Spoiler Warning

by Alex Jay Berman

By Katherine Keller
May 1, 2007

It's the image we all know; a dark and foreboding cave somehow made lighter by the inclusion of trophies which are testament to madness and the triumph over that madness: A life-sized Tyrannosaurus Rex, a giant penny, an equally-outsized Joker playing card.

These mementos of lighthearted adventures past, however, are darkened by the grim inclusion of a glass-encased empty Robin costume, with the epitaph "A Good Soldier" engraved on the case.

Batman is a man driven by survivor's guilt and survivor's rage, and nowhere is this more evident than in his sanctum santorum, with its shrine to the late (though lately-not-late after all) Jason Todd, the second Robin, murdered by — depending on how you look at it — the evil, amoral Joker, or by thousands of bloodthirsty, amoral fans inspired to phone in their thumbs-up or thumbs-down decision on his final fate.

Yet something is missing, as has been pointed out more and more frequently of late: a matching case with matching Robin costume, this one with feminine curves. After all, Stephanie Brown, the former Spoiler and, for a brief time, the fourth Robin, died in the prosecution of Batman's war on crime; in his service. Such a guilt-ridden man as he who wears the mask of Bruce Wayne could in no way neglect this sort of memorial.

But neglected it has been, by editorial fiat.

When confronted with the absence of a memorial to yet another fallen Robin, Dan DiDio, the Executive Editor of DC Comics, has shrugged off the need. After all, he says, Stephanie Brown became Robin "by her own resort", was never really accepted, died out of costume, and was Robin only for a short time.

Never mind, of course, that Batman expressly hired her as the new Robin when he felt the need to discipline young Tim Drake, that acceptance in no way colors death, that clothes make neither the man nor the woman, or that however short her tenure as the Boy Girl Wonder may have been, she was drafted into the war by the Batman.

Or, like Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Time Drake before her, she strove to absorb as much as the Batman's teachings; to serve him as befits "a good soldier".

Or, that the "good soldier" Jason Todd (now, miraculously revealed to have survived, a vigilante and villain) died doing precisely what Stephanie Brown did: Defying the orders of his "commander", the Batman.

Or, that young Ms. Brown was in fact trying to implement a plan of the Batman himself when her actions led to her death.

No; instead we must consider — since these arguments seem to hold no sway over Mr. DiDio's hardened heart — the realpolitik of the situation. Mars — that is, the world of comic books — needs women. Young ones, especially. Too long a domain of young boys, and far too long a delivery system for unthinking misogyny, from Wonder Woman only being good enough to serve as the Justice League's secretary, to the recent spate of "Women in Refrigerators", comics is seeing a surge of female fans. But it is not books like Batman they are buying and reading; rather, the influx of girls into the comics-reading public has in large part swelled the rise of manga on these shores.

DC has acknowledged its need to grab the girls reading comics, and its new Minx line is indicative of that acknowledgment. However, just as it reaches out and tries to beckon to female youth, DC — and Mr. DiDio — simultaneously drives them away from the mainstream superhero comics which are its bread and butter with its callous dismissal of Ms. Brown's sacrifice.

Just as women in the workforce have come to realize for years, Ms. Brown found that she had to work harder, try harder, do everything better than her male predecessors had. This, no matter how many strides we make toward equality, is still the lot of any young woman who grows up to try and build a career for herself.

And, we are instructed by Mr. DiDio and his refusal to allow her work and her death to be memorialized, it's all for naught; it doesn't mean a thing.

March is Women's History Month (and the fact that few readers will have known that fact is all the more indicative of the dismissals faced by women even today).

How fitting, how right, how welcoming would it be if DC, DiDio, and Batman reversed their wrong-way course and made public acknowledgment of at least one woman — or girl — in the history of the Batman?