What's in a Name?

While surfing about for WFA links, I found myself mildly interested by this. It's good to see female fans making their voices heard.

But there's something that bothers me about *Stephanie Brown* being made into some sort of feminist crusade.

Don't get me wrong, Stephanie Brown was a fun and interesting character on the pages of Robin. I liked her. I'm sad that she died.

But to use her as some sort of gender issue, to me, seems like a bit of a stretch.

Because, honestly, to me, Steph wasn't really Robin. I'm sorry, but she wasn't. She was a contrivance because they wanted to have the emotional impact of killing off a Robin without sacrificing the very developed and very useful Tim Drake.

They figured out some contrived way to get Tim out of the suit and picked Steph because she was the only option around. It's not like, despite popular belief, there was another teenage vigilante waiting in the wings with some vague association with Batman. Cass was there, but she was already in the Batgirl role from which going to Robin would be a sidestep that didn't really make sense.

Honestly, they probably picked Steph above say, Bernard or Ives, because she was more of a known presence (as much as being a sidekick of a sidekick entails) and would need less training so the two Robin issues with a blond girl on the cover (ooo! A blond girl Robin?! What's going on?!) would be action packed and finished quickly.

And no matter what Bruce says in War Games about making her Robin because of her, his actions speak louder than words. While Tim was in the suit, the only reason she got any training from Batman was because of her relationship with Tim. She was elevated to Robin, probably because, from Bruce's perspective, she was the closest thing to Tim. That was the attitude he showed, especially when he fired her ultimately for disobedience. (when did any other Robin get fired for disobedience? Tim and Jason disobeyed all the time, and Dick was fired for placing the Titans higher in importance than Gotham apparently after multiple offenses.)

Now, sure Steph could have been made into a good Robin, but Bruce showed no real interest or concern toward making her into a real Robin, and from his actions clearly didn't see her as one.

And thus of course she's not going to get a monument in the cave, even though he did indirectly cause her death. He's indirectly caused a lot of folks's death, but they don't get monuments either. Whatever he said to comfort her as she was horribly injured, he didn't see her as a Robin. The Robins were his adopted children (Dick or Jason) or his would be successor (Tim). Steph never had that bond with him and was never going to.

She was a *minor* character in a subordinate book. She was cool. And the Spoiler costume is one of the awesomest in comics. But she's not going to get remembered as a Robin when she'd only been shoe-horned into the role to begin with. And that's not because she's a girl. It's because she's a *substitute*. It'd have been the same thing for Ives or Bernard.

It was, I bet you ten to one, editorial mandate. They picked Steph because she had qualities A, B, C. Also probably because she's so strikingly visually different from the genuine article that it'd be obvious. Because it was so formulaic, the writers are going to ignore it as much as possible.

Which sucks. It sucks that a great supporting character was briefly elevated to a main role to be sacrificed (either literally or characterization-wise), but that's not new to comics. And it's not about gender...unless Jean-Paul Valley's hiding something...

It's like the use of Alexandra DeWitt for feminist crusades. It doesn't fit. These are subordinate characters, designed specifically to outline aspects of the main characters, ready to be sacrificed when the plot takes them. Alex was designed to die, like the Waynes, the Graysons, and Janet Drake. Spoiler was designed to be, basically, a sidekick's sidekick.

Now Jade. Yeah, there's a feminist crusade. A character that's been around since before I was born, but never properly developed as anything more than the acquaintance of others, written unevenly, scapegoated, with her potential squandered to be finally killed in a pointless way. Yeah I can see it. In fact, when I think about it, it does make me angry. But I remember that this is comics, and as unimportant as she is, she's got enough ties to important characters like Alan and Kyle to be brought back to life eventually. And maybe finally given to a writer willing to explore her potential. (Hmph, *I*'d do it. If ever they were willing to hire me. :-) Heck, if I screwed her up more they could always kill her again. :-))

Still I wish the women (and men) doing the Girl-Wonder thing luck. Because while I could care less if she ever gets a case in the batcave (she wasn't Bruce's daughter, after all. Not like Jason was his son. Cass might be, but Steph was never) but I would like them to finally acknowledge her loss in the book that created her.

I don't expect them to reference her being Robin again, really. Why should they? She wasn't Robin for a terribly long time (the Robin ongoing has it for quite a while, but everywhere else has it at a very short time: couple of weeks at most). When people talk of Azrael's (presumed) death, they don't call/consider him Batman.

The Robin thing was a brief interlude. She was created as Spoiler, she was the most interesting as Spoiler, and she died as Spoiler. She's Spoiler.

But it would be nice to see Tim acknowledge his loss.