Project Rooftop, the comic character makeover blog, takes aim at Stephanie Brown, AKA Robin, AKA Spoiler, AKA the Bat sidekick who never received a memorial case in the Batcave, as PR editor Dean Trippe explains:
Sadly, this Girl Wonder faced the same heightened plot dangers that most female characters apparently do. It was suddenly revealed that as a child, she’d faced an attempted rape, sexual assault being an overused shortcut to female character development. She was then injured in the line of duty, allowing “the real Robin” to feel somehow responsible. Batman then fired her after she disobeyed a single order–a choice which previous Robins have often been lauded for. And finally, she was shown to have accidentally caused the largest city-wide gang war in Gotham history in a failed attempt to strike at the criminal underworld. She was captured by The Black Mask, tortured to near death, and was then denied medical treatment by another previous untarnished female character, Batman’s frequent aide, Dr. Leslie Thompkins, who withheld treatment in order to teach other would-be teen crimefighters a lesson.
Since her death, Stephanie has not even received a memorial costume case in the Batcave, as we’d seen with the previous fallen Robin, Jason Todd (who incidentally, is alive again, and still has a memorial case in the cave). The Girl-Wonder organization is one fan/professional group that speaks out about how female characters are treated in comics, and one of their goals is to see this lack of remembrance rectified.
Mike Maihack’s design (above) is just one of several makeovers posted today. Go check’em out.
October 4th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
And then there’s Azrael, a male hero who, outside of his own book, didn’t seem to exist. I’m still waiting for the other characters to realize that he died.
October 4th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
I still want to know how the hell they let Bill Willingham get away with what he did to the characters of Spoiler and Leslie Thompkins. So stupid.
October 4th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
how’d he do it?
simple…
its like trying to get a membership in a very fancy golf club.
if you talk too much about how much you want to get in…you won’t.
spoiler (as i recall) wanted to be robin. she liked it.
the smart thing for her to have done would have been to have a ‘love/hate’ relationship with the title.
October 4th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
I know how I’d bring Spoiler back. She and Leslie Thompkins faked her death so that Stephanie could go get her baby back and raise the kid in peace.
There would be some loop holes to explain, like how the world’s greatest detective allowed himself to be fooled. But I think it would work. But you could get past them, then send the Spoiler baby off to the same day care as Black Canary’s foster kid.
October 4th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
I believe the explanation for Thompkins was “we had no other ideas.” They’ve officially retconned it, but the character still has yet to resurface (perhaps for fear that they’d have to explain all this over again.)
October 4th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
“There would be some loop holes to explain, like how the world’s greatest detective allowed himself to be fooled.”
Easy. It happened around the time the Infinite Crisis Countdown was going on, and Batman’s been distracted too much.
October 4th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Actually, Skeletor jr, it was Willingham’s idea for Spoiler to become Robin in the first place. When he took over writing the book the editorial decision to kill her had all ready taken place and it was Bill’s idea that she become Robin, if but for a brief moment, before she was killed off.
If it wasn’t for Bill Willingham she never would have been Robin at all.
October 4th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Well, I like the Robin angle a lot, but I think he ruined the character of Leslie Thompkins. I hope this is indeed retconned or something, Leslie was a character I liked in her various incarnations since the 70s, and I feel bad that that’s what they chose to do with her.
October 4th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
It’s a shame none of these Rooftop costumes are ever used because most of them are awesome.
October 4th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Yeesh, the more and more I read from G-W, the more and more it reminds me of HEAT.
October 5th, 2007 at 1:25 am
Scott: This is because Azrael was lame. ^_^
Henry: You say that like H.E.A.T was a *bad* thing. Sheesh. Next, they’ll be complaining that Aquaman has an appreciation group on Facebook, or something.
October 5th, 2007 at 8:42 am
Owesome > If we judged every character by how poorly they were used, then people ought to be hating Stephanie Brown. Maybe if Azrael was a woman, there would be an Internet movement to have a memorial for him in the Batcave.
Here’s a question that’s bound to make people uncomfortable and/or angry: How many people want the memorial for Steph because they genuinely liked the character, and how many want it just because she’s a woman and are trying to push forward some feminist agenda?
Personally, I’m all for the memorial. I’ve liked the character since the Dixon/Robin days. She’s been around for over a decade and deserves better acknowledgment. Not because she’s a woman, but because she was a part of that crazy Bat world and gave her life for it. The same reason I think Azrael should have a memorial.
And when you think about it, it doesn’t make sense for Batman *not* to have a memorial. “Gee,” says Batman, “I really ought to put up a memorial for Steph and Jean-Paul, but the fans were sort of lukewarm about them. And besides, I’ve already got the Jason Todd memorial, which ought to be good for at least 20 dead sidekicks.”
October 5th, 2007 at 9:50 am
//how many want it just because she’s a woman and are trying to push forward some feminist agenda?//
I find cliches like, “push forward some feminist agenda,” are brought up when people don’t truly care to engage in an informed debate but still want to have their say. It’s generally a way to dismiss any obligation to understand a party’s stance.
‘Race card,’ and ‘male chauvinism,’ are other examples of the same tactic.
October 5th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Dawn,
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I was not aware of those connotations.
I’ve got nothing against either feminists or agendas, so long as I know that people aren’t losing sight of what they’re really talking about: giving someone the respect that she (or he) deserves. Not knowing their intentions was why I phrased it as a question.
I’m also a little concerned that we might reach a point where nothing bad will ever be allowed to happen to female characters, because it demonstrates hatred toward women. I’ve seen this happen in fandoms. (Greg Rucka had to face some irate fans when he blinded Wonder Woman, despite the fact that she was not portrayed as weaker or any less capable because of it.)
October 5th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Interesting, DK. Not that I disbelieve you, but I was wondering if you have a source for that fascinating little tidbit about “if it wasn’t for Willingham, she wouldn’t have been Robin at all.”
Not that I necessarily think that that changes anything, I’m just genuinely curious about what went on behind the scenes there.
October 5th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
@ Scott Iskow:
The thing isn’t so much that bad things shouldn’t happen to female characters (although some knuckleheads who don’t get it wind up more or less arguing that very same point). Bad things happen to all characters in comics; it’s the nature of serial drama.
Rather, the issue is the frequency with which bad things happening to women is recast solely in how it makes male characters feel. Or how female characters often suffer permanently crippling, disabling, de-powering injuries (Barbara Gordon/spinal injury) whereas male characters tend to “get better” from such things (Batman/spinal injury), the implication that there is a sense in which female characters are more disposable than their male counterparts.
October 8th, 2007 at 2:54 am
Well, the whole situation with Stephanie Brown and Leslie Thompkins was unecessarily jacked-up.
A. Why should a reckless brat like Jason Todd get a memorial when Stephanie Brown, who tried to correct her mistake, took the brunt of it, and still asked for the Dark Knight’s forgiveness and acceptance on her deathbed, not get one?
B. Leslie Thompkins… ah. If Alfred can handle the Dark Knight’s activities, constant “getting home all beat-up”, and remain a royal butler/nurse… what makes you so damn self-reightus (enough to withold treatment from a dying person)? Talk about character assassination by DC. Thompkins went from a humanitarian to an impatient, unwise old B%$CH.
May 11th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
was sthephanie in the killing joke? Just remember i first read a batman album with her in it. Was that when she got fired?