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labellementeuseOverall, I liked both of these enough that I'll be hunting down the Batman & Robin and Oracle issues too, and I may even go so far as to pick up the Outsiders, Ra's, and Catwoman issues. They remind me a great deal of the first twenty or so issues of Gotham Knights (the best Batfamily book of all time) in terms of Bruce's introspection and the value he places on his relationships with his found family, and I have always found that really charming. So from that perspective I recommend these.
Red Robin
- What was UP with the art? Tim is 17, maybe 18 - still at high school. Why is he suddenly bulkier than Bruce motherfucking Wayne? That's especially odd since Bruce is in that armour. Also, Tim just looked really old, like 27, and it was weird. Remember that kid's still a virgin! The art otherwise was fine, Pru looked good - IDGI.
- I thought the Council of Spiders plot was fine and didn't feel shoehorned or artificial, worked well in the Red Robin arc. The Vicki Vale stuff is clearly part of the overall arc but I have to say I don't like it all that much. I think Vicki's motivations are incomprehensible - she appears to admire the work of the Batfamily and be on their side, and she must have figured out that they wouldn't be able to continue their work if their identities were publically known. What's her stake in this? Is she being mind controlled by Ras "pain in everybody's ass" Al Ghul?
- There's this moment where Vicki says "I need to find out if anyone discovered the Waynes' secret before me" and I thought she'd find out about Tim and I had a moment of being like yay they're remembering creepy stalker photographer Tim! Sigh, not so much. Tim was a total stalky creeper for over a hundred issues of his own book, why can't people remember that? Also, it's not like Tim hanging out with assassins is new: remember how he was trained by Lady Shiva, deadliest of them all?
- On the other hand, they seemed to really be working the Tim-and-Bruce-have-similarly-twisty-minds schtick, which obviously I love, because Tim is totally the most like Batman of all the Batkids. So I really appreciated that and although the whole Tim! On! The! Moral! Precipice! plotline bores me a little, in this instance it was actually OK and made sense.
- The Titans Forever ad for TT in the back of my issue really grabbed me. I might have to pick up #88.
Batgirl
- Start with the negative: there was an element of retcon about Steph's character here that I really disliked, and that is that Steph spent a lot of years as Spoiler where it really wasn't about other people. Yes, she craved approval, Tim's, Bruce's, Oracle's, Cass' (and Cass was the only one who really gave it to her and I really DID like the shout-out to her at the end and omg when's Cass coming back when when when when I neeeeeeeed her in my life! The teasing is killing me. There better be goddamned hugging.) But she was also in it for herself. She was in it because she couldn't watch her father ruin her family. She was in it because she wanted to look out for others. She was in it because, at the end of the day, Steph couldn't not be Spoiler: she could never walk past someone who was hurting and she could never not use the talents that she has to help people. Yeah, Steph's been misguided (sometimes deliberately by others INCLUDING YOU BRUCE) she's been undertrained (also not her fault: Tim wasn't born a badass, just a stalker) and she's made mistakes. But Steph has never not been a hero. Look at this page from the Robin/Spoiler special (just after she comes back from
So to say "Being Batgirl is the first time in my life I'm doing something because I want to", or "her skills were outweighed by her need to please - and obsess" (BATMAN CALLED HER OBSESSIVE, HOLD THE PHONE) or "who she was just happens to no longer be who she is" - I mean, I applaud the sentiment of Steph as her own person. But to me it goes with this creation of Steph as, basically, totally incompetent. Folks? She is not totally incompetent, and it doesn't make sense to portray her so. Steph's been heroing for almost as long as Tim has. She hasn't got his training (although there's no reason she shouldn't have had it, but whatever, canon) but it doesn't make sense to constantly run down her skills. (here are some references if you would like them.) And to say she's not the same person that she used to be? I just don't think that's true.
I understand that this run of Batgirl has been functioning as a rehabilitation arc for Steph - both to rehabilitate her after a series of (not really in her control BUT ANYWAY) dramatic failures and rejections by the people around her, and to rehabilitate her for the people who mysteriously don't like her (!). And I've enjoyed those aspects of it, I've enjoyed her being self-deprecating. But I think that, first, these things don't make her a totally different person: they make her the same person, growing. Bruce has had no growth that hasn't been retconned since like 1980, so I guess I see why he wouldn't recognise that, but. And my second issue is that it gets to the point where, if Steph is constantly running down her own skills and everyone around her is running down her own skills, it's not a coming-of-age regaining-self-respect arc anymore, it's a so-why-don't-you-get-some-more-training-or-quit?! stop-getting-beaten-up-by-C-string-villains arc. I'm not into that.
- OH GOD ALL OF THAT BAD STUFF and I actually really liked this issue! For one main reason: STEPH SMACKS BRUCE IN THE FACE. OH STEPH. ILU. Although a punch might have been more in character, but whatever, THAT MOMENT WAS SOLID GOLD. Stop being a manipulative prick, Bruce! Stop pretending it's ~for her own good! Her rant about the fact that she's been the scapegoat for a lot of Batfamily fuck-ups was EPICALLY GREAT AND FABULOUS AND TOTALLY ON-KEY.
- Her interaction with Proxy? I quote: "UhDOORable."
- Not a huge fan of the art, but it was't too bad either. I prefer it when people draw Steph a little more muscly. OTOH, I love how the new costume emphasises her thighs - there's that fabulous cover where she's looking down and her thighs actually look like the thighs of a crime fighter, i.e. thick and toned and. I just really like that it's canonical that Steph is well-muscled and curvy. I kiiiind of even like it when Damien calls her Fatgirl because she's so blatantly not fat that it just, IDK. Women are drawn so confusingly and inconsistently in comics and and and oh just read Comparative Sex-Specific BMIs in the Marvel Universe. Anyway, my point is, she was a little on the waif side this ish, but not too bad, and I'm super excited for Dustin Nguyen next month. This is my desktop right now.
- That comment about how Steph and Proxy will need watching because they're the daughters of (fifth-rate) villains? Would have gone down a little better if he hadn't just been talking about how Cass was all off on her own. also, this.
This post would not have been possible without the tumblr Fuck Yeah Stephanie Brown. This is the greatest tumblr in the world; other things it has featured lately that I love include the Batfamily snuggling on girders, all the Robins doing Beyonce, superheroes doing Gaga, more Robins and about eight million scans and covers of Steph being AMAZING. (Cover art for Batgirl has mostly been really amazing and she's posted some awwwwesome solicits like this one, nngh.)
