When Cass was Batgirl and Steph was Robin...

[espanolbot]

From Batgirl 53
Cass is out disrupting an illegal arms deal on the streets of Gotham, when it suddenly takes a turn for the unexpected.


Luckily Batman sends a temp to go and help out Cass,

Cass: Steph... your hair is HUGE!

Thus begins one of the few times Cass and Steph teamed up professionally that didn't have Bruce tell them not to, hooray!

Of course it was heavily implied after Batman fired her, that Bruce only gave Steph the job to make Tim jealous, and make him return to the job that he'd retired from at his father's request. Oh well.

They find that the Penguin was the one who was selling the superguns to gangs around the city, and has been using one of his henchmen's five year old daugther to transport them, on the basis that people won't expect a child of smuggling guns. Well, this WAS the guy who had a side operation of farming the unwanted babies of teenage mothers over in Broken City, so it shouldn't really be that suprising.



Another weakness of Cass' rears it's ugly head: a lack of people skills!


Steph and Cass go to get Oswald, and Steph gets speach-a-fying,




This was the first of two team-ups they had while Steph was Robin (though there might have been more in flashback if Steph's series had been allowed to progress *bitter*), and they only met briefly once more before Steph died in War Games. *sigh*

Comments

[pyrotwilight]

And then Stephanie came back to work for Oswald as Spoiler when the batclan thought she was dead.

[runespoor]

Psh, that's like the thing where she turns invisible: that never happened.

[mrstatham]

Yeah.. No-one acknowledges Gotham Underground even remotely anymore. I don't think the joke of a villain helped much.

[icon_uk]

It's a shame because there is surely an impressive story to be told about the Gotham Underworld, but GU certainly wasn't it.

Something akin to Gotham Central but from the criminals POV.

[mrstatham]

I think it's difficult because the notion of a criminal underworld in Gotham, at least to me, feels a little odd in a world of flamboyant criminals like the Joker who very often operate out in the open, and stories like The Long Halloween and Dark Victory pretty much blatantly state that the freaks have overtaken organised crime in Gotham.

But I'm fairly certain a skilled writer like Rucka or even the current BOP writer could craft an interesting crime story about the criminals like Penguin or Two Face, who operate in a more standard manner, usually, than someone like Joker.

Gotham Underground was just awful, though, and ticked off a whole bunch of cliches, including the standard 'new bad guy fucks up a bunch of old ones to show how badass he is' schtick.

[icon_uk]

One might hope that organised crime is smart enough to leave the crazies enough room to play (and accept some losses in return) in order that they can continue working under the radar.

The current Penguin series sort of skirts around that, since he's not crazy as such, but is very unorthodox in his approach.

Though the preview to the latest issue (Which I meant to post a page of), has a great moment where a couple of the Penguin's henchmen are bemoaning their lot in life and one of them notes

"My momma always told me... Never trust a man whose name starts with 'The' "

Wise words in Gotham methinks...

[espanolbot]

Suffers from "Frank Tieri thinks he's writing Marvel characters" syndrome. Where Tobias Whale, an already established character, becomes an albino version of the Kingpin, Vigilante becomes the Punisher and that Johnny Stitchface(?) guy who was created pretty much so they could have a Jigsaw.

[bariman]

I'd want something that explains why really crappy bosses like the Joker and Black Mask keep getting henchmen, despite frequently murdering said henchmen for stupid reasons. Not to mention the fact that their accomplices to all the super-criminals' crimes, up to multiple homicides (and even domestic terrorism, given the Joker's frequent uses of chemical weapons) that would get anyone involved life in a maximun security prison or the death penalty.