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scans_dailyThe 2000s weren't a great time for Batman. True, there were a lot of good stories and creators with a lot of good work at the time, some of which is still influencing work to this day (such as Gotham Central and the Brubaker/Stewart/Cooke Catwoman run), but as for the character himself? ...Well you know how a lot of the bullying behaviour from Silver Age Superman stories can apparently be traced back to one particularly unpleasant editor or something? Same goes for Batman's behaviour in a lot of these stories.
For example, let us use the era's favourite punching bag: Stephanie Brown. Now, due to some prior circumstances (Tim Drake's dad found out that he was Robin, and blackmailed him and Bruce into making Tim quit), the Robin position had become vacant. So, Stephanie decided to step up to the plate, she having been trained by Cassandra Cain, Black Canary, Oracle, Bruce himself etc. in the past, so it wasn't as if she had just wandered in off the street.
It seems for a moment that Bruce is undergoing a (at the time) uncharacteristic change of heart, and actually allowing her to prove herself as the newest Robin... but then Alfred inserts himself into the conversation and muddies the waters substantially.
Wow, ambiguously implying that rather than getting the job on her own merits, Steph got the job in order to make Tim Drake come back due to his ego being bruised by his girlfriend getting his old job.
Way to respect both Tim's choice and Stephanie herself as a person there, Bruce.
Thing is, because Bruce only intended her to be a “Placeholder”, he deliberately didn’t give her as thorough a training regime that she could have had if he were serious about it.
“Hit like a girl“ …Yeah, Bill Willingham wrote this alright. Urgh. Complete with negative contrasts to her boyfriend, nice. Even if that wasn't the kind of comment Batman would make normally, bare in mind that this was the era of Batman comics that only had Cassandra Cain as Batgirl, but also the Birds of Prey, Harley Quinn, and Brubaker's Catwoman knocking around. "Hit like a girl" ain't exactly as derisive a statement as Bruce is making it out to be.
But, if Bruce had bothered to actually share the full wad of secrets with her, Steph probably wouldn’t have ended up using the War Games plans which resulted in her “death“. So yeah, good going, slick.
But that’s the thing, though. Both in universe and in reality, Steph being made Robin was done purely as a kind of send-off gift by DC for her fans as the decision had already been made that she was going to die in Willingham’s crossover event War Games. For years afterwards, Dan Didio and co refused to, for example, have a memorial to her in the Bat Cave, even though Jason Todd had one even after he came back from the dead. The reasoning being that "Stephanie Brown wasn't really a Robin" So the mastermind of the event taking this and heavily indicating that Steph didn’t really count in the same manner as Dick, Jason or Tim was, really, really kind of… well…
It brings to mind that joke exchange in Futurama, where the Harlem Globetrotters come to Earth to challenge them to a basketball game (the HG having moved to another planet some time previously). Someone asks them what the stakes are, only for the Globetrotters' leader to declare "Nothing! There is nothing at stake and no threat, beyond the shame of defeat!". That example was from a comedy, but if the creators are openly suggesting the audience shouldn't care about something happening, why should we?
Not that this prevented some of the writers who actually liked Steph from writing some good stories with her as Robin, such as her appearance in Cassandra Cain’s Batgirl series, but still it was just so… mean-spirited.
And that's not even going into HOW they decided to kill Steph off (sexualised torture coupled with throwing ANOTHER member of the female Bat Family (Leslie Thompson) under the bus. Yaaay.). Thing is, the writer of Robin at the time, Bill Willingham, has made very clear that he didn't like Stephanie Brown much in the years that followed this storyline, very much making the "Not A Real Robin" thing come across like his personal view of the character, much how his political views later resulted in a Captain America Expy turning up to lecture Tim Drake on the virtues of paramilitarism.
The personal tastes of the creators being reflected in a work isn't necessarily a bad thing, but not when it comes to the detriment of not just your own characters, but other people's... yeah. This ends up taking a moment that could have been a good moment for the fans, and then cheapening it by making Batman's decision to hire her ring hollow as he was only using her to get Tim back.
For example, let us use the era's favourite punching bag: Stephanie Brown. Now, due to some prior circumstances (Tim Drake's dad found out that he was Robin, and blackmailed him and Bruce into making Tim quit), the Robin position had become vacant. So, Stephanie decided to step up to the plate, she having been trained by Cassandra Cain, Black Canary, Oracle, Bruce himself etc. in the past, so it wasn't as if she had just wandered in off the street.
It seems for a moment that Bruce is undergoing a (at the time) uncharacteristic change of heart, and actually allowing her to prove herself as the newest Robin... but then Alfred inserts himself into the conversation and muddies the waters substantially.
Wow, ambiguously implying that rather than getting the job on her own merits, Steph got the job in order to make Tim Drake come back due to his ego being bruised by his girlfriend getting his old job.
Way to respect both Tim's choice and Stephanie herself as a person there, Bruce.
Thing is, because Bruce only intended her to be a “Placeholder”, he deliberately didn’t give her as thorough a training regime that she could have had if he were serious about it.
“Hit like a girl“ …Yeah, Bill Willingham wrote this alright. Urgh. Complete with negative contrasts to her boyfriend, nice. Even if that wasn't the kind of comment Batman would make normally, bare in mind that this was the era of Batman comics that only had Cassandra Cain as Batgirl, but also the Birds of Prey, Harley Quinn, and Brubaker's Catwoman knocking around. "Hit like a girl" ain't exactly as derisive a statement as Bruce is making it out to be.
But, if Bruce had bothered to actually share the full wad of secrets with her, Steph probably wouldn’t have ended up using the War Games plans which resulted in her “death“. So yeah, good going, slick.
But that’s the thing, though. Both in universe and in reality, Steph being made Robin was done purely as a kind of send-off gift by DC for her fans as the decision had already been made that she was going to die in Willingham’s crossover event War Games. For years afterwards, Dan Didio and co refused to, for example, have a memorial to her in the Bat Cave, even though Jason Todd had one even after he came back from the dead. The reasoning being that "Stephanie Brown wasn't really a Robin" So the mastermind of the event taking this and heavily indicating that Steph didn’t really count in the same manner as Dick, Jason or Tim was, really, really kind of… well…
It brings to mind that joke exchange in Futurama, where the Harlem Globetrotters come to Earth to challenge them to a basketball game (the HG having moved to another planet some time previously). Someone asks them what the stakes are, only for the Globetrotters' leader to declare "Nothing! There is nothing at stake and no threat, beyond the shame of defeat!". That example was from a comedy, but if the creators are openly suggesting the audience shouldn't care about something happening, why should we?
Not that this prevented some of the writers who actually liked Steph from writing some good stories with her as Robin, such as her appearance in Cassandra Cain’s Batgirl series, but still it was just so… mean-spirited.
And that's not even going into HOW they decided to kill Steph off (sexualised torture coupled with throwing ANOTHER member of the female Bat Family (Leslie Thompson) under the bus. Yaaay.). Thing is, the writer of Robin at the time, Bill Willingham, has made very clear that he didn't like Stephanie Brown much in the years that followed this storyline, very much making the "Not A Real Robin" thing come across like his personal view of the character, much how his political views later resulted in a Captain America Expy turning up to lecture Tim Drake on the virtues of paramilitarism.
The personal tastes of the creators being reflected in a work isn't necessarily a bad thing, but not when it comes to the detriment of not just your own characters, but other people's... yeah. This ends up taking a moment that could have been a good moment for the fans, and then cheapening it by making Batman's decision to hire her ring hollow as he was only using her to get Tim back.
