Stephanie Brown: Spoiler, Robin, Batgirl Appreciation 2020

[sunofdarkchild]

I think I'd rather have a series which focused on a smaller cast of characters and really developing them than a balls to the walls everyone is here Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Gotham crossover. Maybe in a season 2 they could start to bring in more characters and do something like 'city of Bane,' but I'd keep things smaller for season 1 and have Tim and Steph grow into their roles, not throw them off the deep end at the start.

Also, I have this image in my head of the trailer for the show ending with Tim slowly saying 'holy,' only for it to be revealed in the first few episodes that he says its the first time he sees Steph take down a group of mooks.

[Frontier]

I think that No Man's Land cartoon that was bandied out for a while would've probably featured a lot of the 90's Batfamily together on an ongoing basis.

As it is now I think we'd be more likely to get a Justice League Action-style Batman show where it's just Batman teaming-up with various members of the Batfamily.

I mean, I've been listening to Mae Whitman voices for over a decade now, and she does tend to use the same voice. But...honestly, she's not the only one in the cast of YJ who does something similar to that.

To some extent I agree, but I just feel like it's pronounced with Whitman to the extent they felt the need to modulate her voice.

Indeed. Steve Blum basically just switches up accents... but it works.

I think people underrate Blum's range.

[millernumber1]

Welcome to the Batgirl: Stephanie Brown reread, Week 11! (Schedule starts here: https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post4916669) Today, we're on Batgirl #11, "The Flood, part three of four", written by Bryan Q. Miller, pencilled by Lee Garbett and Pere Perez, inked by Walden Wong and Pere Perez, colored by Guy Major, cover by Artgerm.



Notes: Barbara’s Calculator-induced nightmare is both horrifying and tantalizing - very Stepford and full of hints that all is not right, but also full of things she very reasonably wants - to walk, to be safe, to be loved with Dick and his brothers, to have her father home with her. And Lee Garbett draws it really beautifully - I think the pairing of Garbett and Walden Wong as inker is one of the best in the series.

Wendy and Steph’s first mission together is a real corker. I love the way BQM maneuvers all the information necessary and makes it feel organic and funny. Very polished TV, as I keep saying.

Perez takes over on page 15 or 16, and draws some really good Babs vs. Calculator and then Steph vs. Man-Bat action. Wendy to the rescue is classic action movie stuff, and shows that Steph is still at a very high level of capability, despite the blow to her confidence this arc. Ending the issue with “Here we go” as Steph plunges head first into Calculator’s compound is a brilliant riff on her joyful use of the same catchphrase in the third issue as she leaps into the fray.

Cover: This is a very cool cover of Steph hanging onto a Calculator-controlled Man-Bat. I love the little detail of his eyes and the computer virus signs around them, making a subtle nod to what’s happening inside the comic. Often covers don’t reflect what’s happening inside the comics, but this one is very clearly connected. Once again, I do wonder if BQM sometimes provided detailed information to the cover artists, or if it worked the other way around, where he incorporated the cover elements into the interiors. Whichever it was, I like it a lot.

Discussion Questions: Do you notice the art shift? After last issue’s much darker tone, this issue is very action packed, but still has a lot of peril. Steph facing a huge number of threats from Calculator’s virus is pretty exciting - do you buy the way she manages to win?



Bonus Comic: Wonder Woman #600! Steph appears in the first story by Gail Simone, fighting alongside hundreds of female heroes against a big alien threat in Washington DC. She seems to be working closely with Supergirl, reporting on Kara’s part of the fight to Wonder Woman. It’s a very short story, and Steph’s part is shorter, but it’s really cool to see her featured. (Sad that Wonder Woman 700 and 750 didn’t feature Steph, but oh, well. Still have those two issues. )

[sunofdarkchild]

Readers who started with Steph as Batgirl wouldn't get why she seems so eager to fight Huntress, who never appeared in the series before. Considering how her history is generally disrespected and thrown out, which, admittedly, they pretty much had to do after War Games, it's a pleasant surprise to see that reference here.

Steph's meeting with Huntress during Cataclysm played a major part in her maturation as a crimefighter - before War Games threw that all away. Here was someone who could have served as a mentor figure and taught Steph the ropes, who was willing to accept her immediately when Batman and Robin still weren't, and Steph was so horrified by her methods that she rejected her and decided to keep following the example of the people who kept putting her down rather than the one who would have accepted her. She even let her father go just to save him front Huntress' wrath. That was the moment she decided to do what was right over what was easy.

As for the issue itself, taking out Catwoman, Huntress, and Man-bat in a single issue might be her biggest 'competency' feat yet. We're given no indication that being under Calculator's control has affected her opponents' competency in any way. BQM seems to think that Huntress is a better fighter than Catwoman. Now sure about that since Catwoman fights Batman more often.

My one complaint is her line at the end about not breaking promises anymore. If you're going to keep harping on her not keeping her word, show what promises she made that she isn't keeping. The only person she's lied to about stopping being a vigilante in her mother. She never promised Tim or Bruce or Dick she'd stop.

Overall a fun action issue with quips to spare.

[millernumber1]

Readers who started with Steph as Batgirl wouldn't get why she seems so eager to fight Huntress, who never appeared in the series before. Considering how her history is generally disrespected and thrown out, which, admittedly, they pretty much had to do after War Games, it's a pleasant surprise to see that reference here.

Steph's meeting with Huntress during Cataclysm played a major part in her maturation as a crimefighter - before War Games threw that all away. Here was someone who could have served as a mentor figure and taught Steph the ropes, who was willing to accept her immediately when Batman and Robin still weren't, and Steph was so horrified by her methods that she rejected her and decided to keep following the example of the people who kept putting her down rather than the one who would have accepted her. She even let her father go just to save him front Huntress' wrath. That was the moment she decided to do what was right over what was easy.

As for the issue itself, taking out Catwoman, Huntress, and Man-bat in a single issue might be her biggest 'competency' feat yet. We're given no indication that being under Calculator's control has affected her opponents' competency in any way. BQM seems to think that Huntress is a better fighter than Catwoman. Now sure about that since Catwoman fights Batman more often.

My one complaint is her line at the end about not breaking promises anymore. If you're going to keep harping on her not keeping her word, show what promises she made that she isn't keeping. The only person she's lied to about stopping being a vigilante in her mother. She never promised Tim or Bruce or Dick she'd stop.

Overall a fun action issue with quips to spare.

I do wonder if Steph's Huntress thoughts were connected to that Huntress/Spoiler one-shot, which is still pretty memorable. I do think that all of these characters being mind controlled seems like an argument that they weren't fully in control, and thus not quite as big a feat - but I would say even so, that's a LOT of characters that Steph managed to survive.

The breaking promises one is a bit odd - but I still think Steph suffers from enormous (in my opinion unearned, but still powerful) guilt over being fired as Robin and War Games.

[millernumber1]

https://www.dccomics.com/blog/2020/0...ker-war-zone-1

James Tynion said this piece will be called "Batgirls"!

[Digifiend]

Cass is still Orphan in the interior art. Though apparently Babs gets put out of commission in her book, so maybe this is setting something up for one or both of the other former Batgirls.

[Tsukiakari1203]

I can't wait to read Steph's story in War Zone

[Tsukiakari1203]

Cass is still Orphan in the interior art. Though apparently Babs gets put out of commission in her book, so maybe this is setting something up for one or both of the other former Batgirls.

I hope Babs takes a break to let Steph or Cass fill in for her

[millernumber1]

I hope Babs takes a break to let Steph or Cass fill in for her

How about both...league of Batgirls?

[ohfellow]

https://www.dccomics.com/blog/2020/0...ker-war-zone-1

James Tynion said this piece will be called "Batgirls"!

Is this one of the alternate covers, perhaps the one by Derrick Chew? The Spoiler pose looks similar to the one on page 1 of this thread (I see that one is signed by Fabok but I thought someone else had drawn it or designed the look, perhaps Ngyuen).

[millernumber1]

Is this one of the alternate covers, perhaps the one by Derrick Chew? The Spoiler pose looks similar to the one on page 1 of this thread (I see that one is signed by Fabok but I thought someone else had drawn it or designed the look, perhaps Ngyuen).

Yes, it is the Chew variant.

[adrikito]

Oh. You saw it too. I saw this in september solicitations:

Batman: The Joker War Zone #1

Written By James Tynion IV, John Ridley, And Joshua Williamson

Art By Guillem March, David Lafuente, James Stokoe, And Others

Cover By Ben Oliver

Card Stock Variant Cover By Derrick Chew

ONE-SHOT | ON SALE 09/29/20

$5.99 US | 48 PAGES | FC | DC

CARD STOCK VARIANT COVER $6.99 US

Gotham City is a battleground as The Joker takes over the Wayne fortune and wages a street war against the Dark Knight and his allies! Enter the “war zone” with short stories featuring characters like Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown, and Luke Fox and see how they’re fighting back in a city under siege! Also, the brutal full debut of the mysterious new anti-hero known as Clownhunter!


Young Justice 18

ON SALE 09/01/20

$3.99 US | 32 PAGES | FC | DC

CARD STOCK VARIANT COVER $4.99 US
At last, the coolest couple in the DCU gets the spotlight! Tim Drake and Stephanie Brown have sacrificed so much. For each other. For their families. For Young Justice. Now, Tim and Stephanie must take control of their destinies as Young Justice gathers together to help overcome their criminal pasts!






I missed see Steph face/hair in her spoiler costume. WHY IS CASS IN HER BATGIRL COSTUME?

This guy should be the clownhunter. I hope that he is not here to kill Punchline. I like her design and I am tired of Harley to want her disappearing.

Is a waste of time add Young Justice cover. We all saw it.

[Dataweaver]

WHY IS CASS IN HER BATGIRL COSTUME?

You're aware that Didio was responsible for her being out of it, right? With him gone*, why shouldn't Cass be in her Batgirl costume?

* It feels so good to say that.

[Frontier]

You're aware that Didio was responsible for her being out of it, right? With him gone*, why shouldn't Cass be in her Batgirl costume?

* It feels so good to say that.

Hopefully the mandate that she can't wear a bat-symbol is gone.