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|character_name = Batgirl (Stephanie Brown) |
|character_name = Batgirl (Stephanie Brown) |
Revision as of 00:24, 19 December 2009
Batgirl (Stephanie Brown) | |
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![]() Stephanie Brown as Batgirl. Promotional art for Batgirl vol. 2, #4. Cover art by Phil Noto. | |
Publication information | |
Publisher | DC Comics |
First appearance | As Stephanie Brown: Detective Comics #647 (August 1992) As Spoiler: Detective Comics #648 (September 1992) As Robin: Robin #126 (July 2004) As Batgirl: Batgirl #1 (August 2009) |
Created by | Chuck Dixon (writer) Tom Lyle (artist) |
In-story information | |
Full name | Stephanie Brown |
Team affiliations | Batman Family |
Partnerships | Robin Batman |
Notable aliases | Spoiler, Robin, Batgirl |
Abilities | Skilled acrobat and martial artist. |
Stephanie Brown is a fictional character in the DC Comics Universe. The character first appeared in Detective Comics #647 and was created by Chuck Dixon and Tom Lyle.
The daughter of the criminal Cluemaster, Stephanie originated in 1992 as an amateur crime-fighter called Spoiler, and a love interest for Tim Drake (formerly the third Robin). Stephanie also briefly became the fourth Robin herself and, in 2009, became the sixth and current Batgirl. She is presently starring in her own ongoing Batgirl comic book series.
Publication history
Stephanie Brown was introduced in a three-issue story arc in Detective Comics #647-649 in which writer Chuck Dixon reinvented a villain called the Cluemaster. Dixon created the Cluemaster's daughter, Stephanie, as simply a plot device for this story. However, the character was well received by fans. The following year, Dixon launched the first ongoing Robin comic book series and featured The Spoiler as a foil and love interest for Tim Drake. Stephanie remained an integral part of Robin's supporting cast for over a decade, until her editorially-dictated death in the 2004 crossover storyline War Games. The character was at the center of a high-profile teen pregnancy storyline in 1998, which caused Wizard Magazine to name Robin the best ongoing comic book of the year.
In 2009 she became the eponymous lead character in the Batgirl comic book series written by Bryan Q. Miller, with pencils by Lee Garbett.[1]
Controversy
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5d/Detective_Comics_809.jpg/150px-Detective_Comics_809.jpg)
There was some controversy in the fan community about the fact that even though Stephanie Brown served as Robin for a time, she received no monument or memorial in the Batcave, unlike Jason Todd.[2] During a Q&A at a convention in March 2007, DC executive editor Dan DiDio responded to questions about the absence of a Stephanie tribute from the Batcave, saying that the official position of DC Comics is that "She was never really a Robin,"[citation needed] despite on-panel claims to the contrary.[3][dead link] However, her memorial was present in different publications since the controversy arose.
When Alfred Pennyworth asks if Batman's acceptance of Stephanie as Robin was conceived by him as only a temporary measure from the outset and constituted part of an effort to lure Tim back to the cape, Batman evades the question. However, when a dying Stephanie asks, "Was I ever really Robin?", Batman answers, "Yes."[4]
Fictional character biography
Stephanie Brown is the daughter of the Cluemaster, one of Gotham City's third-rate criminals. Her father spends most of her childhood in jail or away from the family, and though he claims to be rehabilitated upon his return to Gotham, Stephanie is furious to discover that he is actually returning to crime without his need to leave clues behind. She decides something needed to be done.
The Spoiler
Stephanie tailors a costume for herself, and calls herself The Spoiler. She learns where her father is hiding out, finds out his plans, and leaves clues so that the police and Batman could stop him. Robin (Tim Drake) tracks her down and, after a few brief confrontations, helps capture Cluemaster. Although she initially wishes to kill her father, Batman convinces her to allow him to be arrested.
Each time Cluemaster escapes or starts some new plan, Stephanie dons her costume again. Eventually, she decides she likes being a superheroine, and she begins regular patrols as The Spoiler. This also brings her into regular contact with Robin, on whom she has a bit of a crush. For a long time, Robin denies his own attraction to Spoiler, since he is then in a relationship with another girl. However, the two work as sometimes partners, and during a point in which Robin and his then-girlfriend Ariana are unable to see each other, he and Stephanie grow even closer. Robin soon realizes that his feelings for Stephanie have grown into something more, and, after breaking up with Ariana, he begins dating Stephanie. Unfortunately, because Robin needs to maintain the secrecy of Batman and his allies, Robin is unable to reveal his true identity to Spoiler. At first, she seems happy with this arrangement.
Stephanie then finds out she is pregnant by an ex-boyfriend who had run from Gotham City after the earthquake depicted in Batman: Cataclysm. Robin, in his alter ego as Alvin Draper, takes Stephanie to Lamaze classes, and the two become even closer. Robin moves to Keystone City during the last few months of her pregnancy, but he returns to her when she is giving birth. With Robin's help, she is able to cope with placing her child for adoption. Although a painful experience, she feels it best to give her daughter a chance at a better life.
Soon after, Robin's father sends him away to boarding school, and the couple is forced into a long distance relationship, made even more complicated by the fact that Stephanie still didn't know his real name. During his time away, Robin befriends a girl named Star. One night, after seeing her go into an alley with some suspicious-looking people, Robin decides to follow her in costume. He runs into Stephanie, also on patrol, and she follows him as he tracks down Star to a gang meeting that erupts in a violent shootout. He saves Star, but Stephanie is convinced that he is cheating on her, and refuses to see him.
Shortly after this, Robin disappears from Gotham for several days (he is in Tibet on a secret mission), and in his absence Spoiler realizes that she still wants to be with him. Batman approaches Spoiler and offers to train her. He also tells her Robin's real name, and this betrayal by Batman drives a wedge between the two. Spoiler begins to train with Batman, Batgirl, and, more reluctantly, the Birds of Prey.
Stephanie and Tim, as she now knows him, reconcile. Even after Batman - having decided that she wasn't crime fighter material - tells her to hang up her costume and the Birds stop mentoring her, she still patrols with Robin in addition to going on regular dates with him.[5] When the U.S. government comes to Stephanie and her mother and tells her that Cluemaster had died while working for the Suicide Squad, Stephanie is shocked. She cuts off ties with Tim and goes on a vigilante rampage, hunting down the Riddler, her father's former associate, to try to get a better idea of who he had been in life. Eventually, she makes peace with his memory, and she and Tim rekindle their relationship.
In Robin #111, Stephanie revealed that when she was a child, her babysitter (a friend of her father) had attempted to rape her. This man died of an apparent drug overdose eight days after she told her father what had happened. She resigns herself to never knowing whether or not Cluemaster had killed him.
Stephanie is injured during Tim's battle with the occult hitman Johnny Warlock, who breaks her leg. In a fit of rage, Tim apparently beats Warlock to death (though he would later be magically resurrected), which sends him into a deep, guilt-ridden depression.
Robin
Stephanie snaps Tim out of his funk just as his father discovers Tim is Robin. After Warlock's death, Tim's father orders him to hang up his cape, and Tim is forced to live a normal life for a time. One day after school, Stephanie attempts to surprise Tim with a visit. As she arrives, however, she catches a female classmate attempting to seduce him. Assuming yet again that Tim is being unfaithful, she breaks off ties with Tim and angrily decides to put her attention elsewhere. Creating a homemade Robin costume, Stephanie sneaks into the Batcave and demands that Batman train her as the new Robin. Batman reluctantly accepts her as the new Robin, puts her through several months of intensive training, and makes her a costume with the same design as Tim's. The fourth Robin patrols with Batman, and for a time seems like a capable replacement for Tim. Batman later fires her, however, after she disobeys his orders during two missions.[6]
In an effort to prove her worth to Batman, Stephanie steals one of his long-term plans for dealing with the entirety of Gotham's criminal underworld. Since this plan is predicated on the involvement of "Matches Malone", who is, unbeknownst to her, a persona that Batman uses to infiltrate the underworld, it quickly spins out of control. The result is a citywide gang war, in which Stephanie is captured by Black Mask, who tortures her to get information about Batman. Although she escapes and makes her way to a hospital, she is severely injured, and supposedly dies in a hospital bed as Batman sits beside her.[7]
Batman later finds evidence that vital medical treatment that could have saved Spoiler's life had been denied by Dr. Leslie Thompkins. When Batman confronts her, Thompkins claims she willfully withheld such treatment to send a warning to any of Gotham's youth intending to follow Spoiler's example.
Posthumous appearances
Following her death, Spoiler appears twice in the Batgirl series. The first time, in Batgirl #62, Cassandra Cain meets her during a near-death experience. Then in Batgirl #72–73, Cassandra is near death following a battle with Mad Dog when Stephanie's "ghost" appears before her again and informs Cassandra of her true parentage and of Blüdhaven's destruction. During the "Titans East" storyline, a glass case with Spoiler's costume (alongside cases with clothing representing Tim Drake's parents and Conner Kent) is in a room Deathstroke uses to torture Robin. Barbara Gordon uses photos of her autopsy to dissuade another young superheroine, Misfit from using the name Batgirl. In Booster Gold #5, Rip Hunter's chalk board shows the phrase "No Trophy = Stephanie?" written on it. In Gotham Underground, an unidentified female in a Spoiler costume is shown spying on Robin.
Spoiler returns
In the events following Batman: The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul, Robin follows the trail of a female thief called Violet. This leads him to reunite with his friend Ives during social service classes at St. Camillus Cathedral. He also has random encounters with a blonde student in high school that trigger his memories of Stephanie. During his quest to find Violet, he is followed by a character dressed up as Spoiler. Spoiler reveals herself to Robin trying to warn him that Violet led him to an ambush. Believing someone else is dressing up as Spoiler, Robin falls into Violet's trap after Spoiler addresses him by his real name.[8]
After escaping the ambush, Robin and Batman track down the Spoiler, in a bid to force her to stop imitating Stephanie. When confronted, Spoiler removes her masks, and reveals that she is Stephanie, with Leslie Thompkins having faked her death. Batman reveals his doubts about her death leading him to not erect a memorial for her in the Batcave. Since her secret identity had been compromised, Leslie faked her death so villains could not use her against Batman as Black Mask had done. Living with Leslie in Africa under an alias, Stephanie had been performing volunteer work until an attack from a local witch-hunting tribe prompted her to return to Gotham.[9] Spoiler reunites with her mother, enrolls in Tim's high school, and rejoins the Bat-Family.[10]
Before being revealed to Robin and Batman, Stephanie works freelance for the Penguin and gets information that helps him in his gang wars. She abruptly stops aiding him, after which he loses the advantage and leaves Gotham. She sends Penguin a note apologizing for leaving him when he needed her the most.
During the recent Batman R.I.P. storyline, Spoiler played the role of both ally and betrayer to Robin. Following Batman's disappearance and descent into madness, Robin attempts to balance his search for Bruce with his attempts to maintain control over Gotham's criminals. Tim asks that Stephanie help him locate Batman, but having anticipated his downfall, Batman has ordered Stephanie to hinder the investigation, believing that Tim needs to learn how to handle things on his own. Tim discovers the deception, and pulls away from his friendship with Stephanie. Unbeknown to Tim, Batman has also ordered Stephanie to make Robin a stronger hero by challenging him, so Stephanie hires the Scarab, an assassin she encountered while she was Robin. After ordering the Scarab to use nonlethal methods, she also begins working with Tim's enemy, the General, who eventually tries to kill her. Her martial arts prowess is able to save her from getting shot in the head, she is shot in the shoulder, and Stephanie also saves Tim's life when the Scarab goes rogue.
The General, now using the identity of Anarky, decides to plunge Gotham into anarchy by starting a citywide gang war, and Spoiler aids Robin in keeping order and defeating the General. After, Robin reveals that he is aware that Stephanie had worked with the villains to help him become a better Robin under Batman's orders. He notes that her actions were successful, but her methods were questionable. Still in love with Stephanie, Robin orders her to abandon the Spoiler identity as he can no longer trust her.
In Batman and the Outsiders #13, Batgirl recruits Spoiler and Vigilante to a new network of heroes that will replace Batman, who is missing as of the Batman R.I.P. storyline. Spoiler is able to turn completely invisible while fighting the Vigilante, though Fabian Nicieza, current writer of the Robin title, said he knew nothing about it.[11] However, in Gotham Gazette: Batman Alive, Nicieza incorporates the new ability, with Robin stating she stole the technology to make herself invisible.
In the Red Robin series, Stephanie and Dick Grayson (who is now the new Batman following Wayne's apparent death) become concerned about Tim after Dick transfers the mantle of Robin from Tim to Damian Wayne. Furious, Tim comes to believe that Bruce Wayne is still alive, and goes in search of him under the guise of Red Robin. When he cuts off all communication with the Bat-Family and Teen Titans, Stephanie approaches Tim in his private base. This action however, only infuriates Tim more, who reiterates that he cannot trust her and orders her not to follow him on his mission.
Batgirl
Stephanie has graduated from high school, is a student at Gotham University, and is living with her mother still. Cassandra Cain has become disillusioned following Bruce Wayne's apparent death and gives Stephanie the Batgirl costume. After operating as the new Batgirl in Cain's costume, Stephanie is confronted by Barbara Gordon, who was notified of her activities by Dick Grayson. Barbara tried to reason with Stephanie to get her stop being a vigilante, as she still saw Stephanie as an impetuous youth and remembers of her role in causing a city-wide gang war and her near-death experience at Black Mask's hands.[12] However, a new type of recreational drug is hitting the streets of Gotham known as "Thrill," which they discover was manufactured by the Scarecrow and Black Mask. Both women find themselves needing each other to stop this drug trade.[13] Stephanie eventually confronts and defeats Scarecrow, which impresses Barbara and shows that she now has the maturity for the responsibility and is capable of facing her fear and failures,and allows her to continue on as Batgirl. Barbara later takes a job as an assistant professor at Stephanie's school in order to continue to keep in contact with her. Barbara also designs Stephanie a costume for her to replace Cassandra's tattered costume.[14]
As Stephanie is taking steps to balance her double-life as a college student and a vigilante, Barbara makes a test run on Stephanie's Batsuit, which includes monitoring Stephanie’s vital signs along with allowing both women to communicate with each other through their comm-links. After battles some of the criminal elements in the city, Stephanie finds herself against Livewire, who causes a blackout on the city while draining its power. Fortunately, Stephanie's costume is insulated, which she is able to easily overpower the villainess. Stephanie also develops an attraction to Gotham PD's newest young recruit Detective Nick Gage, whom also attracted to her as Batgirl and Commissioner Gordon is trying to set as a blind date for Barbara. The elder Gordon finds their mutual attraction unsettling, even though he's not yet awares of the current Batgirl's identity, but knows that she's still a teenager.[15][16] Her activies also have led her and Barbara came to a blow with the new Dynamic Duo: Batman (Dick Grayson) and Robin (Damian Wayne). However, even though Stephanie and Damian Wayne initially don't get along, there is a hint that he harbors a crush on her. While meeting a classmate,Francisco, Stephanie is left unconscious after being shot while trying to protect him from a bunch of kidnappers.[17]
Powers and abilities
Like the rest of the Batman family, Spoiler initially has no superhuman powers. She has been trained extensively by Batgirl, Batman and the Birds of Prey in martial arts, stealth, acrobatics, strength training, interrogation and detective skills. She carries a belt similar to that used by other Gotham vigilantes containing a grappling hook, tracking devices, etc. She once displayed an ability to turn completely invisible. According to Tim Drake, this "ability" was achieved through stolen technology. According to Batgirl writer Bryan Q. Miller, the ability to become invisible that Stephanie demonstrated as Spoiler will not be incorporated into her new identity as Batgirl.[1]
After becoming Batgirl, Barbara Gordon designed a new costume for Stephanie which is comparable to the rest of the Bat-family's, which it is armored and insulated against ballistic, flame, and electrical attacks. Stephanie's Batsuit carries a wireless relay within the cowl in order to keep in contact with Barbara. The suit also allows Barbara to monitors Stephanie's vital signs.[18] As Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne, as the new Dynamic Duo, are now adapting "para-capes" which allow them to glide, Stephanie's cape, however, is not as functional as theirs.
Other media
LEGO pieces can be unlocked to create Spoiler in the character creation feature of LEGO Batman: The Video Game after obtaining all the mini-kits in the villain chapters.
See also
{{{inline}}}
Character lists
- List of Batman supporting characters
- List of human superheroes in DC Comics
- List of superheroes and villains without superpowers
- List of superheroines
Concepts and themes
References
- ^ a b Rogers, Vaneta (20 August 2009). "Who's That BATGIRL? Bryan Q. Miller Talks Girl Behind Mask". Newsarama. Imaginova Corp. Retrieved 20 August 2009.
{{cite web}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=
(help) - ^ Sequential Tart: An Open Letter (vol X/iss 4/April 2007)
- ^ http://www.wizarduniverse.com/conventions/la/003907944.cfm
- ^ Batman #633
- ^ Beatty, Scott (2008), "Batman", in Dougall, Alastair (ed.), The DC Comics Encyclopedia, London: Dorling Kindersley, pp. 40–44, ISBN 0-7566-4119-5
- ^ Robin Vol. 2 #126–128, July–September 2004, reprinted in the Batman graphic novel War Drums, 2004
- ^ Batman #633, December 2004
- ^ Robin #173
- ^ Robin/Spoiler Special #1
- ^ Robin #174
- ^ "BSR! EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Fabian Nicieza". Big Shiny Robot. 19 December 2008. Retrieved 20 August 2009.
- ^ Batgirl #1 (August 2009)
- ^ Batgirl #2 (September 2009)
- ^ Batgirl #3 (October 2009)
- ^ Batgirl #1 (August 2009)
- ^ Batgirl #4 (November 2009)
- ^ Batgirl vol. 2 #5 (February 2010)
- ^ Batgirl #4 (November 2009)
External links
- Stephanie Brown on DC Database, a DC Comics wiki
- Spoiler at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
- Robin (Stephanie Brown) at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
- GirlWonder.org
- Stephanie Brown Wikia
- Spoiler on the Unofficial Guide to the DC Universe website.
- Stephanie Brown Wikia