Stephanie Brown: Spoiler, Robin, Batgirl Appreciation 2020

[Restingvoice]

Quick question.

Would you guys be for Stephanie wearing her pre-Flashpoint Batgirl costume, but still being called Spoiler?

Nah that be weird
if we wanna put a bat on her and not call her Batgirl let's make a new identity like Black Bat for Cass

[Restingvoice]

Quick question.

Would you guys be for Stephanie wearing her pre-Flashpoint Batgirl costume, but still being called Spoiler?

Nah that be weird
if we wanna put a bat on her and not call her Batgirl let's make a new identity like Black Bat for Cass

[Digifiend]

When were they cancelled? I still see them around.

ETA: oh, I see: https://www.comicsbeat.com/dc-comics...almart-giants/

A big shame. Ah, well. At least we get the digital firsts. I hope they figure out a way to publish these as trades.

Yeah, the current issues are the last, it was only announced a couple of weeks ago, sorry.

[Frontier]

Seems like DC is more comfortable acknowledging Steph as a Robin these days.

[millernumber1]

Yeah, the current issues are the last, it was only announced a couple of weeks ago, sorry.

I am very sad

Seems like DC is more comfortable acknowledging Steph as a Robin these days.

I am very happy!

[ohfellow]

Very late with some of my impressions.

Batgirl #13:

Nice catch about the Bat-profile shadow! I don't think I would ever have caught that.

I wish DC left all the lettering on the covers when they reprint them in the TPB. The "Oh, that's just gross!" dialog on the cover is funny!

Is this the first time there's a clue Gage has some tragedy in his background involving his wife? (And how does Clayface know about it? He certainly does.)

I wonder what kind of tunnel leads to a bank, but perhaps the bank is in a basement. Or, it's a very wide ventilator shaft, and Steph has entered it from a higher floor.

Gee, DC has outdone itself with the number of Clayface characters it's introduced. And I thought Aquaman and Power Girl had strange backstories!

I did want something to happen with Steph and Nick, but it was kind of weird he was introduced as more of a love (/hate) interest for Barbara. BQM seems to have written it that way deliberately, though I don't know why. He could have demonstrated bad luck with men in some other way.

Nice use of the gooperangs - is this the first time they've been featured?



Batgirl #14:

A really fun little adventure. I like how you just feel these two are friends, even though they haven't been seen together since World's Finest, and only had a trivial interaction over communicators in #8.

I love the montage including the photo booth, and eating ice cream cones.

Again, the actual cover is better than the version in the TPB - this time, VASTLY better. The TPB version has a nearly empty white space on the movie marquee, though it's true you can see the building silhouettes on it more readily. But I'd trade the silhouettes any day for what I consider to be indispensable, and very funny, text. And while I think of cover text as always integral to the art design - part of the comic book art form - it's especially critical here. Space was clearly left for that text, and omitting it makes the cover art both incomplete and imbalanced. It's a crime DC omitted it.

Minor complaint: Supergirl adopted the name Linda Lang along with the eyeglasses a couple of years earlier, but Stephanie calls her Kara.

[millernumber1]

Very late with some of my impressions.

Batgirl #13:

Nice catch about the Bat-profile shadow! I don't think I would ever have caught that.

I wish DC left all the lettering on the covers when they reprint them in the TPB. The "Oh, that's just gross!" dialog on the cover is funny!

Is this the first time there's a clue Gage has some tragedy in his background involving his wife? (And how does Clayface know about it? He certainly does.)

I wonder what kind of tunnel leads to a bank, but perhaps the bank is in a basement. Or, it's a very wide ventilator shaft, and Steph has entered it from a higher floor.

Gee, DC has outdone itself with the number of Clayface characters it's introduced. And I thought Aquaman and Power Girl had strange backstories!

I did want something to happen with Steph and Nick, but it was kind of weird he was introduced as more of a love (/hate) interest for Barbara. BQM seems to have written it that way deliberately, though I don't know why. He could have demonstrated bad luck with men in some other way.

Nice use of the gooperangs - is this the first time they've been featured?

Batgirl #14:

A really fun little adventure. I like how you just feel these two are friends, even though they haven't been seen together since World's Finest, and only had a trivial interaction over communicators in #8.

I love the montage including the photo booth, and eating ice cream cones.

Again, the actual cover is better than the version in the TPB - this time, VASTLY better. The TPB version has a nearly empty white space on the movie marquee, though it's true you can see the building silhouettes on it more readily. But I'd trade the silhouettes any day for what I consider to be indispensable, and very funny, text. And while I think of cover text as always integral to the art design - part of the comic book art form - it's especially critical here. Space was clearly left for that text, and omitting it makes the cover art both incomplete and imbalanced. It's a crime DC omitted it.

Minor complaint: Supergirl adopted the name Linda Lang along with the eyeglasses a couple of years earlier, but Stephanie calls her Kara.

Awesome thoughts!

I actually prefer the covers without text, though sometimes, as with #14, it does weaken them a lot. But most of the time, the text just annoys me (see also: the horrible text they're using on Tynion's current run of Batman, which keeps lying about what's going on inside).

I think this is the first time we learn about Gage's tragic past. I also kind of shipped Nick and Steph, but BQM said that he wanted giving up pursuit of Gage to be a big moment of maturity on Steph's part, and I think it works, though it's sadly very rushed.

I can't recall if this is the first time she's used the gooperangs, but I feel like they become much more prominent after #13 - kind of her "go to" weapon (as we'll see in Future's End!)

I am pretty glad that I own the floppy of #14, because the cover does look very odd without the text.

No clue about Supergirl's ID or continuity, sadly. I tried a couple of issues around this time, both before the solicited crossover, and after, and I never got into it, sadly.

[ohfellow]

Awesome thoughts!

I actually prefer the covers without text, though sometimes, as with #14, it does weaken them a lot. But most of the time, the text just annoys me (see also: the horrible text they're using on Tynion's current run of Batman, which keeps lying about what's going on inside).

Ah, but irrelevant text is totally classic about comic books, and I find it charming. Also, the lettering is part of the art - the logo covers up some art, and is covered up by some art, and the colors are coordinated, and it's all by design. The artists expect it and sketch it in. Covers are actually unbalanced without the logo, because of the wasted space at the top where nothing is happening.

And sometimes, the cover art interacts with the logo, or the logo is altered in various ways.

During the fall of 2019, during Year of the Villain, a progressive theme was applied almost line-wide. (Exceptions were Batman and some months of Superman, which were doing their own unrelated stories, like "City of Bane.")

The logos were increasingly "damaged" each month. They were actually called battle-damaged logos. Newsarama mentioned them in one story, but wrote that they were variant covers, which was incorrect - they were the main covers.

DC might have alluded to it elliptically only once, so it was your typical non-marketing. They put so much thought and effort into this, and then - silence. No one noticed or, I guess, cared - or not enough to mention it. If the treatment had been applied to just one cover, it might not have been noteworthy, but I found it cool that it was done across the line for 4 consecutive months.

Let's see:

August 2019: the logos were breaking up, or jumbled, cracking or melting, and story elements (like hands and objects) were ripping them up

September 2019: logos were printed at the bottom (they had all "fallen")

October 2019: logos are a transparent gray (fading away)

November 2019: The top acetate cover title was the villain name, with the regular character name in small plain letters. The underlying regular paper cover had the regular logo, but tiny, so it could be hidden in some corner where the acetate contents would hide it. (This must have lost DC some sales! Because their titles might have been hard to spot.)

Another feature of the November 2019 cover went equally unremarked upon: the acetate layer was designed so that elements of the underlying cover showed through, forming parts of both images. I guess it was embossed or printed in some areas and transparent in others? Not sure how to describe it. It was both ingenious and beautiful. (Only Romita Jr.'s cover for Action #1017 messed this up completely - he evidently didn't understand the assignment at all! Dustin Nguyen's cover for Batgirl #41 also missed the mark, but wasn't a catastrophe. Catwoman #17 was one of the good ones, a cover you probably know which has Spoiler in the corner of the mirror - on the acetate layer. The Selina looking into the mirror is actually on the bottom layer, and the rest of the obscured bottom layer is a different mirror with different characters reflecting in it. This one had a fairly simple acetate "cut-out"; some of the comics were more elaborately done.)

The broken logos are visible on the digital copies, and anywhere the cover images are shown. But I presume they will be left out of any TPBs.

So, I like this kind of thing! DC does this stuff, and then doesn't tell anyone - it's weird. They are sort of incompetent.

If you follow any of the DC production people on Twitter, they sometimes showcase or mention their work. (An example might be Darran Robinson, @DarranRobinson3 - and, completely unrelated, since he has worked on some of the supplemental material in the 80th anniversary issues, someone should ask him about the Steph bio in the Robin special, and whether it was deliberate or accidental to not mention Batgirl! That could illuminate continuity. It would be funny, though, if the decision was purely an accident in the production department and had no editorial import. That would leave it, technically, not truly defined one way or the other.)

[Tsukiakari1203]

Oh, now THIS is SUPER exciting!



Tim Seeley is writing, V Ken Marion is pencilling with Sandu Florea inking a story with all FIVE Robins! You can see Steph in the back right, wearing her Spoiler costume, with Jason and Tim wearing their up to date costumes, so maybe this story is in continuity!


It will be digital first as part of the Batman: Gotham Knights line on Comixology and DC's website, and maybe will show up as a Batman Giant in Walmart down the road!

I'm so pumped for this and I'm thrilled they acknowledge her as Robin IV on panel.

[millernumber1]

Ah, but irrelevant text is totally classic about comic books, and I find it charming. Also, the lettering is part of the art - the logo covers up some art, and is covered up by some art, and the colors are coordinated, and it's all by design. The artists expect it and sketch it in. Covers are actually unbalanced without the logo, because of the wasted space at the top where nothing is happening.

And sometimes, the cover art interacts with the logo, or the logo is altered in various ways.

During the fall of 2019, during Year of the Villain, a progressive theme was applied almost line-wide. (Exceptions were Batman and some months of Superman, which were doing their own unrelated stories, like "City of Bane.")

The logos were increasingly "damaged" each month. They were actually called battle-damaged logos. Newsarama mentioned them in one story, but wrote that they were variant covers, which was incorrect - they were the main covers.

DC might have alluded to it elliptically only once, so it was your typical non-marketing. They put so much thought and effort into this, and then - silence. No one noticed or, I guess, cared - or not enough to mention it. If the treatment had been applied to just one cover, it might not have been noteworthy, but I found it cool that it was done across the line for 4 consecutive months.

Let's see:

August 2019: the logos were breaking up, or jumbled, cracking or melting, and story elements (like hands and objects) were ripping them up

September 2019: logos were printed at the bottom (they had all "fallen")

October 2019: logos are a transparent gray (fading away)

November 2019: The top acetate cover title was the villain name, with the regular character name in small plain letters. The underlying regular paper cover had the regular logo, but tiny, so it could be hidden in some corner where the acetate contents would hide it. (This must have lost DC some sales! Because their titles might have been hard to spot.)

Another feature of the November 2019 cover went equally unremarked upon: the acetate layer was designed so that elements of the underlying cover showed through, forming parts of both images. I guess it was embossed or printed in some areas and transparent in others? Not sure how to describe it. It was both ingenious and beautiful. (Only Romita Jr.'s cover for Action #1017 messed this up completely - he evidently didn't understand the assignment at all! Dustin Nguyen's cover for Batgirl #41 also missed the mark, but wasn't a catastrophe. Catwoman #17 was one of the good ones, a cover you probably know which has Spoiler in the corner of the mirror - on the acetate layer. The Selina looking into the mirror is actually on the bottom layer, and the rest of the obscured bottom layer is a different mirror with different characters reflecting in it. This one had a fairly simple acetate "cut-out"; some of the comics were more elaborately done.)

The broken logos are visible on the digital copies, and anywhere the cover images are shown. But I presume they will be left out of any TPBs.

So, I like this kind of thing! DC does this stuff, and then doesn't tell anyone - it's weird. They are sort of incompetent.

If you follow any of the DC production people on Twitter, they sometimes showcase or mention their work. (An example might be Darran Robinson, @DarranRobinson3 - and, completely unrelated, since he has worked on some of the supplemental material in the 80th anniversary issues, someone should ask him about the Steph bio in the Robin special, and whether it was deliberate or accidental to not mention Batgirl! That could illuminate continuity. It would be funny, though, if the decision was purely an accident in the production department and had no editorial import. That would leave it, technically, not truly defined one way or the other.)

It's very classic...but I just don't like it. I remember back when the Knights of the Old Republic series started doing it, and I was so mad. It took a dramatic, serious situation, and put really, really cringey dialogue in there, and ruined the experience of looking at the cover for me.

I do like the Battle Damaged covers - Batman did participate slightly in that event - #76 had the "Battle Damaged" quality, but then it went back to "normal". Also, the acetates were amazing - I loved how most of them actually had relevant information to the story in them, with the misses you mention. (I do have the Catwoman #17 cover on the wiki, and am still sad that it has nothing to do with Steph at all on the inside ).

DC's marketing is pretty bad, as is marketing in comics in general. But every now and then, they do things that really make the actual physical comics have more value than just the art itself - I love those little connections that make your collection have more emotional and associational value. I also remember things like the Holding the Line at 2.99 campaign - I have Batgirl #22 with that on the cover, and it gives me a nice feeling.

I wonder if I should tweet at Darran...

I'm so pumped for this and I'm thrilled they acknowledge her as Robin IV on panel.

Tuesday can't come soon enough!

[millernumber1]

Update, I did tweet at Darran, and he responded, but said that he didn't come up with the text. Sadly, editor Dave Wielgosz is not on twitter (he is on facebook, but I don't really want to bother him there), and Ben Abernathy seems like he might not be responsive.

[ohfellow]

Update, I did tweet at Darran, and he responded, but said that he didn't come up with the text. Sadly, editor Dave Wielgosz is not on twitter (he is on facebook, but I don't really want to bother him there), and Ben Abernathy seems like he might not be responsive.

Oh well - thanks for asking him!

[millernumber1]

Oh well - thanks for asking him!

I mean, I literally kept my twitter in 2010 because I wanted to talk to comic book people.

Now I mostly use it for tweeting the Steph reread.

[millernumber1]

Okay, I've had a chance to read Gotham Nights #12 twice now, and I think I really like it. At first, it felt a bit too brief, but on rereading, the art and details of dialogue really highlight Seeley's grasp of all five of the Robins. V Ken Marion's art was really nice as well - Steph looks very cool, in lots of different poses and expressions. Well worth the dollar purchase price, and I really hope they give us a collected edition so I can get it in hard copy!

[ohfellow]

Okay, I've had a chance to read Gotham Nights #12 twice now, and I think I really like it. At first, it felt a bit too brief, but on rereading, the art and details of dialogue really highlight Seeley's grasp of all five of the Robins. V Ken Marion's art was really nice as well - Steph looks very cool, in lots of different poses and expressions. Well worth the dollar purchase price, and I really hope they give us a collected edition so I can get it in hard copy!

A slight story, typical of all of the Digital Firsts and former Giants stories. Definitely out of continuity. But fun.

I can't count the number of times Clayface has appeared in these. Seems like several a month. There was the Batman one where he lit fire to a theater (which I saw in a Giant but was probably reprinted in this digital series); and a Harley Quinn one where he disguised himself as a statue to steal art (Harley Quinn Make 'Em Laugh #1). A story in the Catwoman 80th. So that's at least 3 others.

How does Spoiler get around in that cape! There's one panel where she spreads it wide and sort of looks like a moth. And then a panel during the fight where the cape is billowing behind her and takes up half the panel!

Maybe it's like warming up by swinging 2 bats. Imagine how powerful she'd be if she took off the 100 pound cape.