3 Common Misconceptions about Stephanie Brown (Spoiler, Robin & batgirl) (Patreon)

Hello again, 

Well we're back again to discuss another Gotham vigilant, Stephanie Brown, otherwise known as Spoiler, The fourth Robin and at one point Batgirl. 

This is a character with a history only a year younger than Tim Drake's, making her as old DC universe wise as Harley Quinn and older than many perceived staples like Damian or Bane.

So let's start of strong with something familiarly contrarian, stop me if you've heard this one cos the next verse is the same in reverse. 

Point 1: Stephanie Brown is skilled as hell, and I don't say that lightly. 

The Spoiler began her career in vigilantism, when Arthur Brown was let out of prison again & quickly set about recruiting and then breaking a gang to his will and launching a string of heists that left Gordon, Bruce & Tim baffled. 

Meanwhile Spoiler was shown tracking her fathers every move, navigating the rooftops with ease, acquiring or building an advanced listening device and being able to pull this stunt and other similar one's off without being caught or leaving behind evidence for Batman to track. 

Despite Tim briefly managing to grab her she came out on top of their skirmish and escaped, he thought she was a criminals for reasons and in the final battle put on just as good a show fighting her fathers minions as Tim if not better. She saved Batman's life, and he saved hers intern. 

This debut was followed up by Arthur orchestrating her kidnapping in her civilian identity through a gang of elite criminals, under the pretense she'd be collateral, but it was actually so he could trick Batman into capturing them for him while he'd get to keep the loot. 

As previously seen, Batman & Robin were fooled by the gambit, meanwhile, Stephanie spent two weeks captured, decoded his plan by circumstances and despite the leering and threatening behavior, mostly seemed annoyed by her capture was ready and capable of fighting the moment the opportunity presented itself. 

It was after this that the writers realized Stephanie had been a hit and decided to take the once one off character and fold her into the Robin 1993 series. 

This... Didn't really serve anyone well. 

As the writers, either due to dislike or pure preference, weren't willing to let Stephanie be Tim's equal, let alone better than him at anything, they more or less ignored her previous skills in order to have her sidekick for a sidekick. 

Batman's initial wariness and discontent at working with her was changed from being concerned about her mixing vengeance with heroism, to him thinking she was incompetent's for vaguely defined reasons and much of the extended Gotha Vigilante Community tended to treat her as the black sheep at best.

This is not to say that after becoming a co-star in the Robin comics that Stephanie didn't get to show off her skills or get good stories, either there or in other series.  Some of her best can actually be seen in team ups with Cassandra Cain as Batgirl.  

The fact that no one in the Bat-Clan can match Cass in a fight, but that she was relatively inexperienced in dealing with investigations and society, meant that Stephanie was able to bring a lot of street smarts and other skills to their team ups, letting them compliment rather than take from each other.

She also got some solid performances in her team up with Huntress during No Man's Land before the writers forgot she existed. 

There are some other fun points of trivia.

Such as accidentally getting the drop on Batman. 

Defeating Lady Shiva's elite disciple. 

Knocking Tim around when he broke into her room in the darkness. 

As well as some larger cases, like saving Tim and Connor from an ambush when their paths crossed on the same investigation into a gang of gun runners. 

Or the time she tricked Black Canary into following a false lead on the Riddler, stalking her across the rooftops and hovering barely two feet behind her without being noticed with only minimal external training. 

There were of course low points as noted, but as mentioned they usually involved ignoring her previously established personality, knowledge or skills. Sometimes they seemed deliberately set up to make her quit vigilantism, or the critiques themselves just came off as unfounded but were framed as correct by the narrator despite evidence to the contrary. 

Probably one of the most extreme examples involved Batman letting Spoiler take the lead in a uranium bombing case and she did literally everything Batman did only to reach a dead end like he did... And for him to say she wasn't competent because of that. When he only succeeded because he knows other super heroes he can call and ask for help, which is how he resolved the case. 

This was capped off with Batman having kicked her out of the Cave; this was not the first or last time he invited her into their circle, only to cut her out at random or based on unfair circumstances, something Barbara Gordon also did at different points. 

This constant providing and sabotaging of support networks inadvertently played into her later death, speaking of which. 

Point 2, Stephanie did die and it also wasn't her fault. 

The War Games Arc was a big event in the Batman Mythos at the time, but while the idea of Gotham's gangs exploding into a major war was in of itself intriguing the execution left a lot of people unhappy. 

It came hot on the heels of Stephanie having become the first main timeline girl wonder only to get fired for disobeying orders by trying to save Batman's life, something Robin's do all the time. 

In a bid to regain Batman's acceptance, Stephanie acquired Bruce's most recent long term crime control scheme that involved having heroes Orpheus and Onyx take over a local gang an eventually would involved Matches Malone, using them to take control of all crime in Gotham. 

Suffice to say I think this plan was doomed for failure even if Stephanie hadn't activated early. 

Bruce couldn't convince his eldest son to stick with college or to stay in Gotham, and consistently misjudged and damaged his relationships, professionally and familiarly. 

So the idea he, as a low tier gangster, with the aid of two other mid tier gangsters with no bodies to their names could get the entirety of Gotham's criminal underbelly into his service when they are all some combo of smart, violent or outright unstable strikes me as impossible. 

Especially given even Black Mask had to basically just be the last man standing and obliterate Batman's credibility on live TV to win, and Jason had to run around taking heads to even 'try' controlling Gotham's crime. Plus the whole thing fell apart before everyone even arrived cos one guy tried to light a cigarette, so its not like the talking could have even finished. 

But I digress, naturally horrified by the unintended consequences, Spoiler did everything she could to stop the gang war, but like Orpheus eventually ran afoul of Black Mask. Orpheus is basically a video unto himself. 

But as for Stephanie, this led to multiple days of extended torture, and based on the framing, dialogue and behind the scene details some writers wanted it to go further but the artists resisted finding their joy in it disturbing, at Black Masks hands. Throughout which she never broke. Even eventually escaping and being able to kill him but sparing his life out of respect for Batman's code. 

This allowed Black Mask to shoot her and eventually get the info he needed from Hush. 

Spoiler was eventually found, and taken to Leslie's where she soon succumbed to her injuries', heartbroken, but somewhat comforted by the fact she had helped people and had been Robin, that it wasn't all just a trick to lure Tim back. 

Much like Jason, the writers quickly set about trying to not make this Bruce's fault, eventually claiming Bruce did get her to Leslie on time and Leslie, a pacifist, murdered Stephanie to prove some kind of point, along with the usual, she was reckless and had it coming stuff. Cos ambushes are always fair, right? 

Suffice to say, this didn't go down so well with Stephanie or Leslie fans and led to the Girl Wonder movement, which eventually forced the writers to recton her death, rather than ressurect her, and claim she'd just been hiding in Ghana for a year. 

As it stands though, this was a retcon, not a secret plot or story hook. Stephanie was planned to be dead forever, was canonically dead for four years and only brought back due to a widespread movement and massive blowback. So I definitely still count her n the Dead Robin Society cos I'm kind of beyond blaming a character for the decisions of writers who only acted because of pressure and didn't care to think through the implications.

Point 3, and sadly the shortest point, but , Stephanie Brown was a good Robin. 

She passed the Robin training in record time, thanks to having developed most of the skills on her own or through extremely brief and sporadic mentorships. 

She was integral to solving every case she participated in from:

Penguins major gun running op. 

The capture of Tiger Mother. 

Serial Killer Zszaz. 

As well as a litany of unnamed cases and the time she saved Batgirl from an assassin as seen here. 

Her run was short, but apparently so popular some wanted to simply keep it going, but the editors and certain other figured forced through the initial plan. Essentially killing her Robin run in the cradle. 

Plus some, like Didio, trying to refute it ever existed down the line along with later trying to erase Steph and other independent or legacy characters like Cass during the New 52 before backlash forced them back into the timeline, though be it usually radically changed.

That has been changing in recent years, but the execution of bring it back has been... Mixed. 

Conclusion: 

There's honestly so much more I could say on this subject, like how Stephanie & Jason have a frankly absurd amount of parallels up and to including weird trivia like her debut coinciding with his birthday. 

Along with both of them being even Robins, who came from impoverished, drug laden and abusive backgrounds, that are either hinted or established as having faced sexual violence and that were killed due to editorial drama and blamed for their deaths after the fac. 

Then there's the whole, Bruce was projecting Jason onto Stephanie, which factored into his extremely warped treatment of her, but again, for another day. 

For now, I'll be signing off, but if you want to help out with my bills or like my work, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or Patreon, where you can also see scripts, stories and 3D art!