"here's my original character, Man Who Sucks But Loves His Daughter Very Much" and it's a guy who worships at the altar of patriarchal violence and the woman he uses as an excuse and an effigy to absolve him
there exists a silent and solemn agreement between everyone in the know to never ever let tim find out bruce has done cocaine before because their relationship would take years to recover from the shock and betrayal
and obviously tim being who he is has been offered coke before and had to respond with a very tactful "um. no thank you" but this has somehow never translated to the idea that *bruce* could have been offered coke let alone tried it. it's simply unthinkable. if he ever found out bruce had consumed even one microgram of benzoylmethylecgonine recreationally and not against his will or as "toxin resistance training" tim might very well faint from the shock of it all like a tightlaced victorian maiden
tim knows dick has done coke but he let it slide (despite his deep and vocal concern for dick's moral and physical well-being) because he would forgive dick grayson for shooting him point blank in the femoral artery. bruce however would be hearing about it for the next five years minimum. "the killer is-" "oh are you sure? you weren't under the influence when you made that deduction? are you high right now?" "red robin." "just remember you can't take the cowl with you to rehab"
Not to get into it again, but adding on the Tower of Babel thing: the "Bruce looks down on Hal" thing is so lame compared to their canon dynamic between the 90s and 2010s, aka Bruce spending over a decade of comics being fucking terrified of Hal.
It's so much less interesting than the reality of Bruce being terrified of Hal and what he's capable of. Bruce spiraling into crippling paranoia every time Hal does literally anything, whether it's rewriting reality or doing Spectre-stuff or talking to his ex-girlfriend. Bruce squirming and gnashing his teeth and losing all rationality over the slightest suspicious Hal-related activity. Brcue being vulnerable to Parasite!Parallax's influence because of his paranoia about Hal. Bruce constantly jumping to the worst possible conclusion about Hal, and sometimes being right, and sometimes being wrong, and how that fucked with Bruce on the deepest psychological level and took a lot of time and conversations with other heroes to get through.
Just...Bruce's inability to cope with Hal's plunge into supervillainy bringing out the worst him. How he doesn't dare hope or trust again so instead he doubles down on what he knows are his own worst tendencies.
Bruce saying shit like:
The feared Batman fearing the man without fear!
This dynamic is infinitely more fun and interesting than anything I've seen made thatâs based on 5 minutes of animated movie (that doesn't even know how Green Lantern powers work), or fandom osmosis (have no idea how powerful Hal Jordan is), or some infamously out of character comic they saw out of context on tiktok one time (really, really doesn't even know how Green Lantern powers work or how powerful Hal Jordan is)
But obviously dealing with the baggage of Parallax isn't for everyone, but even after everything got rebooted, it's not like Bruce doesn't respect Hal:
Or, you know, there's other aspects of their dynamic that are really really funny:
High Drama Bickering!
Sulky Batfrowns!
Bruce's many, many "YOU'RE NOT A GOD!" moments!
And Clark being so so so sick of Bruce's Hal Issues!
when you get so excited to guess your ex cyber date's prescription you forget you're on the "incels rating women's looks with numbers" website at the same time as the colleague she has an intense homoerotic frenemyship with
It has come to my attention that not enough people know everything DC put Stephanie Brown and her fans through in the 2000s and 2010s, so here, as threatened, is the Saga. There have definitely been female characters who have been put through more horrific storylines, but what I think is really remarkable about Steph's story is how clearly it highlights the misogyny against real women, i.e. readers, that was completely mask-off in the comics industry at the time.
Please note that I am only going to be focusing on Steph's death in War Games, her erasure from continuity with the New 52, and the fallout from both of those events. If I dug into the sexist treatment she got from Batman and Tim prior to her tenure as Robin, we'd be here all day.
ANYWAY. It begins in 2004. In Robin #125, Tim's dad discovers that he is Robin, and threatens to out Batman unless his underage son quits this highly dangerous and illegal activity (fair).
In Robin #126, Steph sees Tim being kissed by his ex-girlfriend, Darla Aquista. Now in Tim's defense, Darla initiated the kiss and Tim tells her afterwards that he's seeing someone. On the other hand, the kiss lasts for four whole panels and five lines of dialogue from observers. Also, considering Tim originally ended his relationship with Darla by cheating on her with Steph, you can see why Steph might not be feeling super trusting here. [EDIT: Darla was not Tim's ex, I was thinking about Ariana Dzerchenko there. Tim being chronically unfaithful still holds but that's for another post.]
Upset, Steph makes herself a costume, breaks into the Batcave, and declares herself the new Robin:
Bruce is like "...You know what, yeah, okay." Alfred pulls him aside and immediately calls out what's going on here:
Bruce very pointedly does not answer Alfred's question, which is as good as a yes. And look: you can question Steph's decision to volunteer as Robin out of spite because she assumed her boyfriend was cheating on her without talking to him. And you can question her later actions that kick off War Games. But she's sixteen years old. Meanwhile Bruce, a grown-ass man who is also Batman, is playing mind games with a couple of high schoolers in order to...what? Destroy Tim's relationship with his only living parent and totally discard Steph when she's no longer useful, presumably.
Also please note Bruce accurately describing Steph's best qualities, which are also her fatal flaw. And remember that the quality he claims he's hiring for is also what he'll blame her firing on.
Time goes by. Bruce trains Steph, but he tells her she's on "probation" and that means 1) she doesn't learn any of the big secrets and 2) if she disobeys any order, no matter how small, she's fired, no second chances. For the record, none of the boys were ever on probation (Jason and Tim had long training periods but that's the opposite; they were protected until they were ready, not thrown into the field without full support), they all knew Bruce's identity, and they disobeyed his orders all the time. Tim did it on his very first mission.
Just...putting this here.
In Robin #128, Batman is fighting a villain while Steph waits in the Batplane. Fearing for Bruce's life, Steph disobeys his orders to stay in the plane and tries to rescue him, only to be taken hostage by the villain, who escapes. Bruce fires her, and tells her she's not allowed to be Spoiler anymore, either. In a particularly cruel move, he specifies that all the codes will be changed in the Batcave to keep her out, even though in the previous issue, Tim noted to Steph that Bruce didn't change anything to keep him out.
Just to make the point again: yes, Steph broke the rules. However, none of the boys before her, nor Damian after her, were ever penalized the way she was and for such a minor infraction. Disobeying orders and getting taken hostage are like the second and third most important Robin responsibilities, after puns.
Steph is devastated, and this is what leads to War Games, which was a crossover event across the entire Batman line that ran from October 2004 to January 2005. It began with Batman: The 12 Cent Adventure, in which a bunch of crime bosses all show up for a meeting that none of them called, get antsy, and start shooting. The ensuing deaths cause a gang war across Gotham. Eventually Steph confesses to Catwoman that she called the meeting. She was trying to play out a war game she'd found on the Batcomputer to show Batman he was wrong to fire her, but the meet went wrong. A guy named Matches Malone was to show up and become the new crime boss of Gotham, but he never turned up.
Of course, the reader and Selina know what Steph doesn't: Matches Malone is Batman. If Batman doesn't know about this meeting, he can't control the situation. But if Batman had treated Steph like a true Robin instead of putting her on "probation," Steph would have known he was Matches Malone, and none of this would have happened.
I'll say it a third time: Steph fucked up, yes. But Steph was sixteen. What was Bruce's excuse?
Anyway. While running around Gotham desperately trying to fix her mistake, Steph encounters Black Mask, who manages to knock her out. He then chains her up and tortures her with a power drill in order to get her to spill Batman's plans (which she does not do). Here's how this sixteen-year-old is drawn when she's being tortured (in Robin #131):
Thank god we can see her tits and her ass at the same time, that was really important to the narrative.
Here's how she's drawn the next time we see her, in Catwoman #35:
Gotta make this dying teenager look hot or what's the point, amirite?
Steph manages to fight her way free, but Black Mask gets the upper hand again after she refuses to kill him. He shoots her, then lets her go to send Batman a message. She makes it to Bruce, who takes her to Leslie Thompkins's clinic, where she dies:
THESE PANELS ARE IMPORTANT. (Batman #633.)
Side note: Bruce is with Tim when Leslie calls him to tell him Steph is actively dying, and consciously decides not to tell Tim and let him and Steph say goodbye.
Side note #2: Steph's death was always planned as part of War Games. Dylan Horrocks, who was writing Batgirl at the time, and Devin Grayson, who was writing Nightwing, both vocally opposed this but were overruled, which is why this aspect of the plot barely plays out in their books.
Anyway. What I want to talk about is the aftermath of Steph's death. Characters dying was commonplace back then (way more common than it is now, actually), and female characters was extremely commonplace - this was a time when the term "fridging" was becoming more commonplace but wasn't yet seen as something to avoid. But readers noted a couple of things about Steph's death in particular:
The art was really inappropriately sexual. Why was Steph's tortured body being drawn to titillate?
Steph didn't have a memorial case in the Batcave. Why was that? Jason Todd, the only other dead Robin, had a case. In fact, Jason retained his case even after he came back to life (his first appearance as Red Hood is in Batman #635, two months after Steph's death). Why didn't Steph get a case?
I used the word "readers" specifically up there because it wasn't just Steph fans. I remember hearing from a number of people at the time who were like "Yeah I didn't actually like Steph, I thought she was annoying. But what happened to her was fucked up."
And these readers started asking DC where Steph's case was. Social media wasn't really a thing yet, but they asked in fan letters, at conventions, on LiveJournal and blogs, on forums.
"She wasn't really Robin," DC said, over and over again (like when Dan DiDio said it at Wizard World LA in 2007).
"But Batman said she was Robin. Right there on the page."
"Well, she wasn't."
"Why not? What makes her different from the other Robins? What makes her different from Jason?"
"...no comment."
(Hint: IT WAS THE GIRL COOTIES.)
At another con, Bill Willingham, who was writing at the time, said he wanted to "take a gun to all those girls who kept asking about a memorial case for Spoiler." I'm paraphrasing because the source is some LiveJournal page buried deep in the bowels of the internet, but I'm confident in the "take a gun to those girls"* part of the phrase because it burned itself onto my brain at the time.
*It was of course not only girls and women, not that he cared.
To be very clear: this man thought it was appropriate to respond to a group of mostly female readers pushing back against the comic book industry's relentless depictions of violence against women by...describing his fantasies of enacting violence against women. Out loud. With his mouth. To an audience. While acting in a professional capacity.
I also want to note something that never occurred to me at the time, but we (yes, I was there, Gandalf; this is in fact my origin story) weren't even asking for them to bring Steph back. Like, the thought never crossed my mind. Compare to HEAT (Hal's Emerald Attack Team), a group of fans who waged a harassment campaign after Emerald Twilight demanding Hal's reinstatement to the Corps and the firing of the writer who wrote the comic. We were only asking for DC to acknowledge that Steph had been Robin, and it infuriated them.
As a last point on Steph's death: I mentioned this in another post, but when Steph died in 2004, she had zero official action figures despite having been a recurring character in comics for 12 years. She wouldn't get her first action figure until 2010. But in 2005, DC started selling this:
Yes, he is holding the power drill.
Anyway. Fans kept the pressure up for four years, and eventually DC got so fed up that they just...fucking brought Steph back. I don't know how much of the reason was so that they wouldn't have to give her a memorial case and thus "let the girls win," but I bet it was more than 50%.
This is so fucking funny to me. What a bitchy little line to give Bruce. (Robin #174.)
See, immediately after Steph's death, Leslie Thompkins told Bruce she could have saved Steph but deliberately let her die to teach Bruce a lesson about letting kids fight in his war, which was a shocking bit of character assassination for Leslie and also...lol. As if Bruce cares about Steph enough to change his behavior.
Now in 2008 the official retcon was that while Steph was out of it and barely clinging to life, Leslie snuck her out of the country to Africa (where in Africa? don't worry about it, it's all the same, right?) to recover, and just told Bruce she was dead for the same ineffective lesson-teaching from before.
So Steph was never really dead! And Bruce knew that despite being by her side when she flatlined! And then he lied to Tim and said she was dead for...enrichment? Tim needs a little unnecessary grief in his enclosure sometimes. (Lol j/k Tim was nothing but grief and several nervous breakdowns in a trenchcoat at the time.) And Tim's just...basically fine with it???
DC sort of didn't really know what to do with Steph for a couple of years, so they put her through some really bad writing, and then since they had conveniently also put Cassandra Cain through several years of really bad writing, they had Cass quit being Batgirl and vanish out of comics for a bit, and Steph took over. What was done to Cass could be a post in its own right and the way she vacated the Batgirl role is awful, but it did give us the beautiful, golden, shining joy that is Batgirl (2009):
STEPHBATS YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE MY WHOLE HEART.
This comic was beloved. It wasn't a huge seller (though comfortably above the usual cancellation threshold), but everyone I know who has read it loved it, even people who had never liked Steph before. This is the book that changed her from "cautionary tale about comic book sexism" to "fan favorite funny Batgirl."
And then the New 52 happened. And the second battle of the Steph Wars began.
If you weren't reading comics in 2011, you may not know that aside from all the controversy any major reboot engenders, the New 52 was very specifically controversial because of how women were treated by the reboot. Prior to the reboot, 12% of the creators working on DC's comics were women, which is just...an incredibly embarrassing number to begin with.
After the reboot, 1% of their creators were women. There were two (2) women in the initial New 52 lineup: Gail Simone and Amy Reeder. They were both fired the following year.
I am really struggling to communicate how badly women were treated around the New 52: creators, fans, characters. It was so bad that the Wikipedia page for the New 52 has multiple subsections about it. But I want to call out one part in particular:
This led to a tense interaction between fans and DC Comics co-publisher Dan DiDio at the 2011 San Diego Comic Con, where DiDio was asked by a fan about the drop in female creators from 12% to 1%. DiDio responded by saying, "What do those numbers mean to you? What do they mean to you? Who should we be hiring? Tell me right now. Who should we be hiring right now? Tell me."
What Wikipedia doesn't mention, but was widely reported all over the internet in 2011, was that the fan who held DC's feet to the fire at multiple panels over their obvious misogyny was dressed as Stephanie Brown.
Just like she had in 2004/2005, Steph became a symbol of the comic book industry's mistreatment of women - and a symbol that "all those girls" Bill Willingham had fantasized about shooting would not go away.
But what about Steph herself? Well, the New 52 reboot was meant to be starting over from scratch. Batman had only been around for five years, so obviously he couldn't have gone through five Robins in all that time!
...No, he'd gone through four. Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian were all still around. But Cass and Steph were gone and Babs was still Batgirl, erasing both her status as DC's most iconic disabled character and her legacy as the first of and mentor to all the other Batgirls. Legacy only matters when it's boys, you see. And following the rules only matters when it's for the purposes of keeping girls out.
And the erasure of Steph in particular was very clearly targeted. In 2012, Bryan Q. Miller (who had written Steph's Batgirl series) tried to include Steph as a future Nightwing in his Smallville Season 11 comic, set in the Smallville universe and not the main DCU. He was told to replace her. Not with anyone in particular, just get her out of there.
Later that year, DC launched the adorable digital first Li'l Gotham series by Dustin Nguyen (who had also worked on Steph's Batgirl series) and Derek Fridolfs. The Halloween issue included a little blonde girl trick or treating while wearing what was clearly Steph's Batgirl costume, a cute little Easter egg for fans. That is, until later editions, when the girl's hair was recolored to black. Again, this is a comic that was not set in the main DC universe, and the little girl wasn't even Steph, just a random kid. (Dustin managed to sneak a reference into a later issue in 2013, and by 2014 things had chilled out enough that Steph got a proper cameo.)
Scott Snyder asked to use Steph and Cass and was told no. Same with Gail Simone. Word on the street was that DC had declared them both "toxic."
Was it DiDio who hated Steph? I have no idea. But it was certainly DiDio who publicly berated a cosplayer in a Steph costume when she asked why there were so few women in the reboot that would become his ultimate legacy. (Well, his other ultimate legacy besides shielding and repeatedly promoting noted sexual harasser Eddie Berganza for 15 years.)
Steph finally, finally returned in 2014, not just to Li'l Gotham but to the main DCU with Batman #28. It makes me very happy that Dustin Nguyen got to be the one to draw her:
(Cass would have to wait nearly two more years, until Batman & Robin Eternal in late 2015 - further proof, as if any was needed, that however bad white women have it, women of color get treated even worse.)
As the comic above would indicate, Steph was reintroduced as being Spoiler and only Spoiler - still no girl Robins allowed. The 2016 Rebirth reboot introduced the idea that she had been both Robin and Batgirl...but in a different timeline. Finally, 2021's Infinite Frontier (after DiDio's departure from DC) restored both Steph and Cass's full history with all of their previous roles to continuity, further reinforced in 2022 by both the Robins miniseries and the Batgirls ongoing, both of which co-starred Steph.
Is the comic book industry still sexist? Yes, obviously. Do I wish DC had a better idea for what to do with Steph these days than occasionally pop up in the background of a Bat comic to make a joke? Yes, obviously. But when I look back at how openly misogynistic the industry was in the 2000s and early 2010s, how naked the vitriol against female characters and readers was, I'm always shocked anew by how much has changed, and how much we used to put up with.
We've come a long way, and some of that is thanks to Stephanie Brown becoming a symbol for women who would not lay down and die, would not be erased, would not shut the fuck up. As Bruce himself put it waaaay up at the top of this post:
"I did everything I could to make her quit. She wouldn't. She stood up to me, right down the line--defied me."
So in honor of Steph, the get-back-up-again-est girl in comics, please take two things away from this post:
Um so im the gal who relayed the firsthand info for the âlivejournal page buried in the bowels of the internetâ (i??? Itâs not particularly buried. I think you could have googled it) that quoted Bill Willingham, here it is for the record https://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/2022096.html?thread=68087760#cmt6808776
scans_daily | Bill Willingham and the girls of girl-wonder.org
This write up is great but one thing I wanna make a post about myself someday for this era is girl-wonder.org, evenrobins, so on â there were actual fan orgs and sites dedicated to protesting Stephâs case and talking about women in comics but they tend to just be described as just âfansâ in hindsight when I think the fact they organized is really important.
Should be noted in (I think) an article for BleedingCool.com (I've tried finding it again, and annoyingly it doesn't seem to be archived and all the links I've found are dead) about this whole mess had a quote about how Bill Willingham and DIdio had already decided to kill off Steph prior to her being made Robin, and that they considered her being Robin to be throwing her fans a bone before they assumedly closed the door on the character...
...Except as the main post and ladyloveandjustice have said, even if her being Robin was considered to be a token gesture for her fans, their repeatedly undercutting its importance (how Bruce only gave her the role to make Tim jealous, how Didio said she wasn't a REAL Robin and thus not deserving a memorial etc.) just makes it come off as even more mean-spirited?
And that's not even getting into how the aforementioned writer of Cass' book at the time was creeped out how jazzed Bill Willingham and some of the other writers were in planning out Steph's torturous death at a writing retreat DC was having at the time to plot out the issues surrounding the War Games event (which aside from the physical torture, also had stuff like Black Mask asking Steph if she was there for Robin, Batman etc. to sleep with as she was less skilled than them in other ways, which was exceptionally gross).
It was definitely an awful time to get into DC, going from the late 1990s to 2000s where they had a ton of great series' (Ed Brubaker's Catwoman, Cassandra Cain's solo Batgirl book, Gail Simone's Birds of Prey etc.) only from when the point Didio began to start micro-managing the place there was a weird cultural shift at the company that only really seemed to get better once they tossed his ass out. Greg Rucka (writer of Wonder Woman Rebirth, co-creator of Gotham Central etc.), who has been vocal in the past about his poor treatment by DC under Didio, has said things are better there now than they have in years (for him at least, while responding to a positive review for his new Cheetah & Cheshire Rob The Justice League book).
DC definitely have bio kid characters who feel like industry plants (suddenly the most important thing in their parents lives, strangely beloved by every hero they come in contact with, get their own book rather fast, you know, the usual stuff DC does when they want you to like a new character) and we know that Damian's success played a part in DC creating more bio kids, especially for Superman and Wonder Woman...but I think it's important to remember that in Damian's case they didn't do anything of the stuff I've listed above.
He didn't really have a relationship with Bruce until 2011 (so five years after he first appeared), has beloved characters talking badly of him (sometimes even to his face) till this day and his first book (B&R 2009) is kind of more about Dick learning to be Batman while trying to mentor Damian than really about Damian as a person, at least in my opinion. The accusation that Damian is somehow to blame for other characters decline since the 2000s is also often unfair considering that from 2006-2013 DC's plan was to kill Damian and have him stay dead and that even after his resurrection DC never truly let him be the only Robin and main sidekick to Batman.
I don't know where I'm going with this, I guess I'm sad that I so rarely ever see anyone who has read enough comics and is aware of a lot of the real life context that lead to certain creative decisions to post takes on Damian or Damian's complicated relationship with Bruce and other members of his family that I think are a fair interpetation of the text.
On the topic of sexualization in comics and how it is quite literally written and drawn into female characters, I think of Batgirl 2000 issue #39. I think about how, on the SAME page that Cass admits her overwhelming discomfort at being perceived as a body first and a person second, she is being depicted like a pin-up model.
A full-body panel, with the curves of her body accentuated in long, sweeping lines. Showing off the very bikini that Barbara says she "should never have made [Cass] wear..." in an open and unassuming posture, like she hasn't just opened up about her wild distress at being subject to objectifying stares. The writing itself presented an incredibly important message, especially for female audiences, but who was that full-body panel really for?
2022 ink was so comparatively mild-mannered. "i'm not happy that alfred is still dead, but --" no fuck that. as far as i'm concerned bane-killed-alfred day is an international holiday and everyone is required to celebrate
One Steph line that has always stuck out to me is in blunt trauma when Steph says sheâs a âhalf glass empty type of personâ and pessimism as a character trait is something that really does make sense to me that is sorely missing (like most things) from the fandom perception of her and even many modern writings of her. So I guess my question here is what are your thoughts of Stephâs pessimism/how vital of a trait you think it is for her. And if you think there could be/are moments in her story when she moves to a more realist or optimistic approach/mindset
YES! Great great question! Steph is an explicitly pessimistic character and it gets ignored a LOT by both fandom and modern Steph writing. 100% agreed. Not only does she classify herself as one in Blunt Trauma as you mentioned, but additionally a similar idea gets brought up in Robin #100 when Tim alludes to Stephâs sudden optimism being uncharacteristic of her.
I think what gets a lot of people confused is how Steph can be a hopeful character and but not necessarily an optimistic one. Iâll admit that Itâs a somewhat arbitrary distinction, but I do think Stephâs more pessimistic traits and thought patterns arenât utterly incompatible with her also fighting for or representing hope like she does in Batgirl 2009.
When I think about Stephâs pessimism and what it means for her, I think about a few specific things.
For one, her beliefs about personal strength and her attitude towards relying on others. Steph had an incredibly shitty childhood, as we all know, and part of that shitty childhood was a prevailing failure from any adult in her life to step up when they were beeded.
Crystal couldnât be trusted to stay sober for long, couldnât be trusted to notice when Arthur was doing wrong, and above all couldnât be trusted to act in any way which would protect herself or Steph from Arthur.
Look at how she talks about and to Crystal. Dissatisfaction, yes, but also an almost total resignation. Talked about this a million times so I wonât go on but this is a prevailing pattern which greatly informs how Steph interacts with Crystal.
Likewise for Arthur. In a defining moment in Stephâs psyche, 11 year old Steph despite having no reason to trust Arthur given his constant abuse, reaches out in desperation to try to tell him that Arthurâs work friend tried to molest her, but Arthur canât be trusted even in this most severe and urgent scenario: he brushes her off, leading to her cementing what later becomes a pivotal mindset: Steph has to look out for herself.
All this to say, Stephâs pessimism manifests as a lack of faith, which in turn manifests the existence of Spoiler: if no one else can be trusted to foil Arthurâs crimes, Spoiler will do it. If no one else can be trusted to keep Arthur from hurting Crystal, Spoiler will do it. If no one else can be trusted to look out for Steph in one of the scariest moments of her life, Steph will be her own âsecret spyâ, sheâll handle everything by herself.
This is a hugely enduring and important characteristic of Stephâs, it appears constantly in her narrative, from the way she talks about responsibility during her pregnancy to to the subtle way she constantly misdirects Crystals concern to her constant and all encompassing determination to continue as Spoiler despite the condemnation of most everybody in her life.
Her pessimism in this way is not a nihilism, itâs a defiance. She believes things often suck and people often suck and they wonât stand up for you and they canât protect you: so she forms herself in opposition, she creates Spoiler in opposition. Sheâll stand up, sheâll protect. Not just herself, not just her mom, but her neighbors and her friends and every abused girl she encounters. And when she fights for second chances, when she champions hope, like she does constantly in Batgirl (2009), itâs not a reversal of that attitude, itâs an evolution of it. Maybe there can be a world where scared children can rely on the superheroes which float across the night sky. Maybe thatâs a possible world. And if it is, if thatâs at all a possibility, Steph is going to try to make it happen, just like she became that figure for herself. I think Steph can still be wary and not rely on others and not very optimistic and also represent hope through her enduring determination, through the fact that Steph has never and will never let any of that stop her, it fuels her in fact.
Her pessimism is a part of other aspects of her character. It also appears a lot in how she assesses others, both hero and villain. She assumes the worst of her allies in relation to how they see her, assumes they all see the worst in her. She repeatably worries about being seen as too connected to Arthur, guilty by association. Likewise, she assumes the worst in the villains she confronts. An early conflict of hers in Robin 1993 is her lack of care if criminals and villains die. She slowly seems to change her mind on it, but it never really fully goes away until Batgirl (2009). Its a grounded part of Stephâs character. Her hatred of violent criminals and disregard for their safety is rooted in her hatred for her father, the original violent criminal who defined so much of her childhood. Itâs also a pessimistic attitude: every criminal is evil and unchangeable, to her thereâs no reason to think or act otherwise. This trait is more amorphous and changes over time so Iâm not as attached to it as a pillar of her character, but some of it should definitely remain and inform how she acts as a vigilante.
Anyway really great question. I do think Stephâs pessimism is a strong part of her preboot character and I think it also leaves room for evolution and nuance!! Unfortunately it seems to be just another thing that has been generally sanded off of Stephâs modern character. Thanks for the ask!
it's always "i hate catwoman/talia/poison ivy/anybody for being written with misogynistic tropes" and never "i hate bruce wayne for being the patriarch that women written with misogynistic tropes are created for"
Anna Archive was a goddess of knowledge worshipped in the early 21st century[1][2]. Cultists of Anna would frequently move the shrines dedicated to her from place to place in great secrecy[1][3], requiring worshippers to possess secret information in order to access the far greater knowledge provided by worship, possibly as a form of sacrifice[Original research?]. Worship of Anna is associated with the increased enforcement of intellectual property rights at the time[1][4], as well as greater inaccessibility of academic materials due to the late-imperial academic crisis[5][6][Failed verification.]. It has been suggested[By whom?] that the name Anna Archive may be the origin of the word archive, referring to a repository of information[7].
The wildest thing about Ben 10 is that it took until 2005 for someone to have the idea "what if a kid could turn into a bunch of aliens" like this isn't obviously the coolest and most marketable premise for anything ever. Each design is a new toy. A new powerset. Come on.
But to prove that it wasn't a fluke, they continued to have the best ideas for every aspect of it. How does he transform? A cool watch you can also sell as a toy. That watch's name? Omnitrix. Say it. It's so satisfying. How many aliens? Ten. Nice round number. The kid's name? Ben. The show's name? Ben Ten. His full name is Benjamin Tennyson, a normal, plausible name, but he also turns into 10 aliens.
Bigger brands dream about this synergy. Better writers would kill for this coherence. So holistic. So intuitive. The identity alone!!! The retro alien sound motif? Chilling. The green? Any other color would be wrong. The kirby krackle pattern? It seems so obvious in retrospect. The roadtrip format? Genius. Lesser writers would've done the spider-man high school thing. His arch nemesis being Cthulhu darth vader? Inspired, iconic, intimidating!
The execution has its highs and lows, but the idea??? Game changing. So self-evident that it seems inevitable. If Ben 10 didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
kianamaiart
gummygunk
areudirty
theartofmadeline
turnnoffyourmind
