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[url=Stephanie Brown: Spoiler, Robin, Batgirl Appreciation 2019]Link to old thread[/url]
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Heres to 2020 and hopefully more Steph. Young Justice looks like a promising start.
Over at the Doomsday Clock new Earth threads, I suggested that if Post Crisis story continues, Steph will remain Batgirl and all the Batgirl story in New 52 excepting the ones involving the Gordon family goes to her.
The first New 52 Batgirl story is Dark Reflection where Babs faced a villain that forces his victims to face their dark past or dark side. What would be Steph's dark side/past that she will be forced to face?
If they were to merge all the continuity, then I wouldn't expect Barbara's story to be severely affected - she'd just have been out of action for longer than three years and be in her late twenties (as she is now) instead of 21. But I do agree that it means Steph's time as Batgirl would've lasted longer. She would simply eventually go back to being Spoiler on her own, wanting her own identity. As such, there'd be a hole in Steph's continuity that needs filling in.
[QUOTE=Restingvoice;4758034]Over at the Doomsday Clock new Earth threads, I suggested that if Post Crisis story continues, Steph will remain Batgirl and all the Batgirl story in New 52 excepting the ones involving the Gordon family goes to her.
The first New 52 Batgirl story is Dark Reflection where Babs faced a villain that forces his victims to face their dark past or dark side. What would be Steph's dark side/past that she will be forced to face?[/QUOTE]
Bear the end of Jon Lewis' run, he was telling a story about how Stephanie had been abused as a child by her father's friends. I think that would qualify.
Happy New Year to my favorite blonde, purple, Superheroine :cool:.
Hooray! A new thread! It warms my heart to see the Steph community like this. :)
Happy New Year to a criminally underrated character.
Steph will always have my admiration. She might not be the fastest, the strongest or the most skilled fighter of the Bat-Family but she never gives up and for that I love her. Underdog heroes are the best kind. :cool:
…and that's why this is the Unsinkable Stephanie Brown Appreciation Thread. :)
[QUOTE=Celgress;4759598]Happy New Year to a criminally underrated character.
Steph will always have my admiration. She might not be the fastest, the strongest or the most skilled fighter of the Bat-Family but she never gives up and for that I love her. Underdog heroes are the best kind. :cool:[/QUOTE]
Well said. I went on a bit of a Wall of Text on twitter, as part of my 12 Days of Steph series, where I tried to explain why I love Steph so much:
[url]https://twitter.com/ibmmiller/status/1212165551478509568[/url]
[I]I first met Stephanie Brown properly while reading trade paperbacks of Batman: War Games in Books-A-Million at college in Tennessee, in the collected Batman 12-Cent Special (seen above). I was captivated by someone who had tried her hardest, and failed, & desperately tried again.
It's taken me all 14 years since then to figure out why I loved her so much. It's because, to me, Stephanie Brown is on the outside of the "in" group (the Batfamily). She wants acceptance and affirmation and training and even constructive criticism so desperately.
But try as she might, she can't find it. Stephanie Brown, no matter who is writing her, should always not quite fit. She should find ways to grow and find her niche, but she's never going to quite have the central place in other character's lives.
And that's sometimes hard for me, both as a person on the margins of my friend groups, and as a fan of a character who is constantly ignored by other fans and the company who owns her.
But the other thing about Stephanie Brown that I loved in that 12-Cent promotional comic: she didn't give up. Now, those who know about Batman: War Games know that editorial forced the stupidest possible ending on Steph - she dies, having failed yet again.
But people who met her and loved her, like me, didn't give up. We remembered her, and when she came back, we embraced her with the same passion. She was Stephanie Brown, and we were her fans.
The other two comics in this picture are a study in contrasts. One of the most famous covers from Robin of all time, #126, where Stephanie Brown bursts on the scene as the first in-continuity Girl Wonder, beautifully drawn by Damion Scott.
And Wizard Magazine #150, a 7 page prologue to Robin #126 that has never been collected, even though it makes Stephanie Brown's motivations so much clearer in that messy event. I just discovered this comic a few weeks ago, and eagerly bought the mag off ebay. And it's lovely!
So, apologies for the wall of tweets, but I wanted to take this time to insert myself into this series and explain why I'm taking just under two weeks to celebrate a minor Batman supporting character. It's because Stephanie Brown is always on the outside, but never gives up.[/I]
[QUOTE=Dataweaver;4759622]…and that's why this is the Unsinkable Stephanie Brown Appreciation Thread. :)[/QUOTE]
That is indeed.
[QUOTE=Dataweaver;4758506]Bear the end of Jon Lewis' run, he was telling a story about how Stephanie had been abused as a child by her father's friends. I think that would qualify.[/QUOTE]
Ah dang. Do I want to know?
[QUOTE=Restingvoice;4759938]Ah dang. Do I want to know?[/QUOTE]
Probably, yes. It was handled tastefully, and my biggest regret about it was that the story got cut short before Lewis could finish it. She was fast approaching the crisis point of that story arc and suddenly it was as if none of it had ever happened.
Jon Lewis actually got both Tim and Stephanie right. As I've said elsewhere, his biggest failing in writing Robin was his reliance on weirdness in the costumed adventurers part of the stories.
[QUOTE=Dataweaver;4763607]Probably, yes. It was handled tastefully, and my biggest regret about it was that the story got cut short before Lewis could finish it. She was fast approaching the crisis point of that story arc and suddenly it was as if none of it had ever happened.
Jon Lewis actually got both Tim and Stephanie right. As I've said elsewhere, his biggest failing in writing Robin was his reliance on weirdness in the costumed adventurers part of the stories.[/QUOTE]
I'm one of the Steph fans who thinks that while Lewis handled the abuse plot reasonably well, it felt really cliched, and the incredibly strange and off-putting plotting of the superhero side of the stories justly hold back his run from being better remembered. But it's a shame, since Steph was such a huge part of that run.
She was practically a costar.
And yeah; the plot was “cliche” in the sense that it's the sort of thing that happens far too often in the circumstances that Stephanie grew up in — not just a poor family, but a dysfunctional one. I'd say that it's amazing that she turned out as well as she did; but I had a girlfriend once who likewise came from a broken home, and you'd never know it to look at her. As my girlfriend told me, you can either let it make you miserable, or you can choose to be happy in spite of it. In that regard, it goes to Stephanie's character: she refused to let her rotten upbringing destroy her.
[QUOTE=Dataweaver;4763914]She was practically a costar.
And yeah; the plot was “cliche” in the sense that it's the sort of thing that happens far too often in the circumstances that Stephanie grew up in — not just a poor family, but a dysfunctional one. I'd say that it's amazing that she turned out as well as she did; but I had a girlfriend once who likewise came from a broken home, and you'd never know it to look at her. As my girlfriend told me, you can either let it make you miserable, or you can choose to be happy in spite of it. In that regard, it goes to Stephanie's character: she refused to let her rotten upbringing destroy her.[/QUOTE]
Sounds like she was a pretty cool person. Steph certainly is a very cool person! :)