I’ve been thinking about this for a bit and I just have to say, DC screwed Dick as Batman. I’m being 100% serious here, but Dick has gotten the short end of the stick. Ok think of this, we have Dick as a new Batman with absolutely NO established Batman characters to help him. He’s been estranged from Barbara due to him proposing and her in a completely out-of-character move turning him down, but even if that hadn’t happened, Babs has become a nasty, vile woman that seems to want to kill herself half the time. Cass was forced out of the costume by DC to be replaced by the idiotic Stephanie Brown, who can barely figure out which side of the Batarang is the pointy end. I mean seriously, we have a happy-go-lucky Batgirl who has seen and CAUSED countless tragedies, but she is completely and utterly unaffected by any of it. Tim was forced out to take Jason Todd’s old legacy, a perfect match there, so that Tim could “find Bruce” and that’s his whole purpose now, leaving Dick with.. Damien Wayne, the Morrison created character who is so b.a. that he can’t seem to do anything right even when Morrison is writing him! He’s dark, he’s sinister, but he can’t seem to fight worth crap! I mean this kid is all talk and no action. He has no brain to speak of and he keeps whining about how he’s so amazing, but despite having almost exactly the same origin as Cassandra Cain, the DCU’s greatest martial artist, he can’t seem to fight or even think half as well as she could without even HAVING language! Dick is kicked out of Detective Comics for the non-Detective token lesbian who DC can’t decide if she’s a lipstick lesbian or butch (they’ve stated before she was a lipstick lesbian and a socialite, yet in Detective comics, she’s GI Jane with father issues). Look Kate is a decent enough character, but she’s a regular SNOOZE FEST to read since she’s just basically doing everything to impress her father, down to joining the military to be just like him, and now being Batwoman to impress him. She lets him do pretty much all the thinking and she has decided to do the tried and true, “I hate my step mother” garbage. I mean.. It’s so formulaic. There really isn’t much new or interesting about her character. Plus this comes in direct conflict with her initial appearance as a rich socialite. Now she’s a tired and true soldier good at taking orders and screaming hooah! It’s just so.. boring. It’s also pretty clear DC has created her as an attempt to “pacify the gays” rather than creating and/or developing some of their great gay characters.. we get the cookie-cutter Kate Kane, Lesbian hero. blah..
So how can Dick survive with this cast surrounding him? He can’t. To make matters worse, DC gives the new “Flagship” title Batman and Robin over to Grant Morrison. His stories are written insanely incoherently. They jump with nothing to glue it all together. He skips over huge portions of story just because and it makes the story suffer. He throws in random references and jargon just to make himself SEEM smarter than they really are. Rather than a fluid allusion that works with the story (as they should be), he lobs bombs at the reader that have no place in the story simply to say, “Look what I know that you don’t.. so nyah!” They have no context or even relation to the story. They just exist. His story has no fluidity, no continuity (even within ITSELF, let alone within a greater work), and yeah it just sucks. It’s all flash and people think it’s brilliant simply b/c they don’t get it. Here’s a hint people… MORRISON DOESN’T EITHER! He just pretends he does b/c he likes making you think he’s smarter than you. He’s not.. He’s just a very bad writer who has convinced people through smokescreen that he is a genius.
I disagree with you on Kate Kane, I find her interesting. Yes she isn’t the “lipstick lesbian” DC stupidly claimed when the debuted her appearance. I say her “Appearance” rather than her “character” because really how much of her back story had been written then? And even her appearance has somewhat changed with her skin being much paler and her hare fiery red.
I find the ex-military stuff pretty cool, especially when they had her quit rather than lie about her orientation. That was a bold move for DC to even talk about that. Marvel wouldn’t.
But the fact that she always works with her father has me thinking about Terry and Bruce in “Batman Beyond”.
Now back to what I agree on- Grant Morrison. I can really say the only thing I like of his was All Star Superman. Otherwise he’s wildly overpraised. It does seem people’s first reaction upon learning someone dislikes him is to say you “don’t get it”. I can get it and still not like it. And his invention Damien just bugged me.
I also agree on Steph, she should have stayed Spoiler. She was her own person then, it didn’t work for her being RobinIV and it doesn’t work as her being BatgirlIII (4 if you count Bat-Girl).
Cassandra was the only non-white Bat-family member until Steph came in and made it “Whites only” again. At least Kate can shake the “Straights only” banner.
Tim’s self-inflicted Red Robin makes sense. Especially how he explained it to Connor in Adventure Comics.
Dick Grayson however doesn’t really get any examination. His appearances in other titles are just as Batman so it doesn’t even matter who is in the cowl. The only good scenes I saw of him as Dick/Batman were in Blackest Night Batman.
I just.. I can’t get into Kate at all. The Bruce/Terry dynamic worked for Batman Beyond, but it just doesn’t work for me in this situation (ironic that you bring up Batman Beyond b/c I STILL think Kate’s costume looks like the Batman Beyond costume). I also don’t find it all that ballsy for DC to have her quit the military. I mean she didn’t really have a choice, she’d have to leave or get kicked out eventually anyhow. I just wish DC would develop their gay male characters like Todd Rice and Hartley Rathaway more instead of going the safer route with a lesbian character (like Kate, Scandal Savage, and they’ve even openly stated that the Amazons are lesbians now). It’s a straight male fantasy, so it’s OK, but gay men.. not so much.
I personally don’t think Steph should be a hero at all anymore. She’s suffered countless tragedy and loss, she’s literally gotten herself killed.. and yet she doesn’t seem affected by that at all. Someone that irresponsible really shouldn’t be a hero. DC keeps wanting to force her down our throats, but it’s been stated by just about everyone that Steph isn’t exactly hero material and her motivations are weak at best. Her original motivation was to make up for her D-List villain daddy’s bad behavior (he’s appeared maybe 20 times, how much damage could he have done, really?) and then later, her real motivation came out and that was to be with Tim. Now Tim’s left, there isn’t much motivation for her to be a hero.
Cass was thrown out b/c her origin is similar to Damien’s, only she is superior to him in every way, so they had to do something. Simple as that.
As for Tim, I’m not saying his purpose isn’t good and doesn’t make sense. I’m just saying, they’ve left Dick adrift without any established and solid Batman characters to back him up.
See, I think Dick would work better and come across STRONGER as Batman if he was supported by a real Batman cast, not the Titans Go Batman cast. The only real strong character backing him up is Alfred and he hasn’t gotten much face time except to tell Dick to play Batman as a role in Batman and Robin. I think this is also stunting Dick’s growth AS Batman since he’s not taking Batman and making it his own, instead he’s trying to be Bruce as Batman (which once again, he could be his own Batman if he had a stronger cast of characters to help support him and let him grow). Dick would be free to make mistakes IF he had a stronger supporting cast. Instead, Dick has to be PERFECT because his supporting cast is insanely weak and ineffective, he has to balance them out otherwise Batman would be completely unreadable or it’d be a bad comedy title which just isn’t Batman.
Edit: After some thinking, I think I know why I don’t care for Kate. DC has set up their lesbian heroes as girls with daddy issues. Kate has major daddy issues and so does Scandal Savage. So basically DC has this dynamic where if you want to be a lesbian, you have to have some strange fascination/need/desire to please daddy. It’s insanely disturbing in Secret Six with Bane and Scandal and Kate’s is only mildly disturbing, but it’s still.. disturbing to me. She’s based her whole life around pleasing daddy and I just don’t find it healthy.
I just.. I can’t get into Kate at all. The Bruce/Terry dynamic worked for Batman Beyond, but it just doesn’t work for me in this situation (ironic that you bring up Batman Beyond b/c I STILL think Kate’s costume looks like the Batman Beyond costume). I also don’t find it all that ballsy for DC to have her quit the military. I mean she didn’t really have a choice, she’d have to leave or get kicked out eventually anyhow. I just wish DC would develop their gay male characters like Todd Rice and Hartley Rathaway more instead of going the safer route with a lesbian character (like Kate, Scandal Savage, and they’ve even openly stated that the Amazons are lesbians now). It’s a straight male fantasy, so it’s OK, but gay men.. not so much.
Yeah, I meant it as a negative that she has the Batman Beyond dynamic going instead of being her own hero. I think Alex Ross has mentioned that when he drew the first sketches of her character it was a cross between the Batgirl costume and Batman Beyond.
The idea being it now retcons in that the Batman Beyond costume is inspired by Batwoman :p
I meant my “bold for DC” that they would even reference “Don’t Ask” particularly since its an issue being brought up a lot lately in the news.
I agree that DC needs to beef up their gay MEN too. I don’t know if it’s straight men fantasy or simply straight men relate more to lesbians and don’t know what to do with a gay male character.
However it should be noted Todd has some abusive foster parents and bad relationships in his background so who knows, they might play up that angle too much too. It’s be nice though if they could just continue with him from Manhunter, maybe even pair him with Alan in thier own JSA spinoff.
On the subject of “daddy issues”, now that I think of it that’s true for most of DC’s women in general. Lois and the General, Rose and Deathstroke. and even Spoiler and her daddy . It seems only Wonder Woman gets away from it by not having a dad to please (or she has better writers).
I think Spoiler could work as a darker character given all the tragedy in her life. Again as Spoiler I think it could all be explored about how weak her motivation is. (Mind you I don’t need Steph in my life but I know she has fans). I prefer Cass as Batgirl too she is more interesting to me.
In all honesty, they’ve driven Todd insane a couple times now, so he could easily be with most of the women characters of the DCU. I’d be happy if Todd would just appear in JSA where they put him as a background character for NO REASON. I mean WTF? He was a great supporting character in Manhunter, they rip him out of that to be SECURITY GUARD of the JSA? Seriously? No one else could do it? I mean yeah, Todd’s had LOTS of issues (Daddy issues with both foster father and his real father). But still, he’s a great character that could be used.
Hartley Rathaway, the Pied Piper, has NO such problems though. Yeah, his parents are dead, but he’s a rich kid and he has a lot going for him as a character. He was one of the main characters of Countdown and I think he could at LEAST warrant a back-up feature.
I also think it’s disappointing that them seem to have backtracked on the Kid Devil/Zachary Zatara relationship they hinted about early in the creation of both characters. It’s sad.
As for “daddy issues” and female characters, well there are several with NO father issues. Also, I don’t think Lois has the real daddy issue in her family. She has a rather strong dislike for her father or at least his methods. Her sister. Lucy Lane, though has a HUGE daddy problem as can be clearly seen in recent issues of Supergirl. As for Deathstroke, really.. which of his kids HAVEN’t had an issue with him as a father? And Steph and her daddy.. I think that whole thing is just lame. It’s really weak.
I guess I’m just upset that they seem to be portraying the lesbian characters as being women with daddy issues. And honestly, I LOVE Gail Simone, but Scandal’s relationship with Bane is SICK. It’s so disturbing and sick.. I don’t like it. Then again, I find Bane the most boring character in the series and I hope he gets shipped off soon (though it doesn’t look like it ;_;). I find Kate’s relationship with her father less disturbing, but it’s still.. odd. She lives with him, she follows his orders, and yeah.. she’s clearly trying to impress him and be the perfect daddy’s girl. She went into the military b/c of daddy and I think it’s clear she even became Batwoman b/c of daddy. I think it could be argued (though it’s not exactly stated) that Kate felt she failed her father by leaving the military for being a lesbian and so, she became Batwoman to please him and fill that role in her life. It’s just odd and it’s like saying to be a lesbian, you have to have some sort of obsession with your father or desire to please your father. Idk, maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe I’m just irritated that the GLAAD award went to a character that isn’t all that great when say X-Factor or the much unappreciated but amazing Madame Xanadu could have gotten it.
I don’t think Spoiler CAN work as a dark character b/c she just isn’t capable of that in her personality. She is more of a shrug everything off and just screw the consequences. She’s had an abortion and she has the conversation with Cass like it’s an everyday occurrence. She’s gotten herself LITERALLY killed (they had to fake her own death, though why DC tried to save her is BEYOND me) and that doesn’t change her at all. She’s a character that just fails at everything and just shrugs her shoulders and says, “OH well.. that didn’t work.. Let’s try it again! See if it works this time!” Her “fans” call it tenacity, I call it stupidity. I just can’t understand or get behind a character that’s been around for 10+ years with NO GROWTH what-so-ever. I mean, we’ve seen characters become stronger and gain more depth in a single issue than this kid has done in 10 YEARS. That’s just.. pathetic. And it’s not as if she has only made a few appearances, she’s a constant character in Robin and Batgirl for most of their runs, she appears in Young Justice several times, and she was in countless other titles. Hell, she was the star of Robin for a little while and she still is the same exact character we started out with. I just.. I don’t get it. Arg.. I hate Stephanie and she’s the WORST Batgirl ever, she RUINED Robin for girls forever.. and the worst thing about her is that she’s made EVERY Batgirl before her look like a moron from Cass to Helena to Babs to even Betty (who yes, was a rather crappy Bat-Girl and I don’t like the character all that much, AT LEAST she’s a product of her time).
Yeah.. Cass IS a VASTLY better character and she brought great honor and something NEW to the Batgirl legacy (which every Batgirl before her did). Stephanie? adds nothing and instead TAKES AWAY from the Batgirl legacy and makes EVERY Batgirl before and after look like a brain dead moron. She’s a crappy character. Hell, she’s so bad they had to get a SMALLVILLE (aka Dawson’s Creek with Clark Kent as Dawson) to be the writer so they could play on all the teen angsty drama rather than play her as a real superhero. At least Birds of Prey is coming back, so we can save Babs.. Cass is suppose to be returning sometime this year, hopefully NOT as a villain.
I love Dick! I mean, I love Dick as Batman! A year doesn’t seem long enough. He’s only gotten maybe 3 complete adventures since Bruce left. I’d like to see him collaborate on something with Superman and Wonder Woman. Have them put him to the test and see how he deals with them on his own terms.
As for Stephanie…I’ve grown to like her. Once I got over the fact that she was a completely different character and that they wanted her to be a season one Buffy Summers type, I got into it. I dig the fact that she’s mostly a screw-up and has to keep proving herself over and over. Plus, I love her interactions with Damian.
Damian and Dick are a good pair, I think. Dick and Tim are too much alike to be interesting partners. But I agree, if Damian is so lethal, why does he keep getting kidnapped? Granted, a couple of times have been by choice.
I like the path the story seems to be taking, where Dick and Babs are the grownups and all these kids are looking to them for guidance.
And if you want Steph to die, just have her join the Titans.
The reason Steph had to come back was to fix the fact they had Dr. Leslie saying she let her die. Lots of bat-fans hated how they screwed Leslie (and Spoiler benefited).
If Steph had died more heroically, she’d probably still be dead.
PASTIMES - 27 March 2010 06:31 PM
Stupid blond haired blue eyed nazi. Sorry I just LOVE Cassie.
I have a similar opinion. Back when Steph became Robin I complained we have blond Power Girl, Supergirl, Star Girl, Saturn Girl, Wonder Girl and now Robin Girl.
It seemed rushed but slightly more organic to have Cassie come along as a bad-ass Batman ret-con as opposed to Stephanie being, well, like stated above, another blond haired blue eyed mall girl to get more girls that age to read comics….....they don’t. Cassie is unique and could’ve killed the entire Batfamily before she was 5 years old. Stephanie couldn’t even hold onto to Tim when he was whiney before he became Red Hood. Just my opinion. Don’t hate me.
. It seems only Wonder Woman gets away from it by not having a dad to please (or she has better writers).
