off more of Tim's leadership qualities and worldliness. He might have been a bit of a pampered rich kid, but he's always been smart and clever and his different teams over the years have always treated him with respect. He's even aware he's in a messed-up situation where his sex and his faith are gaining him additional deference, and he's trying to use that to level the playing field as best he can. Him throwing himself at Joaquin to allow Cassandra and Sadie the chance to escape is maybe the biggest act he makes across the whole trilogy, unless you wanna argue him bringing Cassandra to adoration. I always hate when it feels like the heroes and villains have plans that are going too well, so the group split forced both sides to improvise.
Stephanie remains a goof, an underdog, and a heart to the team when they need it most. At some point I realized Sadie was kind of stepping into Steph's gig as the team's pop culture princess, but I think they share the role well. Steph doesn't really get a substantial character arc this time, Sadie gets a big one instead, but it allowed me to write one of these where Stephanie's capacity as a member of the family is never really in question. She's acknowledged to be a little less readily powerful than Tim or Cassie, but she's still doing about as well as they are during her big fight scenes. And the quick time we see her pressure point strikes on display, we get an idea she might be even more prepared than the narration is letting on. Either way though, she's some necessary emotional support for the three as well, as she's always been. Funny and fittingly enough, with that emotional support and extra stuff she always has at the ready in her backpack, she's playing the role of the group's mom pretty well. Funny because she is still a mom, at the end of the day.
(Pssst, that one other piece I wrote? Cool Aunt? It's canon to the Angel of the Bat Trilogy. I didn't want to say it there because it kinda gives away some elements of the happily ever after the characters get, but I'll nest that revelation in here, where you really have to look to find confirmation.)
Since Cassandra and Sadie are sharing the spot of lead, I went back and forth on who should be the character I close my analysis on. Ultimately though, it's been Cassandra's series for longer, so I'll end on her. Sadie's arc this story is, essentially, how she goes from a neutral party to someone actively heroic, if only for a moment. I did always write Sadie as if she was a decent, moral person, I think she's given blood, attended protests, and given people in need when she's had a few extra bucks on hand (as she herself has struggled with homelessness before.) But she's never had the ability or been in the position to affect major change in the world, indeed, how many among us have? Regardless though, she does get that opportunity by the end. And I don't think her response to the Spectre would have been the same if the spirit properly appeared to her when she should have died at the beginning. This whole ordeal and especially the interactions with Cassandra and Father Zein severely affected her outlook on all sorts of things. Cassandra talking about how she herself was once a tool for evil and how she lost herself in a perceived quest for holy vengeance sours Sadie on the idea of using the Spectre's power, even to take revenge on the people she perceives as wicked. And the bottomless spirit of giving and forgiveness she encounters gets her to question why the Spectre is necessary at all. Maybe Cassandra would have the wherewithal to ask those questions too, but I think Sadie is uniquely positioned for it, as a lifelong non-believer and frequent defier of authority. And I think her doing it as someone who is a little more typical than any of the Bat Fam members suggests something positive about everyday people as well.
I suppose I should reflect on the fact that she's still calling herself an agnostic by the end. Agnostic or atheist just plain needs to mean something else in the DC Universe, where the alien, the supernatural, and the divine 100% do exist. I think to some extent, Sadie is just stubborn and doesn't want to feel like she needs to put a label on her new outlook on the universe. To another, I think it's an intentional thing, especially as she gets to be a widely recognized artist. She wants her art to be meaningful to anyone and doesn't want to be put in a box as a specific kind of religious artist. And, lastly, I think for her own sake, she just plain doesn't feel a need to put a label on herself at all. Even after her conversation with Aztariel, there's still a lot about God and the universe she doesn't know, and I think she'd probably believe it was limiting to try putting that in a box. It doesn't stop her from occasionally joining Cassie for religious services, it didn't stop them from getting a convalidation, and Cassandra herself doesn't mind whatever Sadie wants to call herself. So she sticks with agnostic, even if it's a very different agnostic from what is typical in the real world.
Finally, we end where we began, with Cassandra. Her storyline this time around is quieter than it's been in the past, but she's still carrying a lot of the theme itself on her shoulders. That theme being that faith should not be a stagnant thing. And, indeed, acknowledging that for many of us, it already isn't. If we allow ourselves to believe the exact idea of faith we hold in a given moment is the one, true, correct one, we become slaves to that singular idea of God like Kedar and his Order were. I'm not saying it's something we think about every day, I'm not saying we're all in constant flux, but we are constantly changing, making allowances for new information, and being moved by new empathies. If I allowed myself to be trapped in the religious outlook I had when I was confirmed, I'd be holding on to prejudices I felt for people of different faiths, trans people, nonbelievers, and many others, I have little doubt. It's our friendships with others, particularly those outside of what we perceive as our box, that expands our understanding of one another, as she tells Nijah. Of the people that, regardless of the elements that make them different than us, we must regard as our fellow children of God. A God who loves us all, even when defied and even when denied, because that's what a proper parent is supposed to do.
Cassandra still identifies as Catholic by the time the story is over, as do I, but her Catholicism is markedly different than it was earlier in the trilogy, let alone how different it is from what we are regularly told is the one, true, singular idea of Catholicism. Even as her philanthropy and public image as a comic creator's wife might have elevated her into the public consciousness, I don't think she was ever officially excommunicated, but it doesn't matter, because she's continuing to do mass and worship God on her own terms. Terms that better comport with her outlook on the world and feelings of community. If that puts her in conflict with other Catholics, so be it.
Along with the forgiveness, altruism, and idealism I've been getting at since page one of this trilogy, that's what I want everyone to take away. Everyone including people without religious convictions, but especially people with them. It's okay for your idea of faith to change. It's okay if what your faith means to you changes. Your beliefs have probably already changed in hundreds if not thousands if not millions of subtle ways all your life. We're not perfect, we're all stumbling every single day, what matters most is that we keep trying, keep opening ourselves to the experiences of our siblings, and keep ourselves open to God's efforts to work through us. It is through empathy and care that I believe we step closer to the divine. And, well, if all that is a wash, if there is no God and this is all just foolishness, as I've always maintained before, we still get to live in the better world we helped create.
Romance
The last thing I wanna get into the weeds a little bit here with is the funny way that romance unknowingly kept playing a bigger role in this one the longer I worked on it. At the outset, my only major plan was to treat this entry like a fantasy story, but the more I featured Sadie, the more I obviously wanted to build on her and Cassie's relationship in ways that were closed off to me before. As I once reflected to that batman fanfiction facebook group:
"Sometimes you set out to write a fantasy action story full of philosophizing and political commentary.
…
And you still do all those things, but you also realize you're writing a love story. Not a romantic subplot, not an obligatory couple getting together at the end, an honest to goodness love story.
Sometimes that happens."
The fact that both girls are in nearly every single chapter together and the truth of Cassandra's super heroics are laid bare means they get to interact like they never have before. Most of that comes in the form of Sadie fangirling, but they do eventually have a fight about Cassie not taking her fear and emotions seriously, we get them talking together about Cassie's destructive upbringing, we even get the failed sex scene from Times of Heresy followed up with a successful night naked together.
I was single when I started my very first crack at Da Pacem Domine back in 2018, recently broken up from my second partner. Even then, I think I intended to put more focus on the romance, or at the very least set up elements of the story that would inevitably lead to more focus being given to it. Meredith and I started talking about getting back together in June of 2019, hanging out and dating quietly until we officially announced giving it a go in October of that year. 2020 would hit just a few months later, a trying time to be sure, but we endured and eventually moved in together and I proposed for the second time, also in October 2020, followed by our wedding in October of 2021. There's still a big gap in all of those events from when Da Pacem Domine would finally be completed, but they've been happy years reunited and spending every single day with my best friend. I think those times we've shared has reminded me just how much love is worth celebrating, and it made me want to celebrate it for Cassandra and Sadie.
A Final Bit of Housekeeping
As a last thing to put out there, the completion of this trilogy and my intent to retire means I am relinquishing control of these stories that have meant so much to me for the last decade. Most of these major characters weren't originally created by and do not legally belong to me anyway, even the concept was not mine to begin with. So, like Gail Simone did before me, I'm releasing the plot in the hopes of inspiring others. If anyone wants to feature any of my concepts in your own take on the Angel of the Bat pitch, up to and including Father Ryan and Sadie and my villains, go ahead. I'm not exactly going to give a blanket blessing, but if you let me know you're doing it and I like what you've done, I may well express my approval and offer it. Obviously, this is all fanfic anyway, you don't need me to say this or offer that approval, but I wanted to put it out there that, if anyone wants to use my ideas to fuel your own, I welcome you to do so.
See You Later
I'm planning to continue engaging with readers as long as I feel like doing so, so feel free to leave reviews, ask questions, or direct message me as you care to (as long as you're not trying to sell me art. I'm not interested.) If I've made any fans who wish to follow me beyond the world of fanfic as I get into wholly original publishing, you can already find me a few different places. You can find a few of the anthologies that feature me under my name, "Michael Joseph Tharnish Roby," including volume 11 of The Castle of Horror Anthology and Enchanted Tales & Twisted Lore: Fairy Tales, Folklore, and Fables Reimagined (which features my sinister take on Peter Pan.) I also post the comedy fantasy series Sabine of the Ten Rings (think "Zelda if she was a mercenary and Ganon was forced to be her magical counsel") on . As soon as my original fantasy books start being published, I'll tweak this closer to let you know where you can find them.
Thank you all so much for joining me on this trilogy of adventures, I hope it meant something to you, it certainly did to me. This is Michael Joseph Tharnish Roby, one last time, signing off.
And now these three remain: Faith, Hope, and Love. This was a story about the greatest of these, Love.