Stephanie Brown: Spoiler, Robin, Batgirl Appreciation 2020

[Digifiend]

I always thought Bendis was more suited to street level stuff. He should be on characters like Batman or Green Arrow. Maybe he should take over Detective Comics when Tomasi's done with it and use it as a Bat family book like the Rebirth run? He did already do the Batman Universe digital book/Walmart Giant.

[ohfellow]

I really expected just a couple of pages devoted to Tim and Steph, not a showcase like this. You really could have called this an issue of a book called "Spoiler ... and introducing Drake, the Boy Wonder." This was pretty terrific and an unexpected bonus - got in just under the wire with 3 issues to go.

She's written with none of the insecurity and awkwardness of the Batgirl era, which might take away some of the charm, but also makes her certainly worthy of wearing the Bat.

[millernumber1]

I really expected just a couple of pages devoted to Tim and Steph, not a showcase like this. You really could have called this an issue of a book called "Spoiler ... and introducing Drake, the Boy Wonder." This was pretty terrific and an unexpected bonus - got in just under the wire with 3 issues to go.

She's written with none of the insecurity and awkwardness of the Batgirl era, which might take away some of the charm, but also makes her certainly worthy of wearing the Bat.

Yep! I'm so glad that we got this issue, even if I wish we'd at least gotten a full two years of the book.

As many people have mentioned, this is a Steph that's very much like Dixon or Lewis's Steph - full of frustration and the desire to spoil her father's evil schemes. Classic, enjoyable - I hope that Tynion references it in a line in something he's doing.

[ohfellow]

I feel like #22 re-read is imminent and have been catching up - but not quite there. But I will post a very few thoughts I had on some of the ones I missed.

#17:

Nguyen didn't use his usual watercolor style on the cover.

Did we ever see Steph actually receive this first assignment from Batman Incorporated?

Love the Damian/Steph relationship. These encounters with Damian, which were possibly the first I had, led me to believe he was a nicer kid than he actually was.

#18:

Back to typical watercolors.

Guy Major is credited with interior colors, but it seems Nguyen would be doing the watercolors, and many panels have a mix of the 2 styles, so I wonder how they coordinated the work.

Unlike some of the quips and puns that can sometimes a stretch and that I don't always find that funny, I really liked Steph's funny, and often sarcastic, lines in this issue.

A few of my favorites:
Oh-my-God-I-have-tiny-little-bones
I'm so over this
Not this time of year, anyway (followed by sighing face)

You ask "Did Klarion really turn Jordanna into a frog?" Well I wasn't going to say anything till I saw your question, but that's one of those lines from BQM that just isn't funny to me, so he didn't quite stick the landing. Since it's the final accent on the story, I wish he had come up with some funnier reason they didn't live happily ever after.

As with Damian, this first encounter with Klarion led me to believe Klarion was a decent guy

#19:

I thought the cover used interesting effects and liked it more than you.

The cover credits Nguyen with the interiors, clearly an error.

There is a lot juggled and handled well.

Steph says some surprisingly bold things to Gage, like calling their meetings "forbidden work dates."

I'll never understand the Oracle/Proxy issues, and assume it's all a mess trying to deal with the other stuff going on with Oracle at the same time. I just give up .

You mention Inaki Miranda who drew the Red Robin issue - I don't know about that one, but I thought Miranda's art on the main story in Batgirl Annual #1 from 2017 was really good.

#20:

"I do not understand why Steph’s outfit looks like an underwear version of her Batgirl costume."

I'd call it more of an exercise outfit. Batcycle shorts? With the colors reversed to make a fashion statement I suppose. It looks more like something someone would really wear than the purple onesie in the hospital in #24!

The Batarang 3d printer, and the combination cartridge system, are my favorite things. The compact car, not so much.

The magnarang is a good solution, and I like the idea that Slipstream can travel but not think in superspeed. It doesn't completely add up - even knowing the coordinates in advance, it would still be enormously difficult if not impossible to make the turns at the right time. But one can imagine he could have pre-programmed some of it into the suit. Anyway - it's a good conceit.

I think I'm still behind on #21 but almost caught up .

[millernumber1]

I feel like #22 re-read is imminent and have been catching up - but not quite there. But I will post a very few thoughts I had on some of the ones I missed.

#17:

Nguyen didn't use his usual watercolor style on the cover.

Did we ever see Steph actually receive this first assignment from Batman Incorporated?

Love the Damian/Steph relationship. These encounters with Damian, which were possibly the first I had, led me to believe he was a nicer kid than he actually was.

#18:

Back to typical watercolors.

Guy Major is credited with interior colors, but it seems Nguyen would be doing the watercolors, and many panels have a mix of the 2 styles, so I wonder how they coordinated the work.

Unlike some of the quips and puns that can sometimes a stretch and that I don't always find that funny, I really liked Steph's funny, and often sarcastic, lines in this issue.

A few of my favorites:
Oh-my-God-I-have-tiny-little-bones
I'm so over this
Not this time of year, anyway (followed by sighing face)

You ask "Did Klarion really turn Jordanna into a frog?" Well I wasn't going to say anything till I saw your question, but that's one of those lines from BQM that just isn't funny to me, so he didn't quite stick the landing. Since it's the final accent on the story, I wish he had come up with some funnier reason they didn't live happily ever after.

As with Damian, this first encounter with Klarion led me to believe Klarion was a decent guy

#19:

I thought the cover used interesting effects and liked it more than you.

The cover credits Nguyen with the interiors, clearly an error.

There is a lot juggled and handled well.

Steph says some surprisingly bold things to Gage, like calling their meetings "forbidden work dates."

I'll never understand the Oracle/Proxy issues, and assume it's all a mess trying to deal with the other stuff going on with Oracle at the same time. I just give up .

You mention Inaki Miranda who drew the Red Robin issue - I don't know about that one, but I thought Miranda's art on the main story in Batgirl Annual #1 from 2017 was really good.

#20:

"I do not understand why Steph’s outfit looks like an underwear version of her Batgirl costume."

I'd call it more of an exercise outfit. Batcycle shorts? With the colors reversed to make a fashion statement I suppose. It looks more like something someone would really wear than the purple onesie in the hospital in #24!

The Batarang 3d printer, and the combination cartridge system, are my favorite things. The compact car, not so much.

The magnarang is a good solution, and I like the idea that Slipstream can travel but not think in superspeed. It doesn't completely add up - even knowing the coordinates in advance, it would still be enormously difficult if not impossible to make the turns at the right time. But one can imagine he could have pre-programmed some of it into the suit. Anyway - it's a good conceit.

I think I'm still behind on #21 but almost caught up .

You are right, #22 is coming, but I wanted to give a little time for people to enjoy Young Justice #18 without having to compete. Since this originally started during the shutdown, when none of us knew when we'd get new comics, and Steph sadly doesn't appear SUPER often, this hasn't happened a lot. But it's gonna happen a lot more over the next month or so, since Young Justice 18, Batman #99, Joker War Zone, and Batman #100 are coming out! A veritable smorgasbord of Steph plenty!

Awesome readalong thoughts! I don't think we saw Steph receiving the assignment from Batman Inc - in Batman: The Return, we see that Steph is going to the boarding school (see more next week!), but this was more BQM just tying things in, I think. And yes, this issue alone is the reason I love Damian. It changed me from just finding him obnoxious to finding him tragic, funny, and root-able.

That's a really good point about Major and Nguyen doing colors! Sadly, Guy Major seems to have left mainstream comics for a long time, so it's hard to find interviews or contact stuff for him. Great highlighting of some of Steph's best lines. My favorite is "Accio fist" and Steph's subsequent nerdery, even though I didn't (in 2011) and still don't like Harry Potter that much.

I am also always puzzled when Klarion is a villain after this issue.

I don't remember Inaki Miranda drawing a Red Robin issue - he drew Birds of Prey during Death of Oracle, and it was awful. Sometime in 2015, when he was on Catwoman, I looked at his art again, and noticed he seemed to have gotten a lot better. His stuff on Catwoman/Tweety and Sylvester was amazing - completely changed my mind. Birds of Prey: Death of Oracle is still truly bad, though.

You're right about the onesie in the finale, but for some reason Steph's Exercise Suit just looks odd to me, like she cut off the sleeves and legs of her costume.

The compact car isn't a favorite of mine, but I like it WAY more than the Ricochet. And everyone loves the batarang printer!

[millernumber1]

Welcome to the Batgirl: Stephanie Brown reread, Week 23! (Schedule starts here: https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post4916669) Today, we're on Batgirl #22, "Batgirl: Batman Incorporated: Five Minutes Fast", written by Bryan Q. Miller, pencilled by Pere Perez, inked by Pere Perez, colored by Guy Major, cover by Dustin Nguyen.



Notes: This is the last of the one-shots! And it’s one of my favorites - Pere Perez does a fantastic job of capturing the landscape - a fantastical England full of touristy wonders and cockney supervillains. The voicing for Steph and Beryl are fantastic, and I really wish this had gotten to be the two-parter it was originally going to be.

Steph’s comments about her mission to Squire make it feel a lot shorter than the Batman Inc special seemed - not sure if that’s because Morrison didn’t share any information that Miller got, or because the story changed (when the n52 happened, Morrison and the art team tried to work Spoiler instead of Batgirl into the story, but that was changed relatively last minute).

Cover: One of the issues I own and used to hang in my cubicle (when I still had a cubicle). Really love the strong blocks of color and the action composition - nothing like that happens in the book, but it’s a really nice sense of place (England) and theme (time) as well as the teamup with Squire. So I think it does its job beautifully.

Behind the Scenes: Some nice letters this time around! https://stephaniebrown.fandom.com/wiki/Batgirl_Vol_3_22
Discussion Questions: How does this issue fit into the flow of the story so far? Does it setup the Batman Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes story well? This is our last one-shot - where do you think it should go in the rankings of Batgirl one shots (4, 13, 14, 17, 18, 22)?

Bonus Comic: None

[adrikito]

I saw it yesterday. Bendis put his effort in this..

Maybe he likes Tim more than we think to make this good work with his girlfriend Steph.

[millernumber1]

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

Interesting news - Steph and Cass's story is going to be by Josh Williamson, not Tynion. Which is weird, since Tynion said in his newsletter he was writing it...

[Harpsikord]

He probably had to back down for some other reason.

Though, looking at Steph on the cover we can see a little bit of her new bat. Interesting color choice, I was expecting yellow.

[Konja7]

He probably had to back down for some other reason.

Though, looking at Steph on the cover we can see a little bit of her new bat. Interesting color choice, I was expecting yellow.

I don't think her Batsymbol appear in that costume. That's the costume she used in Batman Eternal.

Her costume with the Batsymbol will likely appear in the interna pages of Joker War Zone.

[Harpsikord]

I don't think her Batsymbol appear in that costume. That's the costume she used in Batman Eternal.

Her costume with the Batsymbol will likely appear in the interna pages of Joker War Zone.

It's the same one. She's wearing it in the interior pages of Batman #100. The only difference is the bat on the chest.

[Digifiend]

And Clownhunter's batarang baseball bat and Steph's arm are obstructing where Spoiler's bat logo would be. Pretty clever censorship there.

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

Interesting news - Steph and Cass's story is going to be by Josh Williamson, not Tynion. Which is weird, since Tynion said in his newsletter he was writing it...

Is Williamson the go-to replacement or what? He wasn't originally supposed to do Speed Metal either, but was grateful for the chance to do that issue as it allowed him to wrap up Wally's story from Rebirth.

[Konja7]

It's the same one. She's wearing it in the interior pages of Batman #100. The only difference is the bat on the chest.

The thing is that she has stopped to use the costume of Batman Eternal.

The current costume Stephanie is using has her face totally covered. And she will use that costume at the start Joker War Zone (as we can see in a preview).

It is pretty likely she will change her current costume to the costume with the Batsymbol at the end of Joker War Zone.

[Harpsikord]

The thing is that she has stopped to use the costume of Batman Eternal.

The current costume Stephanie is using has her face totally covered. And she will use that costume at the start Joker War Zone (as we can see in a preview).

It is pretty likely she will change her current costume to the costume with the Batsymbol at the end of Joker War Zone.

We've already seen the interiors for Batman #100, which happens after or at the same time as War Zone, though. And she's very clearly wearing the filter mask and has a bat on her chest in the same location as that little purple bit on Steph's left breast. So this is definitely that look.

[Konja7]

We've already seen the interiors for Batman #100, which happens after or at the same time as War Zone, though. And she's very clearly wearing the filter mask and has a bat on her chest in the same location as that little purple bit on Steph's left breast. So this is definitely that look.

The little purple boot on Steph's left breast is part of her suit in Batman Eternal.

However, she doesn't have this little purple boot in the preview of Batman #100 (it would cross the Batsymbol).

That's why I said the look in the cover isn't exactly her new suit.